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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

> I am not convinced this project is ever going to pay for itself.

The subtext is not economic: it's "in the event of being invaded by Russia, can we minimize the delays in moving NATO materiel by rail to the front while denying Russia equally easy access to the rails".

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I understand that but it is still economic: I highly doubt fixing a minor delay in material movement is the most effective use of these billions.

It is not a minor delay and in case of war such a delay can easily cost billions.

And if there isn't a war, the benefits of a interconnected and integrated european railwail network are potentially huge. 300 km/h trains connecting Finnland with Spain with no delay or bumps? That would be something.

> 300 km/h trains connecting Finnland with Spain with no delay or bumps?

Bit tricky this: either you cross the Baltic by ferry and resume at Tallinn, or you have to go a long way round north from Helsinki and come down again through Sweden, across Oresund and through Denmark.

Yeah, I meant the northern way, but a tunnel into the baltics, or a normal, peaceful landconnection over St.Petersburg would of course make more sense for connecting Helsinki. Or connecting Helsinki with Stockholm via Åland.

All nice concepts. All quite expensive obviously.

https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/03/08/will-a-bridge-acros...

https://ferryshippingnews.com/aland-islands-tunnel-is-back-o...

Couldn't they build something similar to the eurotunnel but with denmark and sweden?

There is a bridge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98resund_Bridge

And more tunnels are getting build.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fehmarn_Belt_fixed_link

That bridge is going to be incredibly easy to destroy, should a big enough country wish that. And it definitely isn't going to be rebuilt quickly enough to matter for a war.

With nukes, you can destroy anything. Otherwise the kerch bridge is still standing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Bridge

Russia does not want that bridge to fall. Ukraine likely does but wasn't able to execute (outside of artillery range by now, limited access to long-range missiles, utter lack of sea power in the area, failure to anticipate circumstances enough to take it out while they still had control over area). All other countries are trying to not get involved, including not selling Ukraine (many) long-distance high destructive power missiles.

I wouldn't generalize from that to "nobody could destroy a bridge".

"I wouldn't generalize from that to "nobody could destroy a bridge".

Moving goalposts?

"That bridge is going to be incredibly easy to destroy"

Of course bridges can be destroyed. Also Ukraine would have succeded by now, if it really would have changed the war and justify the efforts.

(It doesn't anymore, since russia has the land train connections)

But it really ain't "incredibly easy", if that bridge is guarded. The failed attempts document as much - and Ukraine knows how to destroy things by now.

Oh. I should've looked it up before making a statement on it. My apologies and thanks for the correction.

> 300 km/h trains connecting Finnland with Spain with no delay or bumps?

Have you seen a map of the region?

I don’t think it’s a minor delay. In other places where gauge changes are necessary, I think it typically takes on the order of an hour or a few hours, so if you need a big logistics operation across the border from Sweden into Finland, that bottleneck is going to absolutely murder your throughput.

The land border between Sweden and Finland is in the far north where few people live. It would be preferred to not do switches there because that means you need to build/maintain a town for all the needed workers (and families), and said town won't provide much opportunities for any other jobs. In short if you must switch gauges you really want to to be in a smaller city (maybe 100k people) that has other reason to exist so you have a pool of people to hire, who have other reasons to live there and thus have family there.

I hadn't considered throughput but that's a good point. Under normal circumstances even a few hours is meaningless but if you need to get lots of trains across the border in a short span of time it starts to accumulate.

Assuming Russia waits 30-50 years until Finland has new tracks :))

Well, the last Russian invasion of Finland was over 80 years ago, and presumably Russia will continue to exist in some form..

It will take that long for them to replace their military stockpiles.

The silver lining in the horrific invasion of Ukraine is that the Russian bear's belly is not just exposed, but raw from shaving nicks.

Granted, it still takes a lot to kill a bear - but the West only wants deterrence, not occupation of Russia.

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