Could a tunnel link New York and London in 54 minutes?

he idea for a proposed transatlantic tunnel connecting London and New York has surfaced yet again. However, experts say it is impractical given its eye-watering price tag of $20 trillion and the fact that it could take hundreds of years to complete

Elon Musk has claimed his Boring Company could pull off the project. Reuters

The idea for a transatlantic tunnel has surfaced yet again.

The proposed tunnel would connect London and New York in under an hour.

However, it seems to come with a truly eye-watering price tag – though Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has claimed he could build at a fraction of the price.

So, what do we know about the tunnel?

Let’s take a closer look:

What do we know?

First, let’s examine the concept of the tunnel itself.

As per Newsweek, the transatlantic tunnel would connect New York in the United States and London in the United Kingdom.

The distance between the two cities is nearly 4,900 kilometres – and flights take around eight hours.

It is estimated that construction on the proposed tunnel could a very long time.

For example, the 37 kilometre tunnel Channel Tunnel between England and France took a little over half a decade.

News week extrapolated that taking the same time, construction on the transatlantic tunnel would take around 780 years.

A flight from New York to London takes around eight hours. Reuters

The tunnel would also command a hefty price tag – around $20 trillion.

All this sounds wildly impractical.

However, the difference now is that the concept could become potentially more viable thanks to vacuum tube technology.

This concept, which would create a vacuum in the tunnel and use pressurised vehicles, could theoretically send trains between New York and London at a speed of around 4,800 kmph.

So, the entire journey would take less than an hour, as per Newsweek.

The problem is that there is no confirmed design.

Some have suggested a tunnel underneath the ocean floor, while others have suggested building it on stilts. One design even proposed making the tunnel float, held in place by cables attached to the ocean floor.

As per The Times of India, Swiss professor Marcel Juffer came up with the concept in the 1970s.

Musk, who is not involved in the transnational tunnel proposal, popularised the concept of a hyperloop back in 2012 after he published a paper on the subject.

The SpaceX CEO claimed on Twitter that his Boring Company – a US infrastructure and tunnel construction company that he launched in 2016 – “could do it for 1000X less money.”

Musk, two years ago, had claimed his company would build a working hyperloop.

“From a known physics standpoint, this is the fastest possible way of getting from one city centre to another for distances less than 2,000 miles. Starship is faster for longer journeys,” Musk wrote on X.

However, the technology remains beset by problems and uncertainties.

The Boring Company has recently turned its original test facility into a parking lot.

Its Las Vegas Loop project has been repeatedly fined by regulators for violations, as per Bloomberg.

The site has witnessed a number of accidents with workers’ arms and legs being permanently scarred. The company has also been fined over $100,000 for safety violations.

Richard Branson’s Hyperloop One has laid off its employees and shut down in December 2023.

Still, there are at least 10 Hyperloop companies in the world trying to make the project a success, as per the newspaper.

A number of nations including India are continuing to test hyperloop tracks.