Originally Posted by Chimro

8 November 2008
Paris, France
Nightfly Press

The French IGY industrial corporation today announced plans to construct a massive undersea rail line stretching from New York to Paris. Although the rail line will take at least a decade to build and cost upwards of three trillion Euros, IGY CEO Ron Fagen is confident the project will be a success. "The undersea railway will make both freight shipping and flying across the Atlantic obsolete", said Fagen, "since the whole system will be electric, shippers will save billions of dollars in fuel costs. Additionally, this reduction in the consumption of fossil fuels at sea will have a serious effect in curtailing man-made global warming. Most excitingly, the use of newly developed low-friction graphite rail technology means a one-way trip will take only about one and a half hours, making the train more than twice as fast as the Concorde."

Questions still remain as to the safety of the train and how passengers trapped deep below the ocean could be rescued in the event of an emergency. For this reason, the train will first be operated for freight only and driven autonomously by computer AI. After several years of operation, IGY hopes to be able to demonstrate that the train is safe enough for human passengers and open to the public as an alternative to expensive and -- relatively -- slow transatlantic air travel.