World Network — Multi-Modal Corridors

The World Network

Nation to nation, continent to continent.

Each nation plans its own corridors. Cross-border links join neighbours, sea crossings span the straits, and high-speed maglev spines join the continents — from Santiago to Singapore on one line.

Schematic world map of the MMC network proposal: national corridors in the Americas and Asia, the Australian network from the MMA plan, cross-border links, sea crossings, mountain tunnels and the spines joined at the Bering Strait. — MMC World Network, schematic. Dark lines are national corridors; gold lines are cross-border links; blue dashed lines are sea crossings and gold dashed lines are mountain tunnels; dotted lines are future rail crossings; the wide gold band marks the spines. Australia is drawn from the MMA plan. Routes are indicative.

Routes are indicative. Corridors are drawn city to city, through the cities on the existing railway wherever a line exists: MMC corridors follow those lines, upgrading the line or running above it on viaduct. Where no line exists, the corridor is new build. Final alignments are set at detailed design by terrain survey, geotechnical analysis, environmental and cultural heritage assessment, and agreement between the nations they connect.

The proposal — one plan, one standard, every nation

MMC proposes a world network of interlinking corridors — passenger, freight, power, water and services — built to one standard in every nation. Standardisation is the premise: one design, manufactured in volume and built the same way everywhere, is proposed to lower the cost of building for every nation that joins.

Status: draft. This is a first draft of the network. Detailed planning is required. The spines are built first, then the spurs, and the network keeps growing until the world is interlinked by high-speed rail.

The precedent

In 2006, 18 states signed the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Trans-Asian Railway Network under the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). It came into force on 11 June 2009. It now covers about 125,500 km of rail across 28 countries, with a working group and a framework for railway border crossings. That agreement lists routes. MMC proposes the next step: one build standard, from manufacture to operation, across every corridor and every continent.

The spines — high-speed maglev trunk lines

Pacific Spine: Santiago to the Bering Strait, through Lima, Bogotá, Panama, Mexico City, the United States, Canada and Alaska. About 17,000 km straight-line (20,400 km built).
Atlantic Spine: Buenos Aires to Medellín, through São Paulo and the Brazilian coast. About 10,200 km straight-line (12,300 km built).
Southern Cross: Santiago to Buenos Aires across the Andes. About 1,300 km straight-line (1,600 km built).
Asian Spine: the Bering Strait to Singapore, through Yakutsk, Khabarovsk, Harbin, Beijing, Wuhan, Hanoi, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. About 14,100 km straight-line (16,900 km built).
Pacific Rim Line: Khabarovsk to Shenyang through Sakhalin, Japan and Korea. About 4,600 km straight-line (5,500 km built).
South Asian Spine: Bangkok to Peshawar through Yangon, Dhaka, Kolkata, Delhi and Lahore. About 4,400 km straight-line (5,300 km built).
Eurasian Spine: Peshawar to London through Kabul, Tehran, Istanbul, Sofia, Belgrade, Budapest, Vienna, Munich and Paris. About 7,400 km straight-line (8,900 km built).
African Spine: Cairo to Cape Town through Khartoum, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Dodoma, Lusaka, Harare and Johannesburg. About 9,100 km straight-line (10,900 km built).
Three Continents Line: Cairo to Riyadh through Sinai, the Strait of Tiran crossing and Jeddah. About 2,400 km straight-line (2,800 km built).
Trans-Sahel Line: Dakar to Khartoum through Bamako, Ouagadougou, Niamey, Kano and N’Djamena. About 6,200 km straight-line (7,400 km built).

The Pacific Spine and the Asian Spine meet at the Bering Strait: one line from Santiago to Singapore, about 31,100 km straight-line (37,300 km built). Water crossings are by seabed shell, laid in a trench or tethered where the water is deep; the method for each crossing is set at detailed planning (see sea crossings).

Sea crossings

Water crossings are by seabed shell: factory-cast concrete sections, floated out, sunk into a trench on the seabed, joined and covered, as at the Fehmarnbelt (18 km, about 40 m deep, under construction). Where the water is too deep for a trench, the proposal is a submerged tube tethered to the seabed; none has yet been built. The method for each crossing is set at detailed planning.

Crossing	Route	Width (km)	Water depth	Depth class
Río de la Plata	Colonia – Buenos Aires	~50	inner estuary 1–5 m^[1]	Shallow
Tatar (Nevelskoy) Strait	Lazarev – Pogibi	7.3	fairway 7.2 m^[2]	Shallow
Palk Strait	Rameswaram – Talaimannar	~50	1–3 m on the shoals; max 35 m^[3]	Shallow
Sunda Strait	Merak – Bandar Lampung	24	average ~20 m^[4]	Shallow
Strait of Malacca	Malacca – Dumai	~48	minimum average 25 m^[5]	Shallow
Fehmarn Belt (under construction)	Puttgarden – Rødby	18	immersed tunnel at ~40 m^[6]	Built type
Øresund (in use)	Copenhagen – Malmö	3.4 immersed	immersed tunnel^[6]	Built type
Channel Tunnel (in use)	Calais – Folkestone	37.9 undersea	tunnel max ~75 m^[7]	Built type
Bering Strait	Wales – Uelen	82	average 30–50 m; max 90 m^[8]	Shallow to moderate
Taiwan Strait	Pingtan – Hsinchu	126	average 60 m; max 150 m^[9]	Moderate
La Pérouse Strait	Korsakov – Wakkanai	43	51–118 m^[10]	Moderate
Korea Strait	Fukuoka – Busan	~200	east channel ~110 m; west channel up to 227 m^[11]	Moderate
Strait of Messina	Villa San Giovanni – Messina	3.1	sill 81–120 m^[12]	Moderate
Gulf of Finland	Helsinki – Tallinn	~80	over 100 m at the deepest points^[13]	Moderate
North Channel	Stranraer – Belfast	~40	Beaufort’s Dyke to 312 m; corridor north of it up to 200 m^[14]	Moderate to deep
Cook Strait	Wellington – Picton	22	average 128 m; Narrows Basin 300–400 m^[15]	Moderate to deep
Strait of Tiran	Sharm el-Sheikh – Ras Hamid	13	Enterprise passage 290 m; Grafton passage 73 m; Saudi side 16 m^[16]	Moderate to deep
Bab-el-Mandeb	Dhubab – Djibouti	26	up to ~300 m^[17]	Moderate to deep
Strait of Gibraltar	Tarifa – Tangier	~28 (Camarinal Sill route)	sill ~280–300 m; tunnel to ~475 m below sea level^[18]	Deep
Scotland – Faroe Islands (future)	Thurso – Tórshavn	~420	Faroe–Shetland Channel to 1,900 m; Faroe Bank Channel sill 840 m^[19]	Deep
Faroe Islands – Iceland (future)	Tórshavn – Seyðisfjörður	~510	Iceland–Faroe Ridge largely under 500 m^[19]	Deep
Mozambique Channel (future)	Angoche – Mahajanga	419 at narrowest	to 3,292 m^[20]	Deep
Åland Sea and Archipelago Sea	Kapellskär – Mariehamn – Turku	~250	Åland Sea to 301 m; Archipelago Sea mean 19 m^[21]	Deep
Strait of Sicily (future)	Marsala – Kélibia	~145	max 316 m^[22]	Deep
Riau Islands and Java Sea (future)	Singapore – Batam – Bangka – Jakarta	~880	Java Sea mean 46 m^[24]	Shallow to moderate
Luzon Strait (future)	Kaohsiung – Basco – Aparri	~250	mean ~2,200 m; to ~4,000 m^[23]	Deep

Depth classes: shallow — within the depth of seabed shells built to date (Fehmarnbelt, about 40 m); moderate — deeper than seabed shells built to date, within the depth of bored undersea tunnels built to date (Ryfylke, Norway, 291 m below sea level); deep — beyond both; a tethered submerged tube or a deeper bored tunnel would be required. Widths are at the narrowest point or along the route named. The links from Australia to Asia, New Guinea, the Pacific and New Zealand are undersea links, set out below.

Undersea links — the Australian proposal

The MMA plan joins Australia to Asia, New Guinea, the Pacific and New Zealand by seven undersea links: multimodal corridors laid on the seabed to the MMC standard, without rail. The services each link carries are set for that link under the standardisation policy. The seven links run about 25,100 km, measured along the alignments drawn in the MMA plan.

Map of the MMC undersea links in the MMA plan: Darwin to Singapore, Darwin to Manila, Port Hedland to Java, Darwin to Port Moresby, Mackay to Honiara, Mackay to Suva and Honiara, and Brisbane to Auckland. — MMC undersea links, Australian proposal (MMA plan), draft. Blue lines are undersea links; grey lines are rail corridors. Alignments are indicative.

Link	Length along the drawn alignment (km)
Darwin – Singapore	~3,500
Darwin – Manila	~3,300
Port Hedland – Java	~2,400
Darwin – Port Moresby	~1,900
Mackay – Honiara	~1,800
Mackay – Suva – Honiara (Pacific loop)	~9,900
Brisbane – Auckland	~2,300
Total	~25,100

Any continent, by land

Every city on the mainland networks, and on the islands joined by sea crossings, can be reached from every other by rail. The Americas join Asia at the Bering Strait. Asia joins Europe through Russia, Kazakhstan, the Caucasus and the Eurasian Spine. Europe joins Africa by a sea crossing at the Strait of Gibraltar and by a future crossing of the Strait of Sicily, and Iceland through the Faroe Islands by a future crossing. Manila joins Taiwan by a future crossing of the Luzon Strait, and Singapore joins Jakarta directly by a future crossing through the Riau Islands, Bangka and the Java Sea. Asia joins Africa through Sinai and by sea crossings at the Strait of Tiran and the Bab-el-Mandeb. Madagascar joins Africa by a future Mozambique Channel crossing. Australia joins New Guinea across the shallow Torres Strait, and Asia through the islands of Indonesia: both are drawn as future rail crossings, the target as technology allows, as are Iceland and Madagascar. Until they are built, Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea join the network by the undersea links of the MMA plan.

The network so far

Region	Nations	Corridors	Straight-line km	Built km (×1.2)
North America	3	37	53,300	64,000
Central America	7	11	2,500	3,000
South America	11	33	33,700	40,400
East and South-East Asia	14	60	60,000	72,000
South and Central Asia	8	29	21,700	26,000
Middle East and the Caucasus	17	38	18,600	22,300
Europe	31	92	27,100	32,600
Africa	36	76	42,000	50,500
Oceania	2	4	1,500	1,800
Australia (MMA plan)	1	15	19,100	22,900
Mapped so far	130	395	279,500	335,400

Cross-border links are counted separately. Built km = straight-line km × 1.2 (stated assumption). Australia’s routes are measured along the drawn alignments of the MMA plan and counted as built km; its straight-line figure is that length ÷ 1.2.