From: Miriam English (miriam@werple.net.au)
Date: Wed Sep 26 2001 - 02:33:44 MDT
Hmmm... wouldn't the biggest problem for long distance, ballistic,
subterranean trains (apart from digging the tunnels) be the danger of
faults breaking the tunnels? It might not be too much of a problem if you
keep to a single continental plate (though even there you might come into
risk at some spots), but I definitely wouldn't want to be crossing under
any oceans past the sea-floor spreading points and subduction zones...
unless you had some way of protecting against molten rock, then maybe you
could venture down into the mantle. However that would bring other problems
because the mantle moves relative to the crust -- not sure at what speed,
but I think it's a fair bit faster than the centimeters a year that the
plates move relative to each other.
The crust is about 32km thick under land and 10km under the seas, so maybe
there wouldn't be any need to go down to the mantle. If you wanted to go
really long distances you could have switching stations at the surface to
take you further after your first stop. And I guess any people capable of
boring such long holes could probably maintain them at stress points...
except during earthquakes, then maybe you would take a journey around while
they cleaned up the mess.
Hmmm... you would get seismic reports instead of weather reports:
[ding] "Attention passengers for the subtrain from Cairns to Tokyo: today's
seismic report has necessitated rerouting of your 9:15 connection. The
train will surface at Osaka instead, from where you will be able to take
the 10:35 HST to Tokyo. Please accept our apologies for this unfortunate
but unavoidable change, and we hope that you choose to travel with DogStar
Firetrains again in the future. You safety is always our priority." [ding]
Heheheh. :-)
Cheers,
- Miriam
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Q. What is the similarity between an elephant and a grape?
A. They are both purple... except for the elephant.
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