Governor asks Trump for permit needed to connect Alaska railroad to Canada, Lower 48

[Right_in_Virginia]

Governor asks Trump for permit needed to connect Alaska railroad to Canada, Lower 48
Anchorage Daily News, Mar 31, 2019, Alex DeMarban

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is asking President Donald Trump to grant a presidential permit to extend the Alaska Railroad into Canada, supporting a Canadian company seeking to blaze a new path for Asian-bound products.

Linking the Alaska and North American rail systems, an idea more than a century old, would cut at least two days travel time for Canadian and Lower 48 cargo headed to the Far East because of shorter sea routes, supporters say.

“To me it was a no-brainer,” said Sean McCoshen, chief executive of Alberta to Alaska Railway Development Corp., speaking to the Senate Transportation Committee late last month.

“A2A will make Alaska’s ports the closest to Asia in North America,” Mead Treadwell, a former Alaska lieutenant governor and consultant to the Canadian company, told a reporter on Thursday.

The company plans to raise money for the $17 billion project. It does not intend to seek state funds, Treadwell said.

A2A would build 1,700 miles of rail to Alberta’s tar-sands oil fields, with 200 miles of that in Alaska, reaching the rail system at North Pole.


More:  https://www.adn.com/business-economy/2019/03/31/governor-asks-trump-for-permit-needed-to-connect-alaska-railroad-to-canada-lower-48/

[Right_in_Virginia]

[rustynail]

Doubt a Federal Judge will allow this.

[thackney]

Doubt a Federal Judge will allow this.

Why?  Canada already connects to the lower 48, why not Alaska as well?

[jmyrlefuller]

Why?  Canada already connects to the lower 48, why not Alaska as well?

I thought it already did... but through a British Columbia route. This one is further inland, mainly for the benefit of Alberta.

[thackney]

I thought it already did... but through a British Columbia route. This one is further inland, mainly for the benefit of Alberta.

There is no connection.  This would be a big benefit to Alaskans.

There is a long rough road, or by barge, or by air.

[thackney]

https://www.alaskatrain.com/maps/

[Fishrrman]

This would be quite a project, the greatest railroad-building endeavor in many decades.

There must be plenty of $$$ to be made, if they believe that they can raise the $17 billion through private funding (which expects a RETURN on investment).

I'm not sure how it can save 2 days' worth of travel time, particularly in colder weather (it's Alaska and northern Canada, after all). Railroadin' can be a tough and treacherous business in bad weather like that. Guess they're gonna have to build it to find that out.