What If You Could Take a Train from Miami to Madrid?
Inside the Unreal, Possibly Insane Idea to Connect 5 Continents by Rail
You’re sitting in the humid air of South Florida, taking one last glance at the departure board to make sure you're boarding the correct train—to Madrid, Spain.
Even though Miami and Madrid are separated by just 4,400 miles as the crow flies, the rail journey ahead of you would stretch nearly 15,000 miles.
Why am I bringing this up? It stems from my fascination with one of the most ambitious infrastructure ideas ever proposed: the Bering Strait Rail Tunnel, a project that would theoretically connect five continents by rail.
130 Years of Dreaming About a Rail Tunnel to Russia
In 1890, William Gilpin, the first governor of Colorado, proposed a global railroad network he called “The Cosmopolitan Railway”. His vision was to connect Eurasia and the Americas via a land bridge between Alaska and Russia.
If fully realized, Gilpin’s plan—coupled with a rail and highway connection between North and South America—would have linked five continents. In theory, you could have traveled from Buenos Aires to Cape Town, Shanghai, Istanbul, or Paris entirely by train.
Joseph Strauss, the famed engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge, even proposed a rail bridge over the Bering Strait for his senior thesis as part of this broader plan. The Russians, however, rejected it.
Over the past 135 years, there have been multiple attempts to revive the idea:
1904: American railroad magnates proposed a 5,000-mile Siberian–Alaskan railroad, featuring a tunnel under the Bering Strait. The plan included a 90-year lease and mineral rights within 8 miles of the right-of-way (ROW). It was turned down in 1907.
1942: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the Alaska Trans-Canada Railroad, connecting Prince George, Canada, to Fairbanks, Alaska, with an extension to Russia via a Bering Strait tunnel.
1958 & 1994: Tung-Yen Lin, a renowned Chinese structural engineer, proposed a 50-mile bridge over the Bering Strait—first to ease Cold War tensions, and again in 1994 at an estimated cost of $4 billion (around $8.75 billion in 2025 dollars).
2014: Chinese transport experts proposed a 6,200-mile high-speed rail line connecting Northeast China to Edmonton, Canada, via a tunnel under the Bering Strait.
2020: The Trump administration approved a private Alaska–Alberta rail project to link Edmonton and Fairbanks over 1,600 miles, primarily to transport bitumen, tar sands, and oil. The project is currently in financial limbo.
The Missing Link: 3,975 Miles of Rail
Yakutsk, Russia and Prince George, British Columbia are about 3,500 miles apart. They are the railheads for their respective continents—Yakutsk for Asia and Prince George for North America.
If you could connect these two cities by rail, you could theoretically travel by train across North America, Asia, Europe, and—through further connections—Africa and South America as well.
The route alignment I’m outlining here is based on my own interpretation of previous studies. It generally follows the most feasible path where past proposals for the Bering Strait tunnel have been located—avoiding major mountain ranges and following riverbeds and flat terrain where possible.
The total distance would be about 3,975 miles of new tracks, cutting across arguably the most remote region in the world, including a 64-mile tunnel under the Bering Strait.
(Note: Most historical proposals for this project also include a parallel highway or road alongside the rail.)
The Route: Miami to Madrid, Seat 1A
To map out what this journey would realistically look like, I made a few key assumptions:
Existing rail infrastructure is used wherever possible, with no speed upgrades.
New tracks are only built to close the gap between Prince George and Yakutsk, assumed to operate at 180 mph (high-speed rail standards).
Travel times are based on posted speeds; freight traffic exists but is ignored for this exercise.
The route hits major population centers without major detours.
One train, one operator—no transfers.
Leg 1: You leave the (still drab) Amtrak station in Miami and head north toward Chicago, traveling about 1,400 miles via Atlanta, Nashville, Louisville, and Indianapolis.
Leg 2: At Chicago, the train connects to the 15 Amtrak routes and the METRA commuter system. From there, you travel the Empire Builder line to Grand Forks, North Dakota, then continue on BNSF freight tracks up to Winnipeg (863 miles).
Leg 3: From Winnipeg to Prince George, you run on existing VIA Rail tracks across central and western Canada.
Leg 4: From Prince George, BC, you would build a brand-new rail line, roughly following the Army Corps of Engineers’ proposed route to Fairbanks, Alaska. From there, the alignment would carefully navigate around major mountain ranges, sticking to river valleys and flatter terrain, until reaching Wales, AK.
At Wales, a 64-mile tunnel would carry you under the Bering Strait to Uelen, Russia, and from there, continue on to Yakutsk—where the Trans-Siberian Railway officially begins.
This stretch would pass through some of the most remote, extreme, and visually surreal landscapes on Earth: stunning at times, and breathtakingly empty at others.
Leg 5: From Yakutsk, you would board the famous Trans-Siberian Railway, traveling west across Russia’s vast landscapes all the way to Moscow. (3750 miles)
Leg 6: From Moscow, you would follow a well-established rail corridor west, passing through Berlin and Paris before finally arriving in Madrid—seamlessly connecting across Europe's high-speed and conventional rail networks.
So… how long does it take?
If the train traveled at maximum speed, stopped for just one minute at each major city, and ignored all maintenance, staffing, and operational delays, the journey would take about 8 days and 6 hours from Miami to Madrid.
Could It Ever Happen? (Spoiler: No)
Never. I want to be as clear as possible: this will never happen.
The exercise above isn't just a fun thought experiment about getting from Miami to Madrid. In theory, connecting rail networks across five continents would be an incredible achievement—for both passenger and freight transport. There’s still no direct rail connection between North and South America or between Asia and Africa, and you could actually make a stronger case for building those links before trying to bridge the U.S., Canada, and Russia.
Outside of the business case for it, why would this project never work?
The current geopolitical environment:
No need to overexplain. U.S.–Russia relations are about as bad as they’ve ever been. Enough said.Rail gauge differences:
Russia uses a broader gauge than North America and Europe. Without massive dual-gauge infrastructure, trains couldn't run seamlessly across continents.Permafrost and extreme conditions:
This project would cross some of the coldest, harshest terrain in the world—Siberia, Alaska, and northern Canada. Building and operating rail infrastructure in permanent ice zones is massively difficult and expensive.Electrification gaps:
Most of North America's rail network isn't electrified, while Europe and Asia mostly are. Without full electrification—or a complex transfer system—the tunnel connection would be pointless for high-speed or freight operations.Construction reality:
Building 3,750 miles of new tracks across some of the world’s most remote terrain, plus a 64-mile tunnel under the Bering Strait, would be nearly impossible. Especially when we struggle to complete basic rail projects under ideal conditions.Cost:
A rough estimate would put the price tag in the hundreds of billions of dollars, conservatively.Operator and service issues:
Even if the infrastructure existed, who would run the trains? Would passengers need to transfer across different national operators? Would there ever realistically be a single-seat ride from Beijing to Boston, from Glasgow to El Paso, from Nova Scotia to Istanbul?
Is It So Bad to Dream?
I know this project will never happen. I don’t think it’s the best use of geopolitical or monetary capital, but I still support the idea behind it. Let me explain.
We are a species that put people on the moon. We built the Boeing 707 just 53 years after the Wright brothers first flew. We engineered the Golden Gate Bridge. We split the atom.
All of it—because humans wanted better.
Yet today, the United States is a country where rail travel hasn’t meaningfully improved since the 1950s, and where it took 12 years just to clear environmental approvals for our first high-speed rail project—one that’s now tens of billions over budget.
Maybe dreaming big is what forces us to compromise toward progress. Throughout history, crazy, "impossible" projects have challenged our limits—even if they didn’t happen. They made us think differently. They made us wonder:
Is it really so bad to dream?
Thumbnail and inspiration for this piece came from the Intercontinental Railway