Trenes, camiones y tractores

Padezco una fascinación por los trenes que probablemente comparten muchas otras personas y que los vagos recuerdos de un viaje a Posadas en mi infancia no alcanzan a explicar. Los trenes representan -quizás mejor que cualquier otra metáfora- la triste decadencia de nuestro país en los últimos años.

Una nota cortita sobre un posible tren entre Europa y Africa despertó mis recuerdos del letargo. Aparentemente están avanzando los planes para unir ambos continentes a través del Estrecho de Gibraltar. El artículo revisa los avances de la cuestión y el estado del arte en otras partes del planeta. Misteriosamente, no hace alusión a la cuestión inmigratoria. A continuación, algunos párrafos:

To join Spain and Morocco by rail across the Strait of Gibraltar would be among the world's most ambitious, expensive and complex civil engineering feats, alongside the Panama Canal and the Channel Tunnel. The project is now edging closer, with Morocco having hired Lombardi Engineering, a Swiss engineering firm, to begin planning.

Throughout the world, rail, one of the older forms of passenger transportation, is undergoing a renewal, with the Europe-Africa rail link being only one example of new passenger rail lines being considered.

Even in the United States, which is almost wholly dependent on the automobile and the airplane, passenger rail is stirring.

France is completing a new Paris-Frankfurt TGV line, and the rest of the world is barreling ahead as well.

Korea now has high-speed rail. Taiwan is planning a high-speed line, and China is preparing for a web of high-speed lines throughout its eastern reaches.

One of the odd quirks to the project is that high-speed rail may come to Africa before the first true high-speed line is built in the United States.