Addressing a conference in Germany on May 5, 2001, Lyndon LaRouche sketched a
bold vision of the role of maglev centred development
corridors in transforming
the Eurasian continent, a concept
which is equally applicable to
our own vast, under-settled and undeveloped
country:
“This is not railroads, this is not
Silk Roads, these are corridors of
development, which run a range of,
let’s say, up to 100 kilometres in
width, from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
going in various directions.
Along these routes, as we did in the
United States with the transcontinental
railroad, the area on either
side of the transportation axis becomes
immediately, in and of itself,
a sustainable area of economic development.
By that means, you can
branch out from the main corridors
into subsidiary corridors of development
and capture the area. If we
can make that kind of link, one interesting
kind of change occurs immediately....
“Take transportation alone. People
who don’t think, think that
ocean freight is the cheapest way to
move freight. That is not true. The
cheapest way is across land, but not
by truck; trucks running up and
down the highway tell you that the
economy is being dismantled. It
costs too much, it’s intrinsically bad.
Railways are much better. Integrated
transport systems, featuring railways,
especially magnetic levitation
systems, are excellent. Magnetic
levitation systems move passengers
more rapidly, but those same
systems for moving freight, that is
really a wonder. That’s where the
payoff comes. If you can move
freight from Rotterdam to Tokyo at
an average rate of 300 kilometers
per hour, without much stopping
along the way, and if for every 100
km of motion across that route, you
are generating the creation of wealth
through production as a result of the
existence of that corridor, then the
cost of moving freight from Rotterdam
to Tokyo is less than zero. What
ocean freight can do that? Did you
ever see a large supercargo ship producing
wealth while travelling
across the ocean? And at what
speed?
“Therefore, we have come to a
turning point in technology, where
the development of the internal
land-mass of the world and the great
typical frontier is Central and North
Asia. That is the greatest single opportunity
before all mankind for development.”
The railroads of the Eurasian Land-Bridge will not merely be transport systems, but 100 km wide “development corridors”, encompassing oil and gas pipelines,
communications networks, superhighways, agro-industrial complexes and new cities—precisely the way Prof. Endersbee’s Asian Express and Ring Rail proposals should function for
Australia.
Continue onto A Maglev rail system
