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The first successful underwater tunnel was the Thames tunnel, completed in 1843, between between Rotherhithe and Wapping in London. It was 35 feet wide and 1,300 feet long.
The Chunnel between Britain and France, a 31 mile tunnel, is probably the closest thing to what Gernsbeck described. It was completed in 1994.
The car itself has the features of a Dewar flask (used in Thermos bottles); there is vacuum between two solid walls, which tends to keep heat transfer to a minimum. However, it does not appear that Gernsback figured out the best feature of this kind of arrangement; you could actually do this without any motive power at all, since the tube car would "fall" into the tunnel, dropping 450 miles, and then gradually "bounce" back up to the surface. There would be some loss due to air friction, but otherwise you would get the trip for free, from an energy standpoint.
For a discussion of this option, as well as the brachistochrone problem (a straight line tunnel isn't the most efficient), see gravity-assisted subway from Larry Niven's 1976 novel A World Out Of Time.
Compare to the single vehicle tunnel from Foundation (1951) by Isaac Asimov, the
pneumatic tube station from Exiles of the Moon (1931) by Schachner and Zagat, the
submarine tube from An Express of the Future (1895) by Jules Verne, the
vacutubes from Double Star (1956) by Robert Heinlein and the public tubes from The Houses of Iszm (1954) by Jack Vance.
Compare to the submarine tube from An Express of the Future (1895) by Michel Verne, the
air tunnel from Through the Air Tunnel (19129) by Harl Vincent, the
pneumatic tube station from Exiles of the Moon (1931) by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat), the
pneumatic-tube zone from Mechanocracy (1932) by Miles J. Breuer, the
vacuum cylinder from Wandl, The Invader (2839) by Ray Cummings, the
vortal tube from Whipping Star (1969) by Frank Herbert, the
public vehicle tube from The Houses of Iszm (1954) by Jack Vance, the
vacutubes from Double Star (1956) by Robert Heinlein and the
bounce tube from Double Star (1956) by Robert Heinlein. Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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