The Danish think tank 21st Europe is proposing a high speed, pan-European rail network for the year 2040.

This would enable travellers to hop on a train in Dublin and take it all the way to as far as Athens in Greece.

But with Ireland still waiting on a metro for Dublin, how rational is this concept?

Concept rail network map. Image via 21st Europe.

Travel correspondent with The Independent UK Simon Calder told The Pat Kenny Show that it is unclear how the project would be funded.

“I’m looking first at Dublin to Liverpool where obviously there’s a perfectly good ferry service, but there’s a potential tunnel there,” he said.

“I’m not absolutely sure who’s going to finance it or when it would open and a lot of cynics would say it simply wouldn’t work, there is not the traffic.

“Even the Channel Tunnel, which would be about half the distance and far more people wanting to travel between London and Paris, that is struggling to make money.”

Mr Calder said that the speed and cost of this rail travel would likely be unable to compete with that of budget airlines such as Ryanair.

Main image: Concept Starlink trains. Image via 21st Europe.