This railway fever seems to be taking its toll on at least one of China's experts on the subject, however: in his fervor to conceive of his nation's next great rail project, Mengshu Wang seems to have jumped the proverbial shark.

In actuality, any sharks encountering Mr. Wang's proposed 125-mile undersea tunnel across the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska would be well above the tracks. For comparison, the Channel Tunnel, which connects Britan with France, is only underwater for 23.6 miles. China's proposed tunnel is actually only one small part of an even more ambitious project — a 8,078-mile stretch of rail called the "China-Russia-Canada-America" line that would connect China with the United States via one continuous line of track. The whole concept is so wild, in fact, that no other Chinese railroad officials have come out in support of it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's not going to happen.