UNDER WAY ENGLISH SEA,A TUNNEL LINKED
FRANCE AND ENGLAND COMPLETED
1990 DECEMBER 1
The Channel Tunnel (French: Le tunnel sous la Manche; also nicknamed and shortened to Chunnel)[2][3] is a 50.5-kilometre (31.4 mi) rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent, in the United Kingdom, with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais, near Calais in northern France, beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover.
Map of the Channel Tunnel
| |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Location | English Channel (Strait of Dover) |
| Coordinates | 51.0125°N 1.5041°ECoordinates: 51.0125°N 1.5041°E |
| Status | Active |
| Start | Folkestone, Kent, England, United Kingdom (51°5′49.5″N 1°9′21″E) |
| End | Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais, Hauts-de-France, France (50°55′22″N 1°46′50.16″E) |
| Operation | |
| Opened |
|
| Owner | Eurotunnel |
| Operator |
|
| Character | Through-rail passenger and freight. Vehicle shuttle. |
| Technical | |
| Line length | 50.45 km (31.35 mi) |
| No. of tracks | 2 single track tunnels 1 service tunnel |
| Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 81⁄2 in) (standard gauge) |
| Electrified | 25 kV AC OHLE, 5.87 m[1] |
| Operating speed | 160 kilometres per hour (99 mph) |
The tunnel carries high-speed Eurostar passenger trains, the Eurotunnel Shuttle for road vehicles—the largest such transport in the world[8]—and international freight trains.[9] The tunnel connects end-to-end with the LGV Nord and High Speed 1 high-speed railway lines.
Ideas for a cross-Channel fixed link appeared as early as 1802,[10][11] but British political and press pressure over the compromising of national security stalled attempts to construct a tunnel.[12] An early attempt at building a Channel Tunnel was made in the late 19th century, on the English side "in the hope of forcing the hand of the English Government".[13] The eventual successful project, organised by Eurotunnel, began construction in 1988 and opened in 1994. At £4.65 billion, the project came in 80% over its predicted budget.[14] Since its construction, the tunnel has faced several problems. Both fires and cold weather have disrupted its operation.[15][16] Illegal immigrants have attempted to use the tunnel to enter the UK,[17] causing a minor diplomatic disagreement over the siting of the refugee camp at Sangatte, which was eventually closed in 2002.[18]
Origins[edit]
Earlier proposals[edit]
Key dates
1802: Albert Mathieu put forward a cross-Channel tunnel proposal.
1875: The Channel Tunnel Company Ltd[19] began preliminary trials
1882: The Abbot's Cliff heading had reached 897 yards (820 m) and that at Shakespeare Cliff was 2,040 yards (1,870 m) in length
January 1975: A UK–France government backed scheme that started in 1974 was cancelled
February 1986:The Treaty of Canterbury was signed allowing the project to proceed
June 1988: First tunnelling commenced in France
December 1988: UK TBM commenced operation
December 1990: Service tunnel broke through under the Channel
May 1994: Tunnel formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II and President Mitterrand
Mid-1994: Freight and passenger trains commenced operation
November 1996: Fire in a lorry shuttle severely damaged the tunnel
November 2007: High Speed 1, linking London to the tunnel, opened
September 2008: Another fire in a lorry shuttle severely damaged the tunnel
December 2009: Eurostar trains stranded in the tunnel due to melting snow affecting the trains' electrical hardware
November 2011: First commercial freight service run on High Speed 1
In 1802, Albert Mathieu, a French mining engineer, put forward a proposal to tunnel under the English Channel, with illumination from oil lamps, horse-drawn coaches, and an artificial island mid-Channel for changing horses.[10]
In 1839, Aimé Thomé de Gamond, a Frenchman, performed the first geological and hydrographical surveys on the Channel, between Calais and Dover. Thomé de Gamond explored several schemes and, in 1856, he presented a proposal to Napoleon III for a mined railway tunnel from Cap Gris-Nez to Eastwater Point with a port/airshaft on the Varne sandbank[20] at a cost of 170 million francs, or less than £7 million.[21]
Thomé de Gamond's plan of 1856 for a cross-Channel link, with a port/airshaft on the Varne sandbank mid-Channel
In 1865, a deputation led by George Ward Hunt proposed the idea of a tunnel to the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, William Ewart Gladstone.[22]
Around 1866, William Low and Sir John Hawkshaw promoted ideas,[23] but apart from preliminary geological studies[24] none were implemented. An official Anglo-French protocol was established in 1876 for a cross-Channel railway tunnel. In 1881, the British railway entrepreneur Sir Edward Watkin and Alexandre Lavalley, a French Suez Canal contractor, were in the Anglo-French Submarine Railway Company that conducted exploratory work on both sides of the Channel. On the English side a 2.13-metre (7 ft) diameter Beaumont-English boring machine dug a 1,893-metre (6,211 ft) pilot tunnel from Shakespeare Cliff. On the French side, a similar machine dug 1,669 m (5,476 ft) from Sangatte. The project was abandoned in May 1882, owing to British political and press campaigns asserting that a tunnel would compromise Britain's national defences.[12] These early works were encountered more than a century later during the TML project.
In 1919, during the Paris Peace Conference, the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, repeatedly brought up the idea of a Channel tunnel as a way of reassuring France about British willingness to defend against another German attack. The French did not take the idea seriously and nothing came of Lloyd George's proposal.[25]
In 1929 there was another proposal but nothing came of this discussion and the idea was shelved. Proponents estimated construction to be about US$150 million. The engineers had addressed the concerns of both nations' military leaders by designing two sumps—one near the coast of each country—that could be flooded at will to block the tunnel. This design feature did not override the concerns of both nations' military leaders, and other concerns about hordes of undesirable tourists who would disrupt English habits of living.[26] Military fears continued during World War II. After the fall of France, as Britain prepared for an expected German invasion, a Royal Navy officer in the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development calculated that Hitler could use slave labour to build two Channel tunnels in 18 months. The estimate caused rumours that Germany had already begun digging.[27]
In 1935, a British film from Gaumont Studios, The Tunnel, also called TransAtlantic Tunnel, was released as a futuristic science fiction project concerning the creation of a transatlantic tunnel. It referred briefly to its protagonist, a Mr. McAllan, as having completed a British Channel tunnel successfully in 1940, five years into the future of the film's release.
In 1955, defence arguments became irrelevant because of the dominance of air power, and both the British and French governments supported technical and geological surveys. In 1958 the 1881 workings were cleared in preparation for a £100,000 geological survey by the Channel Tunnel Study Group. 30% of the funding came from the Channel Tunnel Co Ltd, the largest shareholder of which was the British Transport Commission, as successor to the South Eastern Railway.[28] A detailed geological survey was carried out in 1964–65.[29]
Although the two countries agreed to build a tunnel in 1964, the phase 1 initial studies and signing of a second agreement to cover phase 2 took until 1973.[30] Construction work of this government-funded project to create two tunnels designed to accommodate car shuttle wagons on either side of a service tunnel started on both sides of the Channel in 1974.
On 20 January 1975, to the dismay of their French partners, the now governing Labour Party in Britain cancelled the project due to uncertainty about EEC membership, doubling cost estimates and the general economic crisis at the time. By this time the British tunnel boring machine was ready and the Ministry of Transport was able to do a 300 m (980 ft) experimental drive.[12] This short tunnel was reused as the starting and access point for tunnelling operations from the British side. The cancellation costs were estimated to be £17 million.[30]
Opposition to the tunnel over the decades reflected the high value the British placed on their insularity, and their preference for imperial links that they controlled directly.. Only after the British Empire collapsed in the 1950s, and air-travel replaced sea travel, could they appreciate the desirability of closer ties to the continent.[31] With opposition fading the government could more carefully consider the long-term economic and strategic value, and also the new sense of a European identity. The British government's attitude toward a tunnel changed from outright hostility in 1948 to acceptance and promotion of the tunnel in 1964. This change reflected not only a more favourable view of being part of European unity, but also the calculation that the tunnel would provide economic advantages, especially if Britain ever joined the European Economic Community. By the 1960s, British attitudes toward the tunnel also reflected a realistic reappraisal of the country's international status: after Suez 1956 everyone realized the islands were no longer a super-power. Britain's prestige and security now seemed safest when tied closely to the continent.[
Construction[edit]
Working from both the English side and the French side of the Channel, eleven tunnel boring machines or TBMs cut through chalk marl to construct two rail tunnels and a service tunnel. The vehicle shuttle terminals are at Cheriton (part of Folkestone) and Coquelles, and are connected to the English M20 and French A16 motorways respectively.
Tunnelling commenced in 1988, and the tunnel began operating in 1994.[38] In 1985 prices, the total construction cost was £4.650 billion (equivalent to £13 billion today), an 80% cost overrun. At the peak of construction 15,000 people were employed with daily expenditure over £3 million.[8] Ten workers, eight of them British, were killed during construction between 1987 and 1993, most in the first few months of boring.[39][40][41]
Completion[edit]
A two-inch (50-mm) diameter pilot hole allowed the service tunnel to break through without ceremony on 30 October 1990.[42] On 1 December 1990, Englishman Graham Fagg and Frenchman Phillippe Cozette broke through the service tunnel with the media watching.[43] Eurotunnel completed the tunnel on time,[36] and it was officially opened, one year later than originally planned, by Queen Elizabeth II and the French president, François Mitterrand, in a ceremony held in Calais on 6 May 1994. The Queen travelled through the tunnel to Calais on a Eurostar train, which stopped nose to nose with the train that carried President Mitterrand from Paris.[44] Following the ceremony President Mitterrand and the Queen travelled on Le Shuttle to a similar ceremony in Folkestone.[44] A full public service did not start for several months.
In 1994, the American Society of Civil Engineers elected the tunnel as one of the seven modern Wonders of the World.[47] In 1995, the American magazine Popular Mechanics published the results.[48]
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