The Channel Tunnel

Bridges & Tunnels Project
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TVSbridges.htm

The Channel Tunnel

As early as 1802 Albert Mathieu Favier, a French engineer, proposed the building of a tunnel between France and England. It was the first of many projects that attempted to physically link the two countries together that failed to materialize.

In 1922 workers started boring a tunnel from Folkestone. However, after 128 metres of tunnel had been completed, political objections brought the project to an end.

After the Second World War the idea of a tunnel was revived and in 1956 a French-British Channel Tunnel Study group was established and members began to investigate the marine, geological, economic and engineering aspects of a cross-Channel fixed link. In 1960 the group came up with a proposal to build a tunnel between Folkestone and Sangatte.

In 1974 work began on both sides of the Channel but after the tunnel at Folkestone had reached 1400 metres it was brought to a halt when the British government withdrew its support for the project.

Six years later the French and British governments agreed to commission a joint study into the feasibility of a Channel tunnel. In 1984 the group reported back that a twin rail tunnel scheme was technically and financially viable. The two governments accepted the proposed scheme and invited tenders for the building of the tunnel.

In January, 1986, it was announced that an Anglo-French consortium, Eurotunnel, had won the contract to finance, build and operate the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France.

The Channel Tunnel was completed in 1994. It consists of three tunnels, each 50.45km (31.35 miles) long. Two of the tunnels are 7.6 metres in diameter and contain a single track railway line. A third service tunnel (4.8 metres diameter) was built between the two main tunnels. All three tunnels are connected every 375 metres by a cross-passage which gives access to the service tunnel in case of an emergency.

The three tunnels are 30 metres apart and are bored in the rock strata under the Channel at an average depth of 45 metres below the seabed. The Channel Tunnel cost £9,000,000,000 to build and involved the removal of 8 million cubic meters of soil at a rate of 2400 tonnes per hour.

The railway link between the two countries was opened in 1994. Trains enter the tunnels at terminals at Folkestone in England and in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France. At the present time the train takes 2 hours 55 minutes to travel the 109km (68 miles) between London and Paris. When the high speed link is completed it is hoped that this journey will take only 2 hours 20 minutes.