The Channel Tunnel, one of the wonders of modern engineering, I first learned about it from the magazine “Technology for Youth”, in 1988, or a little later. The tunnel was just under construction at that time, and I, a Soviet “October” from the Urals, did not even imagine that I would one day ride through this very English Channel. To be fair, it must be said that the tunnel connecting Britain and France is not the longest underwater tunnel in the world; it was surpassed by Seikan in Japan, leading to the island of Hokkaido. The European tunnel is 50 kilometers long, and the Japanese one is 55. It’s just that the European tunnel is, for obvious reasons, more “promoted”. Contrary to the popular belief that the tunnel contains both a highway and a railway, in fact there are only rails there; there is no road through the tunnel. It is impossible to drive your car through the Channel Tunnel; your car will simply be loaded onto a freight train that will transport you in the right direction. Buses and heavy-duty trucks will also enter there.
Train travel from London to Brussels and Paris starts from Pancras station, you can buy a ticket from a machine on the spot, or buy it in advance on the Eurostar website. It’s better to buy in advance; it will be significantly cheaper, sometimes up to 50-60 euros. The vast majority of people arrive at the station 30-40 minutes before the train departs and have printed electronic tickets in their hands. You apply this ticket to the reader and enter the control area -
Yes, you guessed it, French (Schengen) passport control is carried out right at London train station. The logic is simple: if you don’t have a Schengen visa, then it’s easier to “turn it in” right here, rather than take it to France and then think about how to send it back. Exactly the same system on the French side, where when the train departs from Paris/Brussels to the UK, the British check your passports at Brussels and Paris stations -
Then follow the signs to the desired platform, in principle everything is clear -
Two trains leave 3 minutes apart, one to Paris, the other to Brussels -
My train is Brussels -
Friends, you were probably waiting for a lot of photos from the Channel Tunnel? But they do not exist and cannot exist. Do you know what crossing a tunnel looks like? First, just starting from London, the train picks up enormous speed (up to 330 km/h) and in half an hour “flies” to the coast, where it goes into a tunnel and rushes in pitch darkness under the bottom of the strait for another fifteen minutes. And then it takes off on the French side. Absolutely nothing is visible and there is absolutely nothing to photograph.
Already at the entrance to the city of Calais you see double rows of fences with barbed wire stretching along the line. They perform two tasks: the first, of course, is the safety of the tunnel itself (imagine a version of “September 11” under the English Channel, this is the plot for a Hollywood disaster blogbuster, how the tunnel flies up into the air and the depths of the sea absorb the trains, and no tearful Leonardo Di Caprio will not save), and the second reason is more prosaic - illegal migrants. There are tens of thousands of them on the French side of the English Channel and they are all trying to break into Great Britain at any cost. Often, illegal immigrants who climbed through the fence and ran into the tunnel are hit by trains.
Train station in the French city of Calais -
Don't think that the train is running empty or anything like that. It’s just that I photographed it after arriving in Brussels, when the passengers got off the platform. In fact, the trains are full to capacity!
Actually, the final station, Brussels-Midi -
After many centuries of mistrust, which at times led to military conflicts, the French and English were finally united... by a common dislike of seasickness. The waters that have separated Britain from France for the past 8,000 years have been very capricious and have often made ferry crossings an ordeal for passengers.
However, the unshakable belief of the British Empire in the need to preserve this semblance of a giant fortress moat until recently forced travelers to choose the air route or swim, painfully hanging overboard. Britain's accession to the European Union marked the beginning of a new relationship between old rival neighbors. In an effort to overcome all obstacles on the path to unity, the countries began to develop a project that would forever link their shores. Various proposals were received: construction of a tunnel, a bridge, a combination of both. In the end, the tunnel won.
The main argument in favor of this decision was information received from geologists. They found that underwater the two countries were already connected by a layer of chalk-marl rock. This soft limestone rock was ideal for tunnel construction: it is quite easy to mine, has high natural stability and water resistance. Many wells drilled at the bottom of the English Channel and advanced acoustic sounding technology have given geologists the opportunity to obtain fairly accurate data about the underwater relief of the strait and the geological structure of its bottom. Using this information, the engineers decided on the route of the tunnel.
To better control traffic flow, as well as avoid the huge ventilation problems that would inevitably arise in a 39-kilometer road tunnel, engineers opted for a rail tunnel. Now, instead of a ferry, cars and trucks board special freight trains that transport them to the other side of the strait. Regardless of the weather, the crossing from terminal to terminal takes 35 minutes, of which only 26 will be spent in the tunnel. Another train called the Eurostar transports passengers from central London to the center of either Paris or Brussels in just over three hours.
One of the greatest structures of the 20th century, the Channel Tunnel, is actually a complex system consisting of three “galleries” that run parallel to each other. Trains travel from England to France through the northern tunnel, and back through the southern tunnel. Between them there is a narrow technical tunnel, the main function of which is to provide access to the working tunnels for routine repairs. It is also intended for the evacuation of passengers. Increased air pressure is maintained in the technical tunnel to prevent smoke or flames from entering if there is a fire in one of the main tunnels.
All three tunnels are interconnected by small passages located along the entire length of the structure at a distance of approximately 365 meters from each other. Two transport tunnels are connected to each other every 244 meters by airlocks. Thanks to the locks, the air pressure that arises under the pressure of the moving train is neutralized: the air in front of the train, without causing any harm to the train, flows through them into another transport tunnel. This reduces the so-called piston effect.
By this time, tunneling was carried out using special drilling rigs - tunnel boring complexes, or TPK. These are almost fully automated devices, a modern high-tech version of the Greathead shield. By punching a tunnel, the TPK leaves behind an almost completed structure - a cylindrical tunnel lined with concrete. In front of each TPK there is a working installation. It consists of a rotating rotor that literally “cuts” the rock.
The rotor is forcefully pressed against the face surface by a ring of hydraulic cylinders, which also direct its movement. Directly behind the drill head there are hydraulic spacer cylinders. They press giant spacer plates against the walls, against which they push the cylinders and rotor away. Behind the working unit there is a control panel, from where the TPK operator monitors the progress of the drill head. Thanks to the laser navigation system, the complex absolutely adheres to the given direction.
The largest TPK rotor has a diameter of about 9 meters and rotates at a speed of two to three revolutions per minute. The rotor is reinforced with chisel-shaped pointed teeth, or attachments with steel discs, or a combination thereof. Rotating, the rotor cuts out concentric circles in the lime-chalk rock. At a certain depth, the cut rock cracks and splits. The broken pieces fall onto the conveyor, which transfers the waste rock to the trolleys already waiting for it at the tail of the tunneling complex
The last element of the TPK that needs to be mentioned is the mechanical lining stacker.
He installs lining segments on the tunnel walls. Behind the working TPK there is a technical staff 240 meters away. It delivers lining segments, transports waste rock, supplies fresh air, water, electricity, providing workers with everything they need “on the job.”
So, the construction of the Channel Tunnel began with the construction of entrance shafts on both sides of the strait. Eleven TPKs and other equipment were lowered into them. After assembly, six TPKs, three each from England and France, began their journey under the strait in the hope of meeting safely under the water in the middle of the strait. The remaining five worked on land, designing the entrance areas of the future tunnel. The builders first planned to break through a technical tunnel - it was supposed to become a kind of “advanced landing force” in the overall system.
However, even with an arsenal of ultra-modern technical means, when breaking through the Eurotunnel, not everything went according to plan. Let's start with the fact that English TPKs were designed to work only in “dry” faces. Needless to say, when somewhere in the middle of the excavation the face began to flood with salt water entering through cracks in the rock, the builders had a very difficult time. The TPK on the British side of the working tunnel had to be stopped. Engineers urgently decided how to stop the flow of water. As a result, they built something like a giant concrete “umbrella”, which prevented the tunnel from flooding. It took months to pump cement slurry into the resulting cracks. The tunnel ceiling above the TPC was then dismantled and covered with steel panels and a thin layer of shotcrete was applied to them. Only after this did work on the English side continue.
All three tunnels are covered with a circular concrete lining consisting of individual segments. The segment that “closes” each ring is smaller in size than the others and has a wedge shape. This form subtly reminds us that this modern design belongs to the oldest family of arches. Most of the lining segments are cast from reinforced concrete, with the exception of those installed in the transition tunnels and air vents - they are made of cast iron.
In October 1990, when the two parts of the technical tunnel under construction were separated by just over 90 meters, the TPK was stopped. To make sure that both halves of the tunnel were in line, a probe hole with a diameter of 5 centimeters was drilled on the English side. When she reached the “French” part of the tunnel, a narrow connecting corridor was cut between them by hand. It was then expanded to the required diameter using small mining machines. Six months later, the main tunnels were connected. The work ended in a very interesting operation from a technical point of view. Instead of spending effort and money on dismantling and extracting their drill heads to the surface, English engineers simply directed them down, and the mechanisms themselves dug their final refuge. When the drilling equipment disappeared into the ground and the resulting depressions were filled with concrete, French TPKs passed above them into the English part of the tunnels.
When constructing any tunnel - especially if we are talking about a giant 50 kilometers long - one must carefully plan how the waste soil will be extracted and disposed of. The far-sighted British built a huge dam for these purposes, enclosing several sea lagoons not far from the entrance shafts of the tunnel. The spent soil was lifted up and poured into these lakes. Once dried, they increased the territory of Great Britain by several hundred square meters. The French were less fortunate - they had to deal with much more soil. They mixed it with water and pumped it into a lake located 2.5 kilometers from the shore. When the lake dried up, the resulting plot of land was sown with grass. The area of the country, alas, remained the same, but one green corner became larger.
To ensure uninterrupted train movement 24 hours a day, even if part of the route had to be temporarily closed, two intersecting crossings were built in the main tunnels, they are also called passing chambers. They are located approximately a third of the way from each bank. Thanks to them, the train can always bypass the blocked section through another tunnel, and at the next junction return to the original track. This, of course, slows down the movement somewhat, but under any circumstances, except for the most extreme cases, the Channel Tunnel will work!
The patrol cells were built very large - about 150 meters long, 20 meters wide and 15 meters high each. To strengthen their structure, the rock around the siding chambers was reinforced with shotcrete and 4-6-meter steel rods - anchor bolts.
During the construction of the chambers, workers installed measuring instruments in the chalk rock to monitor the condition of the soil. If a problem was discovered, the thickness of the skin or the length of the anchor bolts was increased. During construction work, communication with the cameras was carried out through a technical tunnel: all the necessary materials and equipment were delivered through it and waste soil was removed.
Massive shutters were installed in the completed traveling cameras. They must prevent the spread of fire in the event of a fire; they are also used to independently supply air to each of the tunnels. The gates open only when the siding needs to be used.
After all the tunnels were completely punched, work continued for another two years. Workers installed miles of cables for security systems, signaling, lighting and pumping equipment. Two pipes were installed through which cooled water was constantly supplied to reduce the air temperature in the tunnel, which increased due to the movement of high-speed trains. All equipment, including the trains themselves, has been tested many times.
By the end of 1993, construction of the Eurotunnel was completed. And in May of the following year, this most expensive engineering facility in the history of mankind began to operate.
David McAuley. How it was built: from bridges to skyscrapers.
The northern and southern tunnels were completed on May 22, 1991 and June 28, 1991, respectively. Equipment installation work followed. May 6, 1994 Queen Elizabeth II (Elizabeth II) and French President Francois Mitterrand (François Mitterrand) officially opened the tunnel.
The Eurotunnel is a complex engineering structure, including two track tunnels of circular shape and an internal diameter of 7.6 meters, located at a distance of 30 meters from each other, and a service tunnel with a diameter of 4.8 meters located between them.
The journey from Paris to London takes two hours and 15 minutes, and from Brussels to London two hours. At the same time, the train is in the tunnel itself for no more than 35 minutes. Eurostar has carried more than 150 million passengers since 1994, and passenger numbers have grown steadily over the past decade.
In 2014, 10.4 million passengers used Eurostar services.
The European Union approved the takeover of Eurostar by the French railway operator SNCF. Once the deal is completed, SNCF will have to allow competing firms to fly on the same routes.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
Channel Tunnel
More than two centuries ago, the first project, naive by modern standards, was born to establish a land connection between the continent and the British Isles. In 1750, the University of Amiens announced a competition for the best project to connect France with England. The project of the engineer N. Demarais was approved by Louis XV, but the matter did not go beyond approval, and could not go with the technology of that time.
“In 1802, a similar project was proposed to Napoleon,” writes Y. Frolov, “it provided for the construction of a tunnel suitable for the movement of carriages and lit by gas lamps. In 1803, it was proposed to lay a tunnel of large-diameter cast-iron pipes along the bottom of the sea.
Finally, in 1880, the first practical steps were taken towards the realization of an old dream: on July 16, one of the major English railway companies bought a piece of land from Dover and, after test drilling, began laying a gallery with a diameter of 2.8 meters. In France, a reconnaissance gallery was also laid. Already the Prince of Wales arranged a banquet at the bottom of the first mine in honor of the beginning of the construction of the century, already the total length of the sections passed from both sides reached 1840 meters, when in July 1882 the British Ministry of Defense demanded the cessation of all work, regarded by him as a dig under the safety of the island. And the military achieved their goal, although subsequently many politicians fought for a revision of this decision, including Winston Churchill, who was still little known at that time.
In 1954, already Prime Minister, he declared that England no longer had any objection to a strong connection with the mainland. However, it was not until 1965 that workers descended into the abandoned mines again. Ten years later, work was again interrupted: there was not enough money. By this time, 1,200 meters had been covered from the French side, and 800 from the English side.
Finally, in April 1986, the specially created powerful Anglo-French company Eurotunnel and its partner Transmanche Link, a consortium of French and English construction firms, set to work in earnest. Curiously, a third of the construction funds came from Japan, 13 percent from Germany, 18 percent from France, and only 9 percent from England.
A project competition was held. In the Putten project, two tidal power plants in the form of dams partially block the strait on both sides, leaving a six-kilometer fairway. Trains and cars move along the dam, then descend into the tunnels and cross the fairway.
"Evromost" proposed to build a deaf pipe 70 meters above the water, suspended from trusses on pontoons.
The Euroroad project is the most complex: vehicles reach the artificial island along a nine-kilometer suspension bridge, then drive down a spiral slope into a nineteen-kilometer tunnel. Then they get to the second artificial island and arrive on the coast via the next bridge. In the middle of the strait is the third man-made island.
As a result, the option "France - English Channel" was chosen: three tunnels - two transport tunnels and a service one between them.
On December 15, 1987, tunneling began on the British side. On the French side, drilling began only on February 28, 1988. Since before at Sangat, a few kilometers from Calais, it was necessary to build a huge cylindrical shaft with a diameter of 55 and a depth of 66 meters. The fact is that off the coast of France, a layer of blue chalk - quite easy to penetrate and at the same time waterproof rock, in which the tunnel's trajectory is designed - goes sharply deeper. To get to it and start drilling, it took a “pit” in Sangat. From this shaft, three French boring machines went northwest towards Dover, and the other two went towards the village of Coquel, the future French station. One of these two machines was making a service gallery, the other, with a larger diameter, having reached the place where the railway tracks should come to the surface and go to the station, turned back and dug a second transport tunnel to the “pit”.
In the same shaft at Sangat there were pumps for pumping out quicksand, which made it difficult to work off the French coast. Pumping went through pipes a quarter of a meter in diameter and a total length of thirteen kilometers. The sludge was accumulated in a special storage on the seashore, eight hundred meters from the mine in Sangat.
At the height of the work in the tunnels, there were at the same time up to eleven unique tunneling machines created by the American company Robbins. Each of them was 250-300 meters long and had its own name: Robert, Brigitte, Catherine, Virginia ... The crew of the car - 40 people. The French shift lasted 8 hours, the British - 12. The machines that worked on the French side, where they had to deal with quicksand, were sealed like submarines. They are able to withstand water pressure up to eleven kilograms per square centimeter. The tungsten cutters of the head part bit into the rock, making 2-3 revolutions per minute, and moved forward due to hydraulic pistons fixed at the base on nozzles resting on the ground. "Teeth" made of tungsten carbide made it possible to "gnaw through" up to 300 meters per week, depending on the conditions.
The total length of all three underground pipes is more than 150 kilometers, the length of one track is 52.5 kilometers, of which approximately 38 kilometers run under the sea. 6.5 million cubic meters of rock were excavated, crushed by rotating heads, if such a diminutive name is suitable for a disk with a diameter of 8.8 meters.
So that cars and people along with them do not get lost in the blue chalk, operators corrected the route using computers and video monitors. The laser beam, perceived by the light-sensitive device of the car, told the driver the direction. Before the tunneling, satellite observatories helped to calculate the trajectory…
The worked-out breeds entered the conveyor and were sent to the freight train. In total, almost 10 million cubic meters of rock were extracted, which allowed the British to make a small supply of it. And the French mixed it with water, the resulting semi-liquid mess was pumped ashore and dumped immediately nearby behind a 53-meter-high dam.
Having drilled one and a half meters, the machine dressed the wall with reinforced concrete segments, made on the surface and brought to the place of work. The concrete ring, consisting of six segments, weighed up to nine tons. In total, about a hundred thousand of these rings went into the triple tunnel, each with a number indelibly marked. The walls are almost one and a half meters thick. For greater strength, concrete is reinforced with granite mined in the bowels of the Scottish mountains.
After the work was completed, it turned out to be too expensive to take out giant machines to the surface, although the cost of each of them was at least one hundred million francs. The dismantling of machines that were in use and hardly suitable for further work is too complicated and time consuming. Therefore, they decided to leave them underground, in short drifts that turn sideways or down from the tunnel. The last meters were covered by traditional methods - a jackhammer.
In the course of work in the tunnel, disagreements arose between Eurotunnel and Transmansch Link. The cost of construction, originally estimated at 5.23 billion pounds, was already estimated at 7 billion in 1990. The tunnel eventually cost £10 billion. Rumors spread about the imminent bankruptcy of Eurotunnel. Partners showered each other with mutual claims. Works started together threatened to end just as ingloriously as many times before ...
But then the Bank of England intervened decisively in the monetary battle. In 1993, he called the noisy partners to order, threatening an arbitration court. No one wanted to spoil relations with financiers. The work got busy again. The opening of the facility was originally scheduled for May 1993, then moved to August, then to December. Only on May 6, 1994, the dream of many generations came true. English journalist Kathy Newman could not hide her joy: “If the tunnel adds even a little bit of mutual understanding to us - what does 13.5 billion dollars mean between friends? ...”
What is this architectural and technical miracle, called the “project of the century”, in the construction of which 15,000 workers participated?
The most important thing is three parallel tunnels: the two extreme ones - 7.6 meters in diameter - are railway, the middle one - 4.8 meters in diameter - service. The distance between transport tunnels is 30 meters. The depth of occurrence under the seabed is 40 meters. The total length of the route is 49.4 kilometers, of which 38 are under water. For example, the closest relative of the English Channel underground route, the Seikan tunnel, connecting the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido, is longer: its length is 54 kilometers, but only about 24 of them pass under water.
Two sidings with arrows are provided underground, so that the train, if necessary, can move from one tunnel to another without leaving the surface. The sidings are placed in underground halls 60 meters high and 20 meters wide each. One of them is located 8 kilometers from the English coast, the other - 17 kilometers from the French.
Every 375 meters there are transverse communications for service and fire-fighting purposes. Every 320 meters there are air ducts for pressure equalization, because a rushing train leaves rarefied air behind.
In addition to regular passenger and freight trains of the Eurostar company, special Eurotunnel trains - the Shuttle - run under the strait. They are designed to transport vehicles. The shuttle cars are the widest in the world. The length of each train is 8800 meters: 12 double-deck cars for cars, 12 single-deck cars for buses and trucks, plus a locomotive and two cars with special ramps - loading (rear) and unloading (front). Cars, in order of priority (by size), enter the tail train and move through the entire train until it is full. The procedure takes about eight minutes.
The movement of international trains of the Eurostar company is round-the-clock and provides for high speeds. In order not to violate this harmony, their locomotives are adapted to the standards adopted in England, France and Belgium: mains voltage, signaling systems and electrical equipment. During peak hours, the tunnel handles up to twenty trains per hour in each direction. From a single center in Folkestone, computer control of train traffic is carried out, including automatic speed control.
Particular attention is paid to safety. “Trains traveling in the same direction are spatially isolated,” writes A. Kireev in the Tekhnika-Youth magazine, “which eliminates the risk of a head-on collision. Raised platforms that run along the track in each tunnel protect trains from falling in the event of a derailment. The transverse galleries are equipped with fire doors that can withstand temperatures up to 1000 degrees. The service tunnel is ventilated with slightly pressurized (1.1-1.2 atmospheres) air, so that in case of a fire in the railway tunnel, smoke does not penetrate into the service tunnel. To remove the smoke, there are powerful auxiliary ventilation systems. Each train has two locomotives - in the head and in the tail: the train that catches fire will immediately go to the final station that is closer (after all, it is clear that the fire is easier to put out on the shore). If both motor cars are out of order, a specially equipped diesel locomotive will arrive at the scene and tow the train "to the street".
To prevent excessive heating of the air by rushing trains, 84 tons of cold water are constantly circulating through the water supply network with a total length of 540 kilometers, consisting of steel pipes with a diameter of about half a meter. The network is powered by two refrigerated factories - one on the French coast, the other on the English.
And, of course, the daily life of the English Channel Tunnel is supervised by computers, combined into three information control and communication systems ... It is more difficult with terrorists, but a strict screening of passengers and vehicles should be quite effective. The task is facilitated by the fact that access to the tunnel is possible only through two entrances on the coasts.
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From the author's bookThe Tunnel (Der Tunnel) Novel (1913) The rich of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities gather for an unprecedented number of world-famous celebrities participating in a concert in honor of the opening of the newly built
Channel Tunnel, also sometimes just Euro Tunnel listen)) is a double-track railway tunnel approximately 51 km long, of which 39 km pass under the English Channel. Connects continental Europe with the UK by rail. Thanks to the tunnel, it became possible to visit London from Paris in just 2 hours and 15 minutes; in the tunnel itself, the trains are from 20 to 35 minutes. It was inaugurated on May 6, 1994.The Eurotunnel is the third longest railway tunnel in the world. The longer ones are the Seikan Tunnel (length 53.85 km) and the Gotthard Tunnel (length 57.1 km). However, the Eurotunnel holds records for its length under water - 39 km (for comparison, the underwater segment of Seikan is 23.3 km), as well as for being the longest international tunnel.
The Eurotunnel operator is Eurostar.
History of origin
The idea of building a tunnel under the English Channel arose at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region.
According to the project, the tunnel was supposed to connect two cities: Calais on the French side and Folkestone on the English side (this route is not the shortest possible). It was supposed to dig in an easily pliable chalk geological layer, so the tunnel had to run deeper than planned, about 50 meters below the bottom of the strait, and the southern part should run deeper than the northern one. Because of this, the French first had to build a shaft 50 m in diameter and 60 m deep to reach the sandstone.
Construction
During operation, these machines simultaneously reinforced the walls with concrete segments, forming one and a half meter rings encircling the tunnel shaft. Each ring required an average of 50 minutes to install. British machines on average drilled about 150 meters per week, while French ones - 110 due to different machine designs and drilling conditions.
A laser positioning system was used to accurately align the tunnel parts under construction. Thanks to this system, both sides met at the intended point on December 1, 1990, at a depth of 40 meters from the bottom of the strait. The error was 0.358 meters horizontally and 0.058 meters vertically. In total, the British side completed 84 km of tunnel, and the French side - 69 km. British and French drillers did the last meters of the tunnel manually - using picks and shovels. After this, the main tunnels were connected and the British tunneling shields were taken to underground depots, and the French ones were dismantled and removed from the tunnel.
To guide the machines, the operator looked at computer screens and video monitors. Before the tunnel work began, satellite observatories helped calculate the exact path in every detail. Thin drills were used to probe samples of lime clay, showing which direction to go for more than 150 meters. A laser beam directed at a light-sensitive point on the combine helped the driver choose the right direction.
6-8 km from the coast, tunneling machines built passages under the English Channel, along which, when necessary, trains could be transferred from one tunnel to another. Every 375 meters, teams of tunnelers, equipped with small-sized equipment, laid passages to connect the main tunnels with service ones.
Pressure reduction channels were installed in the arch above the service tunnel, which connected the two main tunnels.
The project was completed in 7 years by 13 thousand workers and engineers.
Safety system
The Eurotunnel consists of three tunnels - two main ones, with a track for trains traveling north and south, and one small service tunnel. The service tunnel every 375 meters has passages connecting it with the main ones. It is designed for access to the main tunnels for service personnel and emergency evacuation of people in case of danger.
Every 250 meters, both main tunnels are connected to each other by a special ventilation system located on top of the service tunnel. This airlock system eliminates the piston effect generated by moving trains by distributing air flows into an adjacent tunnel.
All three tunnels have two interchanges, allowing trains to move freely between the tunnels.
Trains move on the left, as on other railways in France and Great Britain.
Transport system
TGV line built for Eurotunnel LGV Nord Europe, thanks to which you can get from Paris to London in 2 hours 15 minutes.
Eurostar trains travel through the tunnel itself in 20 minutes, and Shuttle trains in 35 minutes.
There are four types of trains on the Eurotunnel line:
- TGV Eurostar high-speed passenger trains operating between London St Pancras railway station, Paris Gare du Nord ( Gare du Nord) and Midi/Zuid station in Brussels with stops in Ashford, Calais and Lille.
- passenger shuttle trains Eurotunnel Shuttle transporting buses, cars and vans between Sangatte and Folkestone. Thanks to a special loading system, the entire process of entering a car into a carriage takes no more than eight minutes, while passengers remain inside their cars.
- freight trains Eurotunnel Shuttle with open cars in which trucks are transported, while the drivers themselves ride in a separate car.
- freight trains. These trains can carry a variety of cargo and containers between mainland Europe and the UK.
Emergencies
The Eurotunnel's security system has been tested eight times in real emergency situations.
November 18, 1996
The first fire occurred in the tunnel - a shuttle train carrying trucks caught fire. 34 people from the burning train, mostly car drivers, were evacuated into the service tunnel by the arriving French rescue service. Eight victims were taken out of the tunnel in ambulances. The rest were evacuated by another train traveling in the opposite direction. The fire brigade put out the fire for several hours, battling low water pressure in the fire extinguishing system, a strong draft in the ventilation and high temperatures.
200 meters of the tunnel were seriously damaged, another 200 meters were partially damaged. Some sections of the tunnel were burned through 50 mm (the thickness of the concrete ring enclosing the tunnel is 450 mm). The last cars and locomotive of the train were completely disabled.
All victims subsequently fully recovered. There were no casualties, mainly due to the design of the tunnel and the coordinated work of the security services of France and Great Britain.
The Eurotunnel was reopened three days later, on November 21, but only one tunnel was open and only for freight trains: safety rules prohibited passenger transportation during emergencies. They were resumed only on December 4th. The Eurotunnel became fully operational on January 7, 1997.
October 10, 2001
One of the trains suddenly stopped in the middle of the tunnel. Panic arose among the passengers, many were susceptible to attacks of claustrophobia. People spent about five hours underground until they were evacuated through a service tunnel.
August 21, 2006
One of the trucks transported by the shuttle train caught fire. Traffic through the tunnel was suspended for several hours.
September 11, 2008
A fire occurred in the French section of the tunnel - in one of the carriages of a freight train traveling from Great Britain to France. The train was transporting trucks. There were 32 people in it: mostly drivers accompanying their cars. All people were evacuated. As a result of the fire, 14 people were hospitalized, suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning or receiving minor injuries during the evacuation. The tunnel continued to burn all night and even in the morning. In the UK, Kent saw huge traffic jams as police blocked roads to prevent vehicles from driving close to tunnel entrances.
After this accident, traffic in the tunnel was fully restored only on February 23, 2009.
December 18, 2009
Due to the failure of the tunnel's power supply system as a result of a sharp temperature change and snowfall in northern France, five trains stopped in the tunnel.
The breakdowns occurred due to the fact that the trains were not ready for operation in winter conditions; their conductive lines and undercar space were not sufficiently protected. Eurostar noted that all trains undergo annual maintenance taking into account cold weather, but the measures taken were not enough.
January 7, 2010
A Eurostar passenger train carrying 260 passengers from Brussels to London was stuck in the Channel Tunnel for two hours. Teams of specialists were sent to the train, as well as an auxiliary locomotive, which took the faulty train in tow. Representatives of the Eurotunnel company stated that the cause of the breakdown of the train was snow. It got into the train's electrical equipment compartments and melted after entering the tunnel.
March 27, 2014
Train traffic through the tunnel was disrupted due to a fire in a building located next to the entrance to the tunnel on the British side. Four Eurostar trains were returned to their departure points in London, Paris and Brussels. The cause of the incident was a lightning strike. There were no casualties.
January 17, 2015
Train traffic was stopped due to a truck that caught fire in a tunnel near the entrance to it from France. All trains that entered the line were returned to the stations due to smoke. There were no casualties.
This was the fourth time since the start of operation of the Eurotunnel that it was closed due to trucks catching fire on the train platform.
Illegal immigrants
The tunnel has become a relatively easy way for illegal immigrants to enter the UK, where social policy is favorable to visiting foreigners.
On the night of 28–29 July 2015, approximately two thousand immigrants attempted to enter the UK illegally from France through the tunnel. This incident was the largest attempt by illegal migrants to cross the English Channel to enter the UK illegally. According to TASS [ ], in the vicinity of Calais, about 10 thousand immigrants were camped, hoping to illegally cross into the UK.
Financial performance indicators
The contribution of private funding to such a complex project was impressive. £45 million was raised through CTG/F-M, £770 million through a public offering, £206 million from private institutional investors and a syndicated bank loan of up to £5 billion. The estimated cost of the project in 1985 was £2.6 billion. By the end of construction, actual costs amounted to £4.65 billion due to increased safety and environmental requirements for the tunnel [ ] . According to other estimates, a total of about £10 billion was spent on the Eurotunnel (adjusted for inflation).
The Eurotunnel is a grandiose project of the 20th century, which has not yet paid off financially.
On 8 April 2008, Eurotunnel announced an annual profit for the first time in its existence (since 1986), made possible by a large-scale debt restructuring program. The company reported a net profit of one million euros ($1.6 million) for 2007.
In 2008, Eurotunnel operator Eurostar managed to make a profit of 40 million euros.
In 2009, the company paid dividends for the first time since its founding.
In 2010, Eurostar's loss amounted to 58 million euros, which was caused, among other things, by the consequences of the global economic crisis.
In 2011, the company, according to BBC News, made a profit of 11 million euros, passenger traffic reached a record 19 million people, Eurostar shares cost 6.53 euros on the stock market, and dividends amounted to 0.08 euros per share.
On the night of December 2-3, 1994, a group of professional and semi-professional cyclists led by Henri Sannier rode through the tunnel. This was the first official passage of cyclists through the entire tunnel.
