Interesting Facts About The Channel Tunnel

On January 20, 1986, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President Francois Mitterrand agreed to build a tunnel under the English Channel. Until the construction of the Crimean Bridge, the Eurotunnel was perhaps the most impressive engineering structure in modern Europe.

With a length of 50.45 km, the tunnel under the English Channel is among the top 15 longest operated tunnels in the world. Of those that have a railway connection, the Eurotunnel is the fourth.

Well, among the underwater tunnels it has no equal.

The construction of the Eurotunnel took six years — it began in 1988 and was completed in 1994. The total budget of the event was 13.5 billion euros, adjusted for today’s inflation. By the way, this is 80% more than the originally planned estimate.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has included the Eurotunnel in the list of seven engineering wonders of the modern world. It also includes the Empire State Building, the Itaipu Dam in Brazil, the CN Tower in Toronto, the Panama Canal, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the flood protection system in Holland.

For the first time, the idea of a tunnel connecting Great Britain and France was proposed back in 1802 by Albert Mathieu-Favier. His plan called for a two-level tunnel for horse-drawn vehicles with a bulk island in the middle of the strait, where stables for changing horses would be located.

Ten workers died during the construction of the Eurotunnel.

Teams of tunnellers from both sides met on December 1, 1990. Moreover, it is a mistake to believe that they met exactly in the middle of the strait. The British part of the tunnel is longer.

On average, the Eurotunnel runs at a depth of 50 meters below the bottom of the English Channel.

In addition to the two main tunnels at the Eurotunnel (one for movement in each direction), there is another one — an emergency one. It is designed for evacuation in case of fire.

11 tunneling machines were used to drill the tunnels, the length of each of them was equal to two football fields.

On average, about 60 thousand people, over 7 thousand cars, almost 5 thousand trucks and 140 buses use Eurotunnel services every day. By the way, cars on the Eurotunnel move only as passengers: they are transported by trains.

Serious incidents have occurred more than once during the operation of the Eurotunnel. A fire in November 1996 damaged half a kilometer of the tunnel. It took six months to eliminate the consequences. And in December 2009, five trains stopped in the tunnels for 16 hours. Without light, as well as food and water for passengers.

The only passenger car that officially passed the Eurotunnel under its own power was the Ginetta G50 EV electric car. As part of the charity event, former F1 champion John Certis “raced” through the service tunnel, not exceeding the allowed limit of 50 km/h.