6th May: The Channel Tunnel

On this date in 1994, Queen Elizabeth II and French President François Mitterrand inaugurated the opening of the Chunnel – a tunnel under the English Channel linking England and France for the first time since the end of the Great Ice Age.

1. Linking France and England with a tunnel wasn't solely a late 20th century idea. In 1802, Albert Mathieu, a French mining engineer, put forward a proposal. His plans included illumination from oil lamps, horse-drawn coaches, and an artificial island mid-Channel for changing Horses. It came up several times after that. Fears for national security were an issue. During World War II, it was estimated that Hitler could build a Chunnel in just 18 months using slaves. There was even a rumour he'd already started.
2. Another concern was that England would become “a holiday resort for hordes of more or less undesirable people, who would introduce foreign customs, deface the countryside and otherwise interrupt English habits of living.” In reality, since 85% of the car passengers using the tunnel are British, the French had more to worry about on that score!
3. The tunnel is 50.5-kilometre (31.4 miles) long and 75m (250 ft) deep at the lowest point. 37.9 kilometres (23.5 miles) of it is under the sea, giving it the longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world. It takes around 35 minutes to travel the length of the Channel Tunnel.
4. The tunnel took six years to build, from 1988 to 1994 and cost £4.650 billion (£13 billion today), 80% over budget. At the peak of construction 15,000 people were employed costing over £3 million a day. It cost ten workers their lives - ten people were killed, eight of them British, during construction.
5. Eleven boring machines were used, digging from both sides of the Channel. While the English machines were merely numbered, the French gave theirs names - Brigitte, Europa, Catherine, Virginie, Pascaline and Séverine. After construction, one of the British machines was buried under the Channel and used to provide an electrical earth. Another was sold on eBay for £39,999 in 2004.
6. The leftover seven million tons of chalk, rock, and debris that was dislodged to make the tunnel was deposited to create Samphire Hoe Park, a 74-acre nature reserve.
7. On 1 December 1990, Englishman Graham Fagg and Frenchman Phillippe Cozette broke through the service tunnel and met - not quite in the middle as the British had tunnelled slightly further - to great ceremony.
8. For the official opening, four years later, the Queen took a train through the tunnel which stopped nose to nose with a train carrying President Mitterand from Paris. The two of them carried out an opening ceremony in Calais and travelled together through the tunnel for a similar ceremony in England.
9. Up to 400 trains pass through the tunnel each day, carrying an average of 50,000 passengers, 6,000 cars, 180 coaches and 54,000 tonnes of freight. Shuttle trains are 775 metres long - the same as eight Football pitches. The wagons for holding cars are the largest railway wagons in the world.
10. The tunnel consists of two railway tunnels and a service tunnel. The service tunnel allows access to all parts of the tunnel for maintenance and for use in emergencies. There are two types of service vehicle: the Service Tunnel Transport System (STTS) - 24 large vehicles with rubber tyres and a wire guidance system. "Pods" with different purposes, are inserted into the side of the vehicles which cannot turn around in the tunnel, and are designed to be driven from either end; and 15 Light Service Tunnel Vehicles (LADOGS), which are smaller and can turn around if they need to. The convention for maintenance workers is to drive on the left, as in England, so the vehicles are fitted with an alarm in case any of the French workers forget and drive on the right.