Channel tunnel

The Channel tunnel (in English: The Chanel Tunnel or Chunnel .) railway Tunnel is a connecting the the United Kingdom and the France. It 49,7 km is long, including 37 km under the Manche between Coquelles and Folkestone. It was inaugurated on May 6th, 1994.

TML is the name of the group which has it construit.
Eurotunnel is the name of the Franco-British company which exploits it.

The work is built by TransManche Link (TML) created in 1986, this consortium of 10 companies of BTP, five Frenchwomen and five British.

The crossing (cars, coaches, motor bikes, trucks) ensured by railway shuttles lasts approximately 33 minutes of quay quay. The shuttles are called officially “ Eurotunnel ”. The rail-bound transport of the travellers without vehicle is ensured by the line Eurostar which uses oars of the type TGV modified to adapt to the constraints of the tunnel (sectile oars) and British network (gauge, collecting of the current by conductor rail).

History

Four competitor projects

Four projects were in string for the realization of the fixed bond between the France and the the United Kingdom:

Europont: it was about a bridge of 37 km supported by 8 pylons, calling upon new techniques, with some 5000 meters long spans suspended with cables in kevlar, whose cost was evaluated to 60 billion francs.
Euroroute: it was a road unit bridge-tunnel-bridge, the bridges connecting of the artificial islands to the coast, and a railway tunnel of 38 km under the sea-bed.
Chanel Expressway: this project presented to the last minute included/understood a whole of road tunnels and railway.
Eurotunnel: in its broad outlines, this project included that of 1972-1975, a double railway tunnel with a third tunnel of service.

Features

Traced in the layer known as of the blue Chalk (Turonien), with a 40 m depth under the bed of the sea (maximum depth of 107,3 m under the mean level of the sea), the Channel tunnel includes/understands in fact three galleries:

two railway tunnels, for each direction of circulation, 7,6 m (useful) of diameter;
a gallery of service located between the two railway galleries, of 4,8 m (useful) of diameter, in which circulate of the special Véhicule S.

These three galleries, covered reinforced concrete voussoirs, are connected between them every 375 m by branches of communication which make it possible to connect the railway tunnels to the tunnel intended for maintenance and the helps (that was useful in particular at the time of the fire of a shuttle for heavy trucks on November 18th, 1996). These branches allow also the ventilation of the tunnel under normal functioning. Fresh air is puffed up in the gallery of service at its ends, and this air is then distributed in the railway tunnels via valves non-returns valve, which makes it possible to avoid any contamination of the gallery of service by smoke at the time of a fire. Other branches connect the two railway tunnels and also make it possible the air to circulate and decrease thus the pressure and aerodynamic resistance to the passage of the trains (circulating to 160 km/h maximum). Two communications (traversées-jonctions or cross-country race-over), located at the thirds of the course, make it possible to make pass the trains of one gallery to the other and to thus isolate from the sections of galleries in the event of need (maintenance, incident). In these points, the gallery of service passes under one of the railway tunnels and is found at side and either between the two.

For safety reasons, the railway galleries are lit by 20.000 luminaries and broadsides by a continuous pavement, side of the gallery of service, to ensure the possible evacuation of the travellers in any point. Antennas ensure the continuity of the communications radio operator ground-trains.

The construction of the Channel tunnel cost approximately 105 billion francs, that is to say 16 billion euros which were financed in majority by private shareholders, who lost 87,2% of their setting to the current course of the action.

The French terminal of the Channel tunnel was designed by the architect Paul Andreu.

Fight against the fire

The Channel tunnel is defended by firemen French and British, equipped with special vehicles circulating in the pipe gallery. The water supply (Hydrant) is done by a pipe which traverses the gallery, and is provided with connections to the French standards and connections to the British standards. The pipe gallery is in overpressure compared to the railway galleries, to avoid being invaded by smoke.

During the description of a disaster, a binational plan, called binat , is started by the officer of monitoring with the order “ Binat go! ”.

Seism

on April 28th, 2007 with 8:18 between Folkestone and the Cape Gray-Nose a Séisme of 4,3 on the scale of Richter was recorded. The epicentre is located at sea at 14 km at the south of Dover and 7.1 km of depth.
the rail traffic transmanche was not affected in spite of the proximity of the tunnel with the epicentre located at less than 10 km.

The second tunnel

During 1998 - the 1999 dealers started to inquire into the possibility of a second Channel tunnel, as it was envisaged in the act of concession. But the economic impact was not established yet and the project did not exceed the stage of the feasibility study.

The Channel tunnel with the screen

The Channel tunnel appears in the film Mission: Impossible of Brian De Palma in 1996 where Tom Cruise, climbed on a train at high speed and is continued by a helicopter in what is supposed being the tunnel in question. The scene contains incredible facts which are added to its material impossibility. In film, the Channel tunnel seems a simple bond of rectangular section to double direction and the trains circulate there like traditional TGV without overhead lines. The scene of the trains circulating in the tunnel was filmed in the valley of Upper Nithsdale on the railway of Kilmarnock with Dumfries in Scotland.

The Channel tunnel also made its appearance in the episode number 118 of the American televised series Seinfeld entitled “The Pool Guy”.
Whereas an obscure plot is set up, utilizing murder and money, the order is given to evacuate the Tunnel following the threat of an explosion. It is learned then that the girl of the president of the United States was trapped in the Tunnel at the time of the explosion.

The Channel tunnel also made its appearance in an episode of the series “Superstructures” of the chain National Geographic.

One can also on several occasions see the mouths of entry and exit of the tunnel in the Russian Headstocks of Cédric Klapisch (2005).

See too

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