Georges Méliès, the same pioneer of cinema who anticipated the time with his film Journey to the Moon, also imagined in 1907 a short film where a tunnel was dug with pick and pile under the English Channel so that a train would link France and England. A fiction from the beginning of the 20th century that foreshadowed what was going to happen in the last years of that same century, since such a railway and submarine connection became a reality on May 6, 1994.
Méliès’ talent and fantasy were boundless, but he should not be given credit for devising such an infrastructure. The dream of joining the French coast with the British coast came from much earlier. The germ of the current Eurotunnel dates back to the beginning of the 19th century when the French engineer Albert Mathieu-Favier designed the first underwater tunnel between the two countries.
It would be a tunnel for the transit of horse-drawn carriages, where animals and people would see thanks to oil lamps and breathe through the air provided by gigantic chimneys that reached the surface of the sea. And in case water got in, there would actually be two tunnels, the upper one for traffic and the lower one for drainage. Today it seems like a delirium, but that project of 1802 reached the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte and he saw it as feasible. So much so that he offered it to the English authorities. However, the wars that were to come paralyzed the idea.
A momentary pause because in the middle of the century another French engineer, now Aimé Thomé de Gamond, took up the plan, who began by studying the underwater terrain to confirm that the idea was viable. He weighted himself with kilos of flint and plugged his ears with lard to dive and discover that the bottom was chalk, the same white rock as the cliffs of Dover. In other words, it was ideal to be excavated due to its softness and impermeability.
They were years of railway effervescence. Digging tunnels had become almost routine. And making an underwater one was a real challenge. There were many ideas and entrepreneurs in the attempt, but no one got down to work until 1880 when the potentate Edward Watkin on the English side and Alexandre Lavalley on the French side launched two rudimentary tunnel boring machines on each bank.
Until 1883 they drilled almost two kilometers on each side. However, that summer work stopped. In Britain they decided to withdraw any support for the project for fear that the tunnel would facilitate the invasion of the islands. An opposition that lasted well into the 20th century. Although there were always voices that saw it as something more positive than dangerous, like Winston Churchill himself who advocated several times for its opening.
The truth is that the project was never forgotten and hovered over for decades. But another conservative government like that of Margaret Thatcher, paradoxically allied with the French socialist François Mitterrand, had to arrive to finally lay the foundations for the current Eurotunnel by signing the Canterbury Treaty in 1986. A document in which both countries committed to its creation, although making it very clear that it had to be excavated with private capital.
And it didn’t take long for investors to come out, since in the spring of 1988 construction began. In the late 1990s, both shores joined in an iconic scene. The underground workers managed to make a hole to exchange flags and smiles under the sea. A human gesture after months of work done by gigantic tunnel boring machines 200 meters long and weighing 11,000 tons.
In reality, that was just an image, because there was still a lot to do, since in reality there is not only one tunnel under the English Channel. There are three. The two largest are almost eight meters in diameter for railway circulation. A tunnel for each direction of traffic. While the central one is smaller and is used for maintenance work. In addition, the three are linked transversally through numerous auxiliary and essential conduits for safety reasons. In addition, there are large ventilation tubes, four per kilometer, which facilitate air flow and prevent the trains from encountering aerodynamic resistance.
In total there are 50 and a half kilometers of route and of them almost 40 are under the sea. A route to connect the town of Coquelles, near Calais, in France, with Folkestone on the English coast. A distance that can only be covered on board a train. Whether as a passenger or with our vehicle, you will always have to get on the train. Something that seems obvious for reasons of safety, gases and accident prevention.
The journey as passengers is made aboard the fast Eurostar. A train that travels several times a day between the Paris Nord and London St Pancras International stations in just two hours and 20 minutes. As well as connecting the London station with other European cities such as Amsterdam or Brussels, which is less than two hours away.
While, if you choose to cross the underwater pass by car, motorhome, motorcycle, and even truck or bus, then you must board the Shuttle train. A long convoy of double-deck carriages into which each driver loads his vehicle and can remain in it for the 35 minutes that the unique immersion in the English Channel lasts.
Quite an experience! Enter the tunnel with the most kilometers under the sea in the world! An impressive construction and a dream of several generations of engineers, politicians, businessmen, artists or simple travelers that is now 30 years old.
