A narrow, choppy strait that daunted both Napoleon and Hitler has succumbed to one of the biggest and most unlikely construction projects ever undertaken: the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France is officially finished and will open to freight and passengers in May.
In ceremonies last week, the Anglo-French consortium that built the tunnel handed it over to Eurotunnel, the firm that holds an operating concession until 2042. Dignitaries popped champagne corks and took round-trip train rides between London and Paris, culminating a dream two centuries old."I took my wife to Paris by train last weekend," crowed Sir Alastair Morton, the tough, often-abrasive chief executive of Eurotunnel who is given much credit for bulldogging the project to conclusion. "It took us 31/2 hours, London to Paris. Not bad. Next year, we'll have it down to three hours."
When the tunnel opens for business, it will be a year late. It will have cost nearly $15 billion, more than twice the original estimate. Despite optimistic Eurotunnel projections, some analysts predict it will lose money for decades. Ferry companies now carrying passengers and goods across the English Channel say they fear the tunnel will put them out of business, costing jobs.
And in rabies-free Britain, a recent poll showed that at least half of the population is worried about rabid foxes or other frothing creatures from the continent somehow thwarting the tunnel's elaborate anti-rabies defenses and emerging to terrorize rural Kent.
Despite such worries, the tunnel is considered a true engineering marvel - the first land link between Britain and continental Europe since the last Ice Age, when the land masses were joined by a frozen bridge.
The idea of a tunnel beneath the channel first came up in 1802, when one of Napoleon's engineers, Albert Mathieu, drew up crude plans. The French were after a route for their troops to invade Britain by stealth. They found the notion impractical and gave it up.
In 1880, Col. Ernest Beaumont began work on a channel tunnel, using a machine he designed. After two years, the project was abandoned because of British fears of an invasion. British defense officials only dropped their objection to a tunnel on security grounds in 1955.
The new tunnel consists of three parallel tubes, two large ones for trains with a smaller one in the middle for service. The dig runs from Folkestone on the English coast to the French port of Calais. At 23.6 miles, it is only the second-longest rail tunnel, behind one linking the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. But the channel tunnel has a longer undersea section.
All told, the project consists of 95 miles of undersea tunnel. It is buried more than 120 feet below the seabed and includes two enormous manmade caverns designed to allow a train to cross from one running tube to the other.
When the tunnel opens, passengers from Britain will be able to drive their cars to the new terminal at Folkestone, drive onto special "shuttle" trains, remain with their cars for the half-hour ride, drive off in Calais and be on their way. Those who want to make the full trip by rail eventually will be able to board a train in London and continue straight through to Paris or Brussels in three hours.