The Channel Tunnel

With more than six million kilometers of highways and 240,000 kilometers of railways snaking
across the United States, life above ground has become increasingly congested. Tunnels provide
some of the last available space for cars and trains, water and sewage, even power and
communication lines. Today, it's safe to bore through mountains and burrow beneath oceans
but it was not always this way. In fact, it took engineers thousands of years to perfect the art of
digging tunnels.

CHANNEL TUNNEL (CHUNNEL)

When England and France decided to link their two countries with a 32-mile rail tunnel beneath
the English Channel, engineers were faced with a huge challenge. Not only would they have to
build one of the longest tunnels in the world; they would have to convince the public that
passengers would be safe in a tunnel this size. Tunnel fires, like the Holland Tunnel disaster,
were common at this time. How did the engineers resolve this problem? They built an escape
route.
The Channel Tunnel, also called the Euro Tunnel or Chunnel, actually consists of three tunnels,
each 50 km long and bored in the rock below the seabed of the Channel. Two of the tubes are full
sized and accommodate rail traffic. In between the two train tunnels is a smaller service tunnel
that serves as an emergency escape route. There are also several "cross-over" passages that allow
trains to switch from one track to another. Just one year after the Chunnel opened, this
engineering design was put to the test. Thirty-one people were trapped in a fire that broke out in
a train coming from France. The design worked. Everyone was able to escape through the service
tunnel.
It took just three years for tunnel boring machines from France and England to chew through the
chalky earth and meet hundreds of feet below the surface of the English Channel. Today, trains
roar through the tunnel at speeds up to 100 miles per hour and it's possible to get from one end to
the other in only 20 minutes!

Chunnel Length - 174,240' (32 miles)

Fast Facts
At the time it was being built, the Chunnel was the most expensive construction project ever
conceived. It took $21 billion to complete the tunnel. That's 700 times more expensive than the
cost to build the Golden Gate Bridge!
Many of the tunnel boring machines used on the Chunnel were as long as two football fields and
capable of boring 250 feet a day.
When construction began in 1988, British and French tunnel workers raced to reach the middle
of the tunnel first. The British won.
In the first five years of operation, trains carried 28 million passengers and 12 million tons of
freight through the tunnel.

Vital Statistics
Location: Folkestone, England, and Sangatte, France
Completion Date: 1994
Cost: $21 billion (9,000,000,000)
Overall Length: 163,680 feet / 50.45 km / 31.35 miles
Under Sea Length: 38 km / 24 miles
Purpose: Railway
Setting: Underwater
Materials: Steel, concrete
Engineer(s): Transmanche Link Engineering Firm
Trains enter the tunnels at terminals located at Folkestone in the county of Kent in South-East
England and at Calais in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.
The tunnels contain a railway system, which takes shuttle trains between the terminals at
Folkestone and Calais LE SHUTTLE and through-trains which link with the national rail
networks of France and Great Britain.
Eurotunnel is the company, which owns and operates the Channel Tunnel and its railway system.

Construction
The tunnels are 50 kilometers long and 30 meters apart and were bored in the rock strata under
the Channel at an average depth of 45 meters below the seabed.
The two large tunnels (7.6 meters diameter) each contain a single-track railway line.
The smaller service tunnel (4.8 meters diameter) is located between the two rail tunnels and is
equipped with a wire guidance system for specially designed service tunnel vehicles.

All three tunnels are connected every 375 meters by a cross-passage, which gives access to the
service tunnel in case of emergency. The cross-passages are also used for ventilation and
maintenance service access.
Every 200 meters, the two rail tunnels are linked by piston relief ducts. These are used for the
regulation of the air pressure in the tunnels.
All three tunnels are lined with concrete linings.

Geology & Surveying

UK FRANCE Shakespeare Cliff / Sangatte
Undersea crossovers / rock strata - chalk / chalk marl / gault clay depth beneath seabed - average
25 -45 meters
Satellite data from geophysical surveys provided information about the geology and helped to
determine the alignment and route of the tunnel.
To maximize the favourable ground conditions, the tunnels were excavated in the layer of chalk
marl except for a 3-kilometer section on the French side.

Construction Sites
Sangate - Construction Site In France
In 1987, construction of the Channel Tunnel began in France at Sangatte on the Nord-Pas de
Calais coastline at a location just over 3 kilometers away from the French terminal site at
Coquelles.
A circular access shaft, 70 meters deep and 55 meters in diameter was excavated and lined with
concrete. A hangar -like shed was built to shelter the shaft in the centre of the large construction
site, which also contained offices and a lining segment manufacturing factory
All materials, workers and equipment were lowered down the shaft to the working platform at 47
meters, where the tunnel boring machines (TBM) could be assembled in dry conditions.
From this point, three machines excavated the undersea rail tunnels and service tunnel beneath
the seabed towards Kent and two boring machines began the drive underground and inland
towards the terminal site. One of these machines was then re-assembled to excavate the second
running tunnel, thus using only 5 machines on the French side.
Gantry cranes with pulleys were used to lower the TBM sections and subsequently the concrete
lining segments.

Once tunneling began, construction trains with a variety of wagons were used to transport the
linings, the spoil and the workers. A railway control room at the top of the shaft regulated the
movements of all the construction trains.
At the base of the shaft, a spoil treatment plant mixed the waste rock with water before pumping
it 500 meter to the disposal site at Fond Pignon.
Once construction work was complete, the Sangatte shaft was transformed into a permanent
feature of the tunnel system, housing the ventilation and cooling system installations.
The rest of the construction site has been landscaped and rehabilitation work continues with
environmental monitoring of the Fond Pignon site.
Shakespeare Cliff - Construction Site In Great Britain
Construction work began on the British side at a platform located at the foot of Shakespeare
Cliff. Situated between Folkestone and Dover on the Kent coast, this had been the site of a
previous tunnel attempt in 1974.
The earlier tunnel workings were used as one of the two access shafts to the underground
workings, with a rack and pinion railway used to convey equipment and materials to the
marshalling area underground. The six TBMs were each assembled in a large cavern area, over
20 meters high and equipped with overhead cranes for lifting the TBM sections, which had first
been excavated to accommodate the 8.6 meter diameter machines.
From this point under the platform at Shakespeare Cliff, three undersea tunnels were bored
towards France and three underground tunnels towards the terminal site at Folkestone.
The service tunnel machine on both sides bored in advance of the two running tunnel machines.
Probes on the service tunnel machine provided advance warning of difficult ground conditions
and the data obtained provided data on alignment and conditions for the larger tunnel drives.

Terminal Sites
UK Terminal Construction
Work on the Folkestone terminal started in 1988 with a major landfill engineering project in
order to provide the level area needed for the railway transport system.
Constraints were imposed by the geographical features - the 140-hectare site lies at the foot of
the North Downs chalk escarpment and to the south, the long narrow site is bounded by the M20
motorway.
The tunnel portals are located at a point to the west of Castle Hill, just north of Cheriton and
from this point the shuttle trains make their way on a loop track to the platform area.

The one-kilometer tunnel constructed by cut and cover method at the west end of the site to
accommodate the shuttle train loop track has two functions. It increases the amount of space
available for the other essential structures and road networks and it provides noise protection for
the adjacent villages of Newington and Peene. A second acoustic and visual barrier between the
villages and the site was erected at the start of construction work in the form of a 3-meter high
earth bund
Major structures include the overbridges, access ramps and the platforms where vehicles load
into and unload from the shuttle trains.
Buildings include a control tower, frontier control buildings for French and British authorities,
passenger and freight amenity buildings, security and operations staff headquarters.
French Terminal Construction
The site chosen for the terminal at Coquelles, near Calais, required a major drainage exercise and
millions of tonnes of earth were spread and compacted to lay the foundations for the 480-hectare
terminal complex. With no land constraints, the railway system stretches from the Beussingues
trench and loops around the terminal above ground before reaching the platform area.
As large as an airport, the terminal site contains 53 kilometers of railway track and 36 kilometers
of road network, in addition to the Eurotunnel head office, an additional control tower, passenger
terminal buildings and frontier controls. A separate terminal area contains all the freight
facilities.
A striking feature is the viaduct across one of several lakeland areas, which provides a panoramic
view for passenger vehicle travelers on their way to the tollbooths.
Tunnel Boring Machines
The tunnel boring machines were specially designed for excavating the chalk marl rock which
geological surveys had shown to lie beneath the seabed along the proposed tunnel route.
The ground conditions were expected to be generally favourable in the dry and stable chalk marl,
except for the section to be bored in the layer of upper chalk between Sangatte and the terminal
site at Coquelles.
However, several factors combined to make this a unique challenge for the machines:
the length of the tunnel to be excavated undersea (in excess of 20 km).>
the high rate of advance required to meet the construction programme requirements.
Some facts and figures serve to illustrate the achievement of these machines and all the teams of
workers involved in this remarkable engineering feat.

NUMBER OF DRIVES (tunnels excavated)

12 - 6 undersea, 6 underland

NUMBER OF TBMs

11 - 6 undersea, 5 underland (a French machine bored 2 underland tunnels)

Dimension of UK TBMS

Undersea rail tunnels - dia. 8.36m ; length 230.00m

Undersea service tunnel - >dia. 5.36m ; length 225.00m

Underland rail tunnels - dia. 8.72m ; length 253.00m

Underland service tunnel - dia. 5.76m ; length 225.00m

RATE OF ADVANCE - best day - 75.5m ; best week 428m ; best month 1,719.1m
Dimension of French TBMS

Undersea rail tunnels - dia. 8.72m ; length 265.00m

Undersea service tunnel - dia. 5.72m ; length 318.00m

Underland rail tunnels - dia. 8.62m ; length 211.00m

Underland service tunnel - dia. 5.59m length 204.00m

RATE OF ADVANCE - best day - 56m ; best week 292.6m ; best month 1,105.7m
Dates of Breakthroughs:

Undersea service tunnel - December 1, 1990

Undersea rail tunnel north - May 22, 1991

Undersea rail tunnel south - June 28, 1991

Date Tunneling Commenced:

December 1, 1987

Finished Tunnel Diameter:

Rail tunnels - 7.6m

Service tunnel - 4.8m

Fixed equipment
The fixed equipment installed after completion of the tunnels had to fulfill the following
functions:
1) Electricity supply for trains and auxiliary equipment
The power required for the trains and auxiliary equipment is supplied by two principal power
stations at each terminal and linked to the national 400 kV networks (Seaboard at Sellindge in
Kent and Electricite de France at Les Mandarins in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais) Each network
supplies half the requirement but each is capable of supplying all the power necessary for the
whole system.
2) Electricity supply for catenaries
The catenaries supply the traction power necessary for the shuttle trains and the through trains.
The overhead power lines supply 25 kV - one of the most powerful 25kV catenary systems in
existence.
3) Control and communications systems
All the control and communications systems are carried in three fibre-optic cables. These high
capacity cables transmit digitally all the data for rail traffic management and all the electrical and
mechanical plant in the tunnels. Speech communications are also transmitted by cable but, in
addition, there are independent radio systems including:

concession radio

track-to train radio

shuttle internal radio

4) Tunnel ventilation
All trains using the tunnels have electric traction so there is no engine exhaust pollution. The
service tunnel vehicles have diesel engines designed to give very low emissions. Air is pumped
into the service tunnel from ventilation buildings at Shakespeare Cliff and Sangatte. The service
tunnel acts as the supply duct for normal ventilation. Air handling units located above the doors
of the cross-passages every 375 meters control the flow of air from the service tunnel to the
railway tunnels.
5) Drainage systems

The drainage system of five pumping stations permits the removal of water from the tunnels.
Water from normal seepage is directed via channels into storage tanks or sumps at the lowest
points and discharged by pipeline to the pumping stations.
6) Fire-fighting
Smoke detectors are installed in all the technical rooms located within the cross-passages.
Automatic extinguishing devices and remote control cut-off systems are also installed. A
dedicated water supply line in the service tunnel is fed from storage tanks and pumping stations
at the portals. This line feeds the fire hydrants in the cross passages and in the running tunnels.
7) Tunnel cooling systems
The temperature in the tunnels is maintained at an acceptable level of 25C by the circulation of
refrigerated water in each section of tunnel via a discharge and a return pipe. Refrigeration plants
at the former construction sites of Shakespeare Cliff and Sangatte provide the chilling and
circulation systems.
8) Service tunnel equipment
On each side of the service tunnel, technical rooms contain all the necessary electrical and
technical rooms for the equipment requirements in the service tunnel.
The Channel Tunnel Transportation System
The Channel Tunnel provides a railway link between the road and rail networks in Great Britain
and France.

SHUTTLE TRAINS FOR ROAD VEHICLES

Road vehicles access the terminals from the M20 motorway in Kent or via the autoroutes A16
and A26 in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais.
Cars, coaches and lorries are directed into appropriate lanes before arrival at the tollbooths,
where tickets are purchased.
Lorries follow a separate route to areas where travel facilities and customs clearance for freight
are located, before following signs to the loading platforms.
Drivers of passenger vehicles may visit the passenger terminal buildings for refreshments or
shopping facilities or they may proceed directly towards the allocation zones where signs
indicate a designated loading platform.
Vehicles then travel onto the overbridges and down the ramp to the platform and into the shuttle
train.

Journey time platform to platform is 35 minutes.

The LE SHUTTLE vehicle transport service is owned and operated by Eurotunnel
THROUGH TRAINS FOR PASSENGERS AND FREIGHT
High-speed trains offer passenger services between the international stations of London
Waterloo, Paris Gare du Nord and Brussels Midi, with en route stations at Ashford in Kent and at
Lille and Calais-Frethun in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais.
The EUROSTAR service is owned and operated by European Passenger Services, a consortium
of British railways, SNCF and SNCB.
Facts and Figures about the Trains
Le Shuttle Trains

Eurostar Trains

Power output:

5.76 MW or
7600hp

Length of
locomotive:

22.215m (72.5
ft)

Weight of
locomotive:/TD>

132 tonnes

Length of Train:

333m (1292ft)
68 tonnes

Weight of train:

2000 tonnes

Weight of
locomotive:

Max. Speed:

160km/h
(100mph)

Weight of train:

800 tonnes

Normal Speed:

140km/h
(87mph)

Track gauge:

1.435m (56.5
in)

Wheel diameter:

1.250m (49 in)

Maximum operating 300km/h (185

speed:
mph)
(France)