From the BBC:
"Channel Tunnel is 20 years old: In numbers"
It is 20 years since the Channel Tunnel was officially opened. Both Queen Elizabeth II and France's President Francois Mitterrand attended the initial ceremony in Calais on 6 May 1994, before travelling through the Tunnel, or le tunnel sous la Manche in French, for a similar event marking its opening, in Folkestone. It is impossible to explain all 31.4 miles (or 50.5km) of the Channel Tunnel without using lots of numbers. So here goes.
Seven
A few years ago it was voted one of the seven wonders of the modern world by the highly respected American Society of Civil Engineers. That puts it in the same league as the Empire State Building, the Panama Canal and the Golden Gate Bridge. (Also on the list by the way, the North Sea Protection Works, which is worth looking up online.)
830
At around 830m (that's 907 yards) Eurotunnel tell me their car trains are the longest in Europe. They're also pulled by the most powerful locomotives in the world.
40
It runs 40m (131ft) under the seabed. None of it goes through water. I was allowed to take a stroll through the service tunnel. Honestly, it's spooky.
One
It was finished a year late.
4 billion
It cost £4bn ($6.7bn) more than the original estimate, and that's without interest payments.
Three
There have been three fires caused by lorries on trains. They now have an intensive, automatic spraying system to douse any flames (on top of dedicated safety teams and equipment).
Three
There are actually three tunnels. Two for trains and a smaller, service tunnel down the middle (the one I walked down). It can be used as a "lifeboat" to get people out during an emergency. That is what happened in 2008 after the worst blaze, when a lorry caught fire seven miles from the French entrance. It took months to repair the damage caused by the 1000C heat.
Two
Two of the 11, mighty boring machines used to dig the thing are still down there, buried. Funnily enough, they don't fit them with a reverse gear, so it was cheaper to put in a 90-degree turn and bury them in the wall, rather than dismantle them and bring them out. The other machines are on show all over the place. At least one is a sculpture in the middle of a car roundabout in France.
85
Around 85% of the people taking their cars and vans through are basically from Britain. Only around 6% are French. So it turns out we like driving in France far more than they like driving here. They must have seen the M25 (M6, A14 etc etc).
20
Years old today.
^ I would love to use the Chunnel someday although it seems that they always have disruptions (fire, snow, wind, leaking, etc) so who knows if that will ever happen. ^
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.