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Eurotunnel

Eurotunnel is 50.5km long tunnel under sea between France and United Kingdom. 

Here is some specifications about tunnel:


Lenght: 50.5 km

Lowest point: 75m

2 single track (1435mm) tubes

1 service tube

Electrified railroad – 25kV

Operating speed – 160km/h

Travel time: 35min 













History of tunnel

1802Ideas for a tunnel connecting England and France have been in existence since at least 1802, when French engineer Albert Mathieu proposed an underground highway for horse-drawn carriages, with an island in the middle for changing your steed.



1856The first serious railway connection proposal came in 1856, again from the French, when surveyor Aimé Thomé de Gamond suggested to Emperor Napoleon III that a tunnel could be mined out, but the scheme was not taken any further.



1980'sIt wasn't until the 1980s that a coalition of French and British leaders invited private companies to put forward plans for an international link. Ideas mooted included a 4.5km suspension bridge, holding a road encased in a tube, a drive-through tunnel and, of course, today's high-speed rail link.



1988Once a decision was made construction was able to begin in 1988, with the tunnel being dug simultaneously from France and Britain. It was at the time the most expensive construction project ever proposed and the cost finally came in at £9 billion.



Giant boring machines were used to shift tonnes of rock and soil every day. Some of the machines were built especially for the job, with a combination of extremely high pressure water jets and rotating disc cutters used to burrow through the land beneath the Channel. The spoil from tunnelling was used to create a 73 acre hoe on Britain's coast, on the French side their spoil was piled up into a new hill.



1990On December 1 1990 a Frenchman and an Englishman shook hands in front of the World's media, through a hole connecting the two tunnel ends.



1994The completed project was opened by Queen Elizabeth II and French President François Mitterrand on May 6 1994.



                                                                                                                                                                                                               By Eurotunnel official

Passanger train

Loading train with cars

Freight train

Loading HUCKEPACK wagons

Main purpose of this site is to provide railway informations to all railway lovers all informations aren't 100% accurate and half of them are downloaded from other sites like wikipedia and so on.

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