THE CHANNEL FERRY TO FRANCE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 46, 19 November 1918, Page 8

THE CHANNEL FERRY TO FRANCE

PASSENGER SERVICE OF THE FUTURE. The. Channel ferry; which was as much talked about before the war as the Channel tunnel, became an accomplished fact during the war. For some time past low-built ferry boats have been running between one of the Channel ports ami the French coast with trucks taken direct from our railways. On the other side of the Channel the wagons have been transferred from the ferry boats to tho French lines and so Iq their destination. The, service is working under Government control without a hitch, and is proving of the greatest value. After tho war it will bo readily adaptable to a service for passengers, who will enter the train in London and remain in their carriage until they alight in PaTis or Rome. It is thirteen years since Parliamentary power's were first obtained ' in the country to proceed with a train ferry service between England and France, but though a syndicate was formed, with Lord Weardale as chairman and the late Sir AVillinm Baker and Sir William Waite'as expert advisers, tho war came before tho project materialised, Even at that time there was nothing; new in tho idea. In Canada and the United States alone there are more than 7(1 train ferry services over ' the great lakes and rivers. On the Continent most travellers used to be familiar with .the service between Germany and Denmark, which, as the late Sir Charles Rivers Wilson once remarked, "enabled them to sleep as quietly as babes in their railway carriages while travelling across the Continent, and wake up on the other side of the water without having been disturbed, the train hdving been run on board ship while they slumbered." The chief engineering difficulty has always been to get a train on board ship when, oning to the tide, there is a variation of iiOft. or more, in the water level. This difficulty and others have been most successfully 'overcome by the Government. From the French side there has always been tho greatest encouragement for the Channel ferry, and it is interesting to recall that one of the earliest enthusiasts about the old scheme was M. Clenienceau himself.