CHANNEL TUNNEL

Evening Star, Issue 20138, 1 April 1929, Page 10

CHANNEL TUNNEL

THIRTY-SIX MILES LONG PLANS NOW READY An overwhelming public demand for a Cham.cl tunnel—based on the work it would give to the unemployed and flic .stimulus to British trade—was translated when Parliament met into a demand by M.P.s for a_revision of the decision of the Imperial Delenee Committo in d 924 against the project. Plans have been prepared tor the work, and engineers arc confident that it can be carried out without serious difficulty. From mouth to mouth the tunnel will bo thirty-six miles long, while the under-water-- section will be twentyfour miles in length, and 100 ft below the sea, bed, .says an English newspaper. Tlie entrance in Franco will 1,0 at Sangatte, about two miles south of Calais,'and at a point twelve miles farther to the south (ho tunnel railI way lines will join those running direct I to Paris, The exact entrance on the British .side is a matter to be determined in consultation with flu; military authorities, hut it will probably be in the neighbourhood of Tilmanstoiie, north of Shakespeare Cliff, where a new railway line may bo constructed to link up w illi the existing Southern Bailway tracks at Folkestone. | There will be two circular Ira flic tunnets, one for trains in each dircclion, and a drainage tunnel below. The traffic tunnels will be 18ft in diameter, formed of cast-iron plates with a thick layer of concrete outside. They will bo connected at intervals by crosspassages. The railway tracks in them will he on the Berne gauge, which, _ with the exception of Russia, is universal in Europe. This differs from the gauge on British railways by less than threesixteenths of an inch—so that British rolling stock can he nm with perfect safety, as it docs now via the Harwich ferry. VENTILATION. Haulage will be by electric locomotives coupled to the coaches brought by steam engines to each end of the tunnel, and the actual time from mouth to mouth is estimated at fortylive minutes. Ventilation will he by I electric fans driving air into one end I and sucking it out at the other. I Such is a picture of the tunnel when ] complete—a. tunnel which would cn- ' able passengers to make the journey from London to Paris without change of carria&a in about five hours, and to continue, still without change of carriage, to Madrid, Rome, Berlin, or Constantinople. The total time required for construction is estimated at 4} years, and when the engineers receive the word “Go” this is how they will proceed:—They will begin in England and Franco .simultaneously, to meet under the Channel. Giant electric power stations will bo built at each end, and then workmen will begin to bore into the earth. Shafts will he sunk on each side, and from those, will start first a pilot tunnel —afterwards to bo converted into one of the traffic tunnels—and below it the drainage tunnel, both 12ft in diameter. Very deep at each end, the drainage I tunnel will slope gradually upwards Tn

each direction to the meeting midway beneath the Channel in a gradient of 1 in uUO. which is adequate to run off by gravity any water that may enter it. Behind the boring machine will conic the “Greathead” grouting , machine providing a concrete lining ior the tunnel.

'When the French and British engineers meet in' mid-Channel and so complete these preliminary borings, the pilot tunnel will be enlarged to full size, and then, and then only, will begin the work of boring the second traffic tunnelContinental authorities arc of the opinion that a British tunnel is the most essential link in all the Continental schemes, and that it is tho only means whereby valuable ideas oi .trade revival could be put into operation. Commercial interests all over the world look upon a, Channel tunnel not as a means for a pleasant crossing, but as an important economic iactor in world trade. A German authority , tore sees deeLie trains carrying British goods at high speed all over Europe, Asia, and Africa, and carrying commodities back to Britain. The revival of the Channel tunnel scheme has already set in motion many other projects all over the Continent, and important Continental firms have been in correspondence with British business men with a view to utilising the prospects for large business extensions, MONOXIDE POISONING.

Among the ardent supporters of tlio project "arc many motorists. They hope not merely for a railway which will earrv their ears under tho Channel and so avoid tho troublesome business of getting them hoisted on to and off a steamer, but later for a submarine roadway scheme, “A motor road under tin Cnannclr Impossible!” a prominent engineer said. “ You could have a but not for petrol motors. It couldn’t be ventilated. Everybody would die of carbon monoxide poisoning long before thev reached France.”