They opened up the Beaumont tunnel of 1880 to find that it was still intact, despite the fact that it had never been lined.īut within 2 years, the optimism had vanished and the project was cancelled by the British government again, although for a more complex set of political Last obstacle to construction of a tunnel had disappeared and by 1973, work had re- started in a blaze of optimism. Oddly enough, it was not until after the two World Wars that the British defence objection to a Channel tunnel was finally dropped. Senior members of the British defence establishment were still obsessed by the fear of invasion and persuaded the government to stop the project. A French team of engineers began work on a similar tunnel from Sangatte. That bored nearly 2 km of undersea tunnel from Dover. Colonel Beaumont, a British military engineer, led a construction team In the 1880s, it did begin to seem as though the dream of a tunnel would be realized. To France only to be reimported by British shoppers or ‘bootleggers.’Ĥ THE CHANNEL TUNNEL (Sea Link) – A Project Management Perspective
Much of it is British beer that has been exported It is estimated that 20% of the bottled or canned beer consumed in Britain is bought in France. Have now been succeeded by a much less romantic breed of villain who take advantage of the sharp differences in excise duty between Britain and its The south coast of England closest to France has many relics of the illegal trade, and the 18th- century smugglers Short enough?’ Many people did not share Palmerston’s distaste for things French.Įven during Anglo-French hostilities, there was still a ready market in Britain for French wines and brandy and cross-Channel trade continued without Palmerston, the Tory Prime Minister, greeted one proposal with the words, ‘You surely do not expect me to agree to shorten a distance I already consider With considerable suspicion, particularly after the Napoleonic campaigns earlier in the century, and were reluctant to end their ‘splendid isolation.’ Lord The British viewed their continental neighbours If anything, the risks of such an accident would have been even greater during construction than duringģ THE CHANNEL TUNNEL (Sea Link) – A Project Management Perspectiveĭespite the French enthusiasm for a tunnel, actual excavation did not start until the latter 19th century. Any bridge or other structure in the Channel would almostĬertainly be rammed by a ship in due course. The Channel is the busiest seaway in the world, with over 600 shipping movements each day. This accident of geology was one of the two reasons why the fixed link is a tunnel and not a bridge. That at an average depth of about 40 m below the seabed, the chalk merged with clay to form an almost uniform stratum of chalk marl, probably the best Using the gas-lit tunnel would come above ground to change the horses.Īlthough Desmarets is the first documented proponent of a fixed link, the generally acknowledged ‘Father of the Tunnel’ was the 19th century FrenchĮngineer Thomé de Gamond whose investigation of the seabed-at great personal risk-was the groundwork for the eventual Eurotunnel project.ĭe Gamond showed that the chalk measures underlying Kent and Nord/Pas de Calais also lay beneath the seabed. One proposal by Hector Thoreau involved two artificial islands where stagecoaches Since this was before theĭevelopment of railways, these tunnels were inevitably road tunnels. Other than military action, the main reasons were to do with trade.įor the next 100 years, a succession of mainly French proposals emerged with increasingly sophisticated ideas for the new link. In thoseĭays, cross-Channel travel was not dominated by the leisure business as it is today.
In 1751, the Academy of Amiens launched aĬompetition on how to cross the Channel and history records that the winner was Nicolas Desmarets, who suggested construction of a tunnel. As much as 250 yearsĪgo, people in France, at least, were trying to think of a better way than boat of crossing the Channel. 30Ģ THE CHANNEL TUNNEL (Sea Link) – A Project Management PerspectiveĪlthough the Channel Tunnel between England and France only opened for business in 1994, the story of the project is far, far longer. MAJOR AREAS OF STRENGTH, OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT & LESSONS LEARNED.
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL (Sea Link) – A Project Management Perspectiveġ THE CHANNEL TUNNEL (Sea Link) – A Project Management PerspectiveĪ 250-YEAR DREAM. 0 THE CHANNEL TUNNEL (Sea Link) – A Project Management Perspective