Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 6, 1994 TAG: 9405060100
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: FOLKESTONE, ENGLAND LENGTH: Medium
Chances are that neither the island nor the continent will be the same again.
Called the Chunnel by supporters and the Funnel by competitors and skeptics, the 30.7-mile tube 130 feet below channel waters is already a year behind schedule, has cost more than double original estimates and won't be open to the general public for months.
But its social and economic impact already is felt around this small coastal town in the millionaires' row county of Kent and across the channel in Calais, where the English and French talk and trade as never before in anticipation of the bridge under the sea.
Praise pours in for the tunnel's potential to warm human relations between Britain and the continent. Despite the project's deep financial troubles, delays and doubts about prospects for success, London's Evening Standard newspaper labeled it "The tunnel of love."
Criticizing the British national habit of "whining" about everything, especially when it involves the French, the paper said, "Let us have the style and the vision to welcome [the tunnel] for what it is: a good thing."
The tunnel - three parallel tunnels, really - is a technological wonder. One tunnel takes cars, trucks, buses, freight and passengers by rail from England to France. A second does the same from France to England. Sandwiched in between is a smaller service tube.
With 24 of its 30.7 miles below the sea bed, it is the world's longest undersea tunnel, an engineering marvel that has taken six years and almost $16 billion to complete.
Bored mainly through watertight chalk marl rock, the tunnel is supposed to be nature-safe against leaks. Operators and engineers swear it's as secure as can be against terrorists, fire and rabies-bearing foxes and rats, about which the British are near-paranoid.
No sooner will the queen and president inaugurate their shared engineering achievement, however, than the tunnel will be closed again for more safety and performance checks.
Gradually over the summer, it will open to freight and later to special passenger trips by invitation only and for people who had bought tickets before the latest delay. By fall, the tunnel may be open to the general public. Given its history, though, analysts doubt it will be fully up and running until next spring.
By missing the summer tourist season, Eurotunnel, the tunnel operators, will lose millions of dollars to ferries, hovercraft and airlines that are gearing up to meet the competition. Eurotunnel is already $10 billion in debt and soon must raise $1.6 billion to stay afloat.
Prior to the tunnel's christening, even the most cynical critics were trying to put the best face on it.
"However long and hard you look at Eurotunnel, it is difficult to feel optimistic," wrote Michael Smith, business editor of the Observer newspaper, ticking off the project's repeated delays and financing and debt problems. "But if it is difficult to strike a cheerful note amid all this gloom, I have a feeling that the project may have struck its lowest ebb."
According to plans, Queen Elizabeth and 800 of her and the tunnel's closest friends will speed through the tube first. They will travel free, avoiding ticket prices that range from $340-$480 per car and passengers for a round-trip fare.
They were to board a train at Waterloo station in London and arrive in Calais one hour and 50 minutes later. The trip through the tunnel will take 30 minutes, 50 minutes faster than by ferry and 20 minutes faster than by hovercraft.
After a tour of the Calais terminal, lunch, speeches and a formal dedication on French soil, Mitterrand, the son of a slow-speed railroad man, and the queen will zip back through the tunnel for a ceremonial repeat, minus another lunch, at the Folkestone terminal on the English side.
Even when the tunnel opens to the public, the high-speed trains that eventually will take passengers from London to Paris in three hours instead of the current seven won't be fully running until at least the year 2000.
The French have completed their bullet-train line, which hurtles trains from Lille to Paris at speeds of up to 185 mph, and will add a leg to Calais by September. But the British are at least $5.6 billion and six years away from completing their Folkestone-to-London route.
by CNB