Calais

Channel Tunnel
Origins
Proposals and attempts
Key dates
1802
Albert Mathieu presented a proposal for cross-Channel tunnel.
1875
The Channel Tunnel Company Ltd. has started preliminary trials
1882
Cliff Abbot position had reached 897 feet (820 m) and at Shakespeare Cliff to 2,040 meters (1,870 ft) long
January 1975
A diet UKrance supported by the government which began in 1974 has been canceled
February 1986
The Treaty of Canterbury was signed allowing the project to proceed
June 1988
First tunnel began in France
December 1988
UK TBM began operations
December 1990
The service tunnel was bored under the English Channel
May 1994
The tunnel was officially opened by Her Majesty The Queen and President Mitterrand
Mid-1994
Freight trains and passengers began operations
November 1996
A fire in a shuttle truck severely damaged the tunnel
November 2007
High Speed 1, linking London to the tunnel opened
September 2008
Another fire in a shuttle truck severely damaged the tunnel
December 2009
Eurostar trains stuck in the tunnel due to condensation in equipment for electric trains
In 1802, French Albert Mathieu, a mining engineer has submitted a proposal to the Channel Tunnel, with the lighting of oil lamps, horse trainers, and an artificial island middle of the channel to change horses.
In the 1830s, French Goal Gamond Thom made the first geological and hydrographic Channel between Calais and Dover. Thom Gamond explored several schemes, and in 1856 he submitted a proposal to Napoleon III for a tunnel railway excerpt from Cap Gris Nez Eastwater Point with a port / ventilation shafts on the sandbank Varna at a cost of 170 million francs, or less than GB7 million.
Thom Gamond in 1856 the plan for a cross-channel connection with a port / ventilation shafts on the sandbank Varna mid-Channel
In 1865, a deputation led by George Ward Hunt proposed the idea of a tunnel to the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, William Ewart Gladstone.
After 1867, William Low and Sir John Clarke Hawkshaw promote ideas, but none have been implemented. An Anglo-French official protocol was created in 1876 for a cross-Channel rail tunnel. In 1881, British entrepreneur Sir William railway Watkin and the Suez Canal French entrepreneur Alexandre Lavalley were in the Anglo-French Society of Railway submarine that carried out exploration work on both sides of the Channel. The English side, a 2.13-meter (7 ft) diameter Beumont-English machine boring a tunnel dug driver 1893 meters (6211 feet) of Shakespeare Cliff. The French side a similar machine dug 1669 meters (5476 feet) of Sangatte. The project was abandoned in May 1882 because of British political and press campaign advocating a tunnel would compromise the national defenses of Great Britain. These early works were encountered over a century later during the project TML.
In 1955, the defense's arguments were accepted as irrelevant because of the dominance of air power, and the British and French governments supported technical and geological studies. Work began on both sides of the Channel in 1974, a project funded by the government using twin tunnels each side of a service tunnel, with a capacity for cars car shuttle. In January 1975, to the chagrin of the French partners, the British government canceled the project. The government had changed the Labour Party and there was uncertainty about joining the EC, the cost estimates have risen 200% and the national economy was troubled. At that time, the British priestly TBM was ready and the Department of Transport was able to make a record of 300 m experimental. However, this short tunnel would be reused as a starting point and access to operations on the British side tunnel.
In 1979.