LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Channel Tunnel
built 630 days ago
The whole of the Channel Tunnel route is within the Cretaceous layers that form the north slope of the Weald-Boulonnais Anticline. In France all three tunnels start within the flinty chalks of the Lower Senonian at the portal at Frethun. Proceeding generally down sequence the tunnels pass through Turonian chalks and into the clayey chalks of the Cenomanian, which then form the main tunnelling horizon right up to the UK portal. The UK portal at Castle Hill was constructed in a mixed face of the lowest Chalk Marl, Glauconitic Marl and topmost Gault Clay. The UK portal posed specific difficulties during construction as the tunnel passed through a major landslip at the base of Castle Hill. This was continually monitored by TML during construction while major remedial works were undertaken, including toe-weighting and drainage channels, in order to sufficiently stabilise it.
Source:
The Channel Tunnel is a 50.5 km-long rail tunnel beneath the English Channel at the Straits of Dover. It connects Dover, Kent in England with Calais, northern France. The undersea section of the tunnel is unsurpassed in length in the world. A proposal for a Channel tunnel was first put forward by a French engineer in 1802. In 1881, a first attempt was made at boring a tunnel from the English side; the work was halted after 800 m for political reasons. Again in 1922, English workers started boring a tunnel, and advanced 120 m before it too was halted for political reasons.
Source:
The Channel Tunnel features in the climax of the film Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996), in which Tom Cruise, clinging on to a high-speed train, is chased by a helicopter into what is supposedly the Channel Tunnel. The effects-driven sequence contains many factual errors in addition to the physical impossibility of such a feat. In the film the tunnel is shown as a single rectangular twin-track tunnel, and the trains shown are standard French TGVs but without overhead wires. In reality the Channel Tunnel uses separate single-track tunnels for the two directions of travel, while SNCF passenger trains do not operate in the tunnel. The sequence showing the train approaching the tunnel was reportedly filmed in the Upper Nithsdale valley on the Kilmarnock to Dumfries section of the Glasgow South Western Line in Scotland.
Source:
The Channel Tunnel consists of 3 separate tubes burried about 40 meters under the ground of the Sea. It's lenght is about 50 Km of which 38 Km are below the water. The outer North- and South tubes of 7,6 meters each contain a single lane railroad line. The middle tube of 4,8 meters is reserved for maintenance and emergency. The outer tubes are connected to each other to equalize air pressures from the running trains. The emergency tunnel , 8 meters between each outer tube is always separated by airtight shelter doors every 375 meters and is overpressurized.
Source:
Proposals for a Channel Tunnel have generally been confined to the area between Folkestone and St Margaret’s Bay on the English side and Cap Griz Nez and Calais on the French side. Here Britain is separated from France by only 20 miles or so of sea and the maximum depth is only about 220 feet.
Source:
The Channel Tunnel policy on transporting dangerous goods is based on the Europe-wide ADR set of rules, but it is somewhat stricter. Following a fire in 1996, certain goods cannot be transported, including certain explosives - those with the UN number UN0330 - and the substance p-Nitrosodimethylaniline (UN1369).
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Channel Tunnel