CHANNEL TUNNEL

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 102, 2 May 1930, Page 10

CHANNEL TUNNEL

OPERATING BY 1940 ? ENTHUSIASTIC SUPPORT. In a cable message from London it i≤ stated that Mr. Kamsay MacDouald. in reply to a question in the House of Commons stated that the question of the Channel Tunnel linking Britain with the Continent by a submarine railway line was under consideration by experts. He classified the project as the largest scheme of national policy at present before the Government, Enthusiastic support is given the Channel Tunnel seneme in Britain by business men, traders and hotel owners, and, it has been stated, the Cabinet is unanimous in favour of the plan. The tunnel will reduce the time ot the journey from London to Paris to less than five hours, passage through the tunnel occupying about three-quarters of an hour. The Committee of Imperial Defence no longer objects to the enterprise on grounds of security. The tunnel can be completed and in working order by 1940, say the engineers, if Parliament will endorse the report of the committee of the Economic Advisory Council, and grant the Channel Tunnel Company the powers to proceed. A French company put forward a scheme for building a new electric railway, with a 7ft gauge, from Paris to the coast, and a new electric railway from Dover to London, and promised that electric trains would do the journey between the two capitals by way of the tunnel in 21 hours. But "the Advisory Council have ruled that schenio out as being too costly, and recommended the xi.se of the existing railways in France and England. The traveller in 1940, if the tunnel is then in existence, will travel by steam train, as now, from London to handling Junction, a few miles on the London side of I'olkestone. There an electric locomotive will replace the steam locomotive, and the train will go forward to the tunnel. For three or four miles the train will travel above ground and plunge into the tunnel just behind Folkestone Town. The tunnel will run parallel with the seashore for four or live miles and then gradually bear right and pass beneath the channel at a point about two miles west of Dover. For 25 miles the tunnel will continue under the sea and emerge beneath the cliffs at Sangatte, which is several miles from Calais in the direction of Boulogne At Sangatte the tunnel will make a right-angle turn and run almost due south for seven miles. The train will emerge from the tunnel between the villages of Hervelinghen and Marquise and carry on above ground to Marquise. Here the electric locomotive will complete its journey, and the train will be taken on to Paris by one of the steam locomotives of the Northern Railway. The tunnel will be at its deepest when passing under the cliffs between Folkestone and Dover en the English side and under the Sangatte cliffs in France. A • severe blow would be dealt to the present cross-channel traffic from Dover and Folkestone by the construction of the tunnel. On the evidence before them, the council say that the existing boat services between Dover-Folkestone and Boulogne-Calais would be withdrawn. The sea service between Dover and Ostend would continue.