Channel Tunnel PROJECT LIKELY TO BE ADOPTED SOON

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29171, 4 April 1960, Page 10

Channel Tunnel PROJECT LIKELY TO BE ADOPTED SOON

(By "LYNCBUS" of th* "Economist") I From th* •Economist" Intelligenc# Unit]

London, March 23.—We can expect definite and favourable news about the Channel Tunnel project in the very near future. The reports on the feasibility of this undertaking prepared for the Channel Tunnel Study Group have been completed and are now circulating among the interested British and French Governments, the railway undertakings on both sides of the Channel, and some of the main financial sponsors of the plan. These include the Suez Canal Company, which has decided to utilise part of the funds it can no longer use in operating its former property in or “ er . t ° finance the somewhat contrasted project of traversing a tongue of water and not, as with the canal, a tongue of land. The report has been ready for some time, but for highly appropriate sentimental reasons it tn®y be decided to publish it together with the interested Governments views on it during the impending visit of President de Gaulle to Britain. No better or more suitably timed launching platform could be imagined. Strategic Objection Gone Three main hurdles have now been successfully vaulted. In the first place the “all clear” has been given to the project on political and strategic grounds. There is still a lunatic fringe of old generals in Britain who look on the project as a menace to Britain and as a possible channel of invasion. Their ideas are clearly pre-nuclear and have been received with no more than amused interest. On the French side some political objections have been raised to a channel which might represent a kind of umbilical cord between the Common Market and the “outer" Europeans. This isolationist and protectionist attitude can similarly be disregarded and relegated to an equally lunatic fringe. The second set of problems to be considered were the much more factual issues of technical feasibility. A great deal of work has been done on this by way of preliminary soundings and test borings of the Channel bed. The verdict is satisfactory. With the use of new techniques, including precast concrete, it will probably be shown that the tunnel can be built at more economic cost than some of the earlier estimates have suggested. These have run up to a total of £2OO million. On the scheme which is most likely to be adopted, namely that of two rail tunnels plus a service tunnel but no road tunnel, the cost is

likely to prove appreciably small** than this figure—probably between £l5O million and £l7O million. ; The third set of problems that had to be analysed was concern** with the commercial feasibility of the project. Careful estimates have been made of the traffic that would be diverted to and attracted by the Tunnel. On the assumption of a capital outlay of even £3OQ million and of the interest and amortisation this would represent the investigation which has now been completed suggests that th* project could be a highly profit, able commercial proposition. “Keyhole” View of Report The report submitted some tima ago to the study group has been circulating as a highly confidential document but an intrignimt “keyhole” view of it has been vouchsafed by an address given recently to the Institute of Tran*, port by Mr A. Cameron, a high executive of the British Tran*. port Commission, who has evidently given the document a care, ful study. From what he said it would ap. pear that the intention is to build two main tunnels through which passenger, car, and goods traffir will be carried on express service lines. For the all-important traffic in cars, it is proposed to instal double-decker trains each of which would take up to 300 cars and which, with six trains per hour, would give a peak capacity of 1800 cars per hour, or well in excess of the probable capacity of a road tunnel. Since the trains would be electrically driven and travel at speeds which would provide automatic ventilation of the tunnel, this would avoid the major disadvantage of a road tunnel, the cost of ventilating, which wouM be considerable and would involve technical problems of great difficulty. Apart from motor-car trains, the tunnel would also run passenger trains which would provide a nonstop hourly service between London and Paris, a journey which would take a little over four hours. The commercial traffic would in part be handled by lowloading rail waggons carrying lorries up to 12ft 6in high. To deal with this freight traffic there would be marshalling yards at each end of the tunnel sorting waggons for Britain and the Continent. Quicker than Air?

The tunnel would be signalled as is the underground in London to allow three-minute intervals between trains moving at equal speed and a record density of both passenger and goods traffic could thus be maintained. It is evident that in respect of both types of traffic-passenger and freight—the Channel Tunnel would provide fierce competition against alternative surface and air transport. Allowing for journeys from the centres of the capitals to their airports the time of travel betwen London and Paris would probably be quicker by rail than by air. For Britain, and particularly for its relations with Europe, this single project is in some respects of greatest significance than either the Common Market or the Free Trade Association. Whatever methods may be devised for bridging these two groups— and promising plans were concocted at the recent E.F.TA., meeting in Vienna —the building of the tunnel will put Britain in Europe in a way in which physically it has never been placed before. The force of this highly practical argument will outweigh other considerations, which, whether on British or Continental initiative, have kept Britain somewhat at arm’s length from the European Community. The tunnel will be the symbol of Britain’s link with Europe; it will inevitably lead to a closer integration of British industry and finance with the economy of Europe.