30 years of the Channel Tunnel
With the Channel Tunnel recently celebrating its 30th anniversary, it is well worth remembering just how brilliant an achievement it was to build a railway under the sea in the first place (even if we don’t get to wave at the fish!).
The American Society of Civil Engineers selected the Channel Tunnel as one of ‘the Seven Wonders of the Modern World’, and it is very easy to see why, but what could this extraordinary feat of engineering inspire in us today? How much more we could do to connect countries by rail?
Incredibly, the idea of a tunnel under the English Channel was first mooted in 1802 by French mining engineer Albert Mathieu-Favier and had fans ever since from Napoleon to Brunel, Churchill and Lloyd George. The official protocol for the tunnel was established in 1876 yet war, or the threat of war, consistently impeded attempts to realise the dream. Construction did eventually start on a tunnel in 1974, but the 1975 Labour government cancelled the project, unsure about our future relationship with the European Economic Community (ill-advised infrastructure cancellations have clearly not been the exclusive preserve of any political party). Thatcher and Mitterrand got the ball finally rolling in 1985 and, with the tunnel complete by 1994, we may marvel today that such a transformative rail infrastructure project could be completed in a mere nine years while it takes ten years to get a railway footbridge built in the UK at the moment.
World-beating? The Channel Tunnel certainly was, except it connected countries rather than setting any in competition. Transport has a knack of doing that.
I was lucky enough to live in Paris in the late noughties. Great times, wonderful city, and even in those days there was urban transport infrastructure to relish, with mayor Bernard Delanoë (also to be thanked for introducing the Vélib bike-sharing scheme) putting car parks underground and creating a huge network of beautiful boulevard cycle paths. With family and friends in London, travelling back and forth was simple and affordable, and could be done at short notice without worrying too much about cost or complication.
Fast forward fifteen years, and it is a different story. We talk a lot about the cost of travelling by train in the UK having outpaced the cost of driving for too long, but the cost of international rail has simply skyrocketed. It used to be a clear competitor to aviation; now it has unfortunately become a luxury option, out of reach for the vast majority of people. There are a range of reasons for this: Brexit, post-pandemic debt recovery, Eurostar’s default monopoly without any UK government stake (since we sold it so short-sightedly in 2015) and track access charges. The price rise is a serious symptom of a major problem and a missed opportunity.
Could things ever improve? Before they do, to add to present challenges there is the launch of the new European Entry and Exit System later this year, meaning that anyone travelling in and out of the EU will need to submit biometric information before checking in. This is expected to slow things down significantly at first, but after a time it is hoped to make the process smoother for passengers. Then, what might we reasonably hope for? Frankly, we should hope and aim for a lot.
We have reason to be optimistic and ambitious in exploring what our extraordinary international rail connection can do for us. That’s why we are calling on the UK Government to develop a codified international rail strategy, committing to ambitious targets for growth. With a surprising amount of unused capacity on the current network, we should be doing everything possible to enable more trains to run to current destinations, to reopen Ashford and Ebbsfleet and to make rail the first choice for all to travel to Europe.
On fares, train operators should be working together, promoting and selling combined tickets – Manchester to Montpellier, Leeds to Lyon, Bristol to Brussels – this can and should be done. If Great British Railways progresses as planned by both main parties, perhaps such partnership promotions will become easier? We know that simplicity and value work for the public.
Beyond this, there are prospects for new stations with requisite border controls across Europe to add more destinations for through travel from the UK without changing at Paris or Brussels, and there is cause for optimism with at least three prospective new operators on the tunnel, some of whom, if we have anything to do with it, may be persuaded to take a look at the passenger-ready Stratford International.
Rather than allowing managed decline on international rail, let’s take this moment to not just reflect on 30 years of the Channel Tunnel and the realisation of a wonderful dream, but to continue and expand on that dream. We should aim for a future where rail truly connects us internationally, fulfils and surpasses the brilliant ambitions of those great 19th and 20th Century visionaries. We owe it to them and to ourselves to make much, much more of this opportunity.
