The Channel Tunnel and the death of British ambition

New Labour were happy to inherit the privatised rail network of the Major government before them. But the same could not be said for Margaret Thatcher, who regarded it was “a privatisation too far”. As Baroness Thatcher, spruce in broad-brimmed hat and pearls, she was nevertheless also borne to Calais on the Queen’s train to see the Tunnel opened in 1994. And with fervent talk of the renationalisation of Britain’s motley railways today, it is extraordinary to think that, unlike Mitterand’s Grands Projets, the Channel Tunnel was a privately financed venture. Construction costs may have risen by 80%, from a planned £2.6 billion to £4.65 billion (in 1985 prices) before the Tunnel was complete, yet, unlike the financially incontinent HS2, it was completed successfully within just a few years.

From the beginning, the project revelled in its cosmopolitan continentalism. Freight locomotives, ferrying container lorries fetching and carrying what is now a quarter of all physical exports to and from Britain and Europe, were named after writers and composers: Molière, Émile Zola, Jane Austen, Debussy. But the names also served as a reminder of when cross-channel travel had been a far more precarious affair. One of those class 92 freight locos, Charles Dickens, had a more morbid symbolism, a reminder of the Victorian author’s fateful journey of 9 June 1865 through Kent on the boat train from Folkestone.

Dickens, his mistress Ellen Ternan and her mother, were on their way back to London from Paris. The 14-coach train departed Folkestone at 2.38pm. Half an hour later it was running at 50mph when the driver spotted danger ahead. With the locomotive thrown into reverse, speed was down to 30mph as the train approached the viaduct over the River Beault towards Staplehurst. Engineering works meant the track had been lifted. The boat train derailed, coaches tumbling into the river. Ten passengers were killed, 40 injured. Climbing out of a window, Dickens rushed to the aid of victims. He also managed to rescue the latest instalment of Our Mutual Friend he had been working on before the accident. Although physically unhurt, Dickens was scarred for life.

But that catastrophe aside, there had been several ways of getting from London to Paris pre-Tunnel. It must have been fun to choose between them. The Golden Arrow, a Pullman from Victoria connecting with the Flèche d’Or at Calais. The Night Ferry and its exotic French sleeping cars rumbling through south London. The Silver Arrow — train, coach, plane and Flèche d’argent train from Le Touquet. Then, ro-ro (roll-on, roll-off) ferries from 1953, and Hovercraft car ferries between 1968 and 2000. But from 1994 and even more so from 2007 when the superbly renovated and reconfigured St Pancras station, opened by Queen Elizabeth, took over from Waterloo International, Eurostar and Eurotunnel were the most obvious and smoothest way to go. In 2009, Eurotunnel shareholders were paid their first dividend.

“Lunch and an afternoon meeting in Paris; London that same evening”

And unlike other costly follies of the era — the Millennium Dome for instance — the Tunnel remains a rare example of an infrastructure project that did broaden horizons for the millions of people who used it. How special it was, when passenger trains began running through the tunnel in November 1994, to ride so effortlessly and so very quickly from London to Paris or Brussels. City centre to city centre it was faster than flying, more stylish and more relaxing. True, the British side of the track was slow-going then. But with HS1, the new line that, from November 2007, allowed Eurostars to insinuate a brilliantly engineered way through north Kent at a full 186mph, the route became preternaturally fast. Such was the speed that cars and lorries heading in the same direction along parallel autoroutes appeared to be accelerating flat out in reverse gear. And for foot passengers, it could mean lunch and an afternoon meeting in Paris; London that same evening. Parfait.

The Covid panic hit the operation hard. It has since got back up to speed. Now 30 years on, it remains a symbol of what can be done, of how transport infrastructure can be a marvel. In comparison HS2 is an embarrassment. Unlike the Channel project and HS1, it fails to stir the imagination. With the cancellation of its northern route, all it can offer for £100 billion or more is the possibility at some unspecified future date of a train from somewhere in London (Euston, Old Oak Common?) on a disruptive route to Birmingham in 52 minutes rather than the existing 66 minutes.

How might we revive the spirit of 1994? What about a truly high-quality cross country railway system connected to an equally impressive Northern network? What about the linking up of “Chunnel” trains, as was originally proposed, with other British cities? A revival of the idea of Nightstar sleepers through the tunnel? Car-carrying trains speeding through the Channel Tunnel to the South of France? And, of course, as the late Queen would surely have approved, dedicated carriages for dogs to travel by Eurostar with their human companions? All cordiale suggestions welcome. Palmerston be damned. The Channel Tunnel, 30 years on, deserves to be celebrated.