This year marks the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Channel tunnel, Britain’s first fixed connection to the European mainland since the Channel washed away the land bridge probably about 450,000 years ago. The tunnel was the cause of much celebration. It was to be a gamechanger, cementing our links with Europe and providing a raft of exciting new services with high-speed trains to numerous destinations across Europe. There were to be Nightstar services linking Plymouth with Brussels and Swansea with Paris, and there was talk of trains running from Canterbury to Calais or Lille to Folkestone to allow cross-border employment.
The possibilities seemed endless and exciting, cementing relationships between the UK and its European neighbours. The Le Shuttle car service between Folkestone and Calais was expected to drive the ferries out of business, while the Eurostar train services linking London with Brussels and Paris would similarly end the frequent flights between these capitals. Moreover, freight trains would knock thousands of lorries off the roads, with an expectation that they would carry at least 10m tonnes of goods a year through the tunnel – a tenfold increase on the roll-on, roll-off ferries that were used by railway wagons.
