In the 25 years since it opened, the Channel Tunnel has been hailed as wonder of the modern world and become a vital link between the UK and mainland Europe
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Some 4.5 million UK tourists use the Channel Tunnel every year, with 1.6 million trucks transporting goods between the UK and the continent, making it worth around €140 billion per year to the UK and European economies, according toOne of the tunnel's boring machines hangs over a tunnel entrance on the French side of the Channel in 1988.The tunnel itself had been mooted for over 180 years before British and French workers broke ground and began digging towards each other in 1988.
"Mainstream travelers now come to my site," he says."When they tell me why they're going by rail rather than air, they say two things in the same breath: They're fed up to the back teeth of the airline experience and they want to cut their carbon footprint. It's like those two are flip sides of the same coin."
"Britain had to make use of existing lines running through one of the most intensively worked and congested commuter systems in the world," says Ed Bartholomew."That meant that for the first 13 years of operation, passenger trains ran into Waterloo station on a DC electric system and, almost comically, Eurostar trains capable of 300 kph had to pass over a manually operated level crossing gate just south of Ashford station.
It stands in stark contrast to the dingy, outdated Gare du Nord in Paris, where check in and passenger facilities remain underwhelming at best and cramped and uncomfortable at worst.Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Europe/Getty Images"Traveling on a high-speed railway line for the whole journey enabled the purchase of new state-of-the art trains with more capacity, onboard entertainment and Wi-Fi," Eurostar tells CNN.
That said, plans for services to Frankfurt via Cologne, run by the German national rail operator Deutsche Bahn , were shelved in June 2018 citing changes in the"economic environment," suggesting any newer routes are unlikely in the foreseeable future.
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