Inside the other Channel Tunnel you don't normally see

where we're going today is straight down here and into the service tunnel for the Channel Tunnel which provides us with an access for maintenance and most particularly for safety we are 25 metres below the surface in between the two running tunnels over here we've got the tunnel that runs from France to the UK and on my left we've got the north running tunnel which takes trains from the UK through to France well this time it's 50 kilometers long it runs from our terminal in Folkston right way through to our terminal in cacao here we're in one of the cross passages the cross passages link the service tunnel to the railway tunnels through that door now the doorway itself can be controlled from the railway control centre from inside the railway tunnel or from in here if necessary in the event of an incident on a train the train would stop just opposite this door the driver would contact the railway control centre the door would open as it opens a bubble of clean air would be blown into the railway tunnel so that anybody's stepping off the train would step straight through into a clean air environment through the door and then into the service tunnel just behind us so once we've evacuated the passengers from the incident train into the service tunnel we close this door we deal with the train in isolation people have dreamt about building the channel tunnel for more than 200 years and attemped have been made at different times and where we're standing now we are actually in today's tunnel but we're also standing in a tunnel that was built in 1974 and a tunnel that was first dug in the 1870s now these segments here behind me with the jersey iron cast-iron segments have got the day 1974 stamped on them and they were placed here by the engineers who were tunneling through in 1974 when they cut across the original workings from the 1870s this is the midpoint of the tunnel we're exactly halfway between France and the UK Folkston 25 kilometers in that direction and Kok L is 25 kilometers in that direction and above us there's a hundred metres until we get to sea level this is a place that it's been impossible to get to in the past this is the dry land route between France and the UK I think this is a really unique environment I don't think there is anywhere else like it in the world there's no other tunnel that creates such a link between an island nation and a continent there's nowhere else that is so far from the shores of those two countries and so to be here always gives you a little bit of a special feeling because it's such an unusual place to work

Channel: The Telegraph

Views: 1,074,719

Keywords: telegraph, Channel Tunnel (Tunnel), alastair good, drive, england, france, secret, film

Id: LAsCrHDaNMk

Length: 3min 2sec (182 seconds)

Published: Tue May 06 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/like_a_baws]

Really interesting. I wish this sub had more content like this, rather than just a constraint stream of politics.

[u/yer-what]

To be fair you don't normally see inside the main tunnels either. It's dark as fuck in there.

[u/makeinstall]

Chris Froome was the first to cycle the tunnel

[u/ValueBrandCola]

"The north running tunnel that takes trains from the UK through to France".

Wouldn't a train running from the UK to France be running south?

[u/Look_Alive]

He seems to like his job.

Wonder how long it would take to drive to that midpoint, it didn't look like they were going particularly quickly.

[u/squeaki]

We need to build a wall at that midpoint to keep the terrorists and Mexicans out (joking). I'd love to go through that tunnel in a Ferrari. With earplugs.

[u/dr_lm]

That was a great video, thanks for posting.

The child in me is reminded of a scene from the Wire, on the subject of evacuating people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeYwa-DCiWk