Eurotunnel - the Channel Tunnel Company
Groupe Eurotunnel S.A. transports yearly around 7 million passengers with it's own fleet of trains. The Eurostar in comparison tranports 9 million passengers using it's trains and Eurotunnel infrastructure.
   
 History * The Channel Tunnel * Operations and Services * Rolling Stock * Future Visions *
 

Eurotunnel shuttle locomotives class 9 9112, 9111 and 9027 are waiting for the loading unloading to be finished before dashing for the next time through the Channel tunnel.
   

 History of Eurotunnel
The Groupe Eurotunnel S.A. was founded in 1986 to finance, build and operate the tunnel between U.K. and France. The tunnel building was finished in 1994 and operations started that year, but the company was by then in severe debts due to doubling of the cost of building the link. After restructuring the company was finally showing a small profit of 1 million euros in 2007. Since then the Eurotunnel has been showing great initiative on building the business around the Tunnel.

An Eurostar unit number 3019 dashes out of the tunnel. Eurostar is by far the largest customer of the Eurotunnel, but others like the SNCF and DB (Deutsche Bahn) are as well entering the lucrative market, once the tunnel safety rules are rewritten. This does NOT mean compromising the rules but taking into account the experiences learned from the rare earlier fires and the Eurostar train failures. 
  To the top of the page  

 The Channel Tunnel 
The Channel Tunnel has always been an obstacle between United Kingdom and France. Already in xxxx the tunnel was visioned to have a bore with a cart drawn by horses. It took till the 20th century, before the tunnel was seriously put forward. Because of extensive planning, the safety considerations are strict and thorough, with two bores for trains and a safety and service tunnel in between those.  The service tunnel is wide enough, so two vehicles can pass each other and the train tunnels have platforms to help evacuation in case of emergency. This feature has proven very helpful when train failures or truck fires have occurred. 

Above a diagram of the Channel tunnel structure and below a generic drawing of the structure the other way.

The tunnel itself is built of reinforced concrete, well suitable of handling any conditions under water. These tunnels have been partly rebuilt after the extreme heat during the fires. 

 
   
   

To help operations on loading and unloading cars and trucks through the tunnel and service the trains, Eurotunnel has built impressive service areas both in U.K. (above) and France (below). Millions of cars each year use these facilities to move from one country to another.

   
 Operations and Services
To be added soon. 

Picture: One of the many services provided by Eurotunnel is this intermodal freight through the Channel Tunnel between U.K. and France. Here a formation of well and flat cars is led by Eurotunnel class 92 electric locomotive number 027.
   

  To the top of the page