Channel Tunnel contractor trimming excavation with hydraulic air spade in the huge UK Crossover cavern (helpful sign behind).
The UK Crossover cavern was a huge excavation and over 49,000 cubic metres of rock were removed during its construction. To permit interchange between running tunnels, primarily to facilitate tunnel maintenance, the Channel Tunnel project incorporates two crossover caverns positioned under the Channel about a third of the way out from each portal. At the location of the UK crossover the service tunnel, normally positioned between the two running tunnels, deviates below and to the side to enable the running tunnels to come into juxtaposition over a distance of some 500 m. The central portion of this run is opened out as a single cavern measuring 165 m long, 22 m wide and 15 m high—large enough to accommodate a five-storey building and probably the largest undersea cavern built to date. The Channel Tunnel is no ordinary project. The four types of cross-channel service that the Tunnel offers - conventional freight and passenger trains, plus two types of road vehicle shuttle have made it into the busiest railway in the world. The fast and efficient movement of road and rail traffic into, through and out of the Eurotunnel system is integral to that success. The Channel Tunnel is one of the wonders of the modern world. It is thirty-two miles long at an average depth of 45 metres below the sea-bed, the longest undersea tunnel and the second longest rail tunnel in the world (only the Seikan Tunnel in Japan is longer). It was built between 1987 and 1994 by Anglo-French consortium TransManche Link and is owned and operated by Anglo-French Eurotunnel plc. It opened for business in late 1994, offering services including a shuttle train for car, coach and freight vehicles, a Eurostar high-speed passenger service linking London with Paris and Brussels and a rail freight service. The tunnel boring machines were specially designed for excavating the chalk marl rock which lies beneath the seabed along the tunnel route.
Size: 4966px × 4965px
Location: 40m under sea bed, 8kms from Dover, Europe.
Photo credit: © qaphotos.com / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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