Channel Tunnel marine engineer at Shakespeare Cliff where gigantic lagoons were created to dispose of the excavated tunnel spoil
The disposal of excavated spoil from the UK undersea Channel Tunnels was a major logistic, environmental and planning issue. Under the terms of the Channel Tunnel Act, excavated spoil had to be contained in such a way that it couldn’t leach into the sea and be placed behind a robust seawall that could withstand storms. Efficient spoil disposal was critical to the project, any delays would cause the tunnelling to cease. The solution was a concrete seawall 1700 feet in length, contained by sheet piles. About five million m3 of spoil were dumped in five sequentially developed lagoons, all of which had to be closed before the spoil could be placed. At the completion of the project, this area was converted into a nature reserve, now called Samphire Hoe and open to the public. 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. Digging the tunnel took 15,000 workers around 170 million hours.
Size: 3044px × 3130px
Location: Shakespeare Cliff, Dover, UK
Photo credit: © qaphotos.com / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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