Reading
1. For many years, England and France wanted to link their two countries with a train tunnel under the English Channel. This was a huge challenge for the British and French engineers. The tunnel would have to be 50 kilometers long – one of the longest in the world. But more importantly, it would have to be safe.
2. Since much of the tunnel would be underwater, an accident inside the tunnel could be a disaster. So the engineers built an escape route. The Channel Tunnel is actually there tunnels side by side. Two of the tunnels are for trains. In between these two tunnels is a smaller tunnel which is used by railway workers. This maller tunnel can also be used to get people out if there is an accident.
3. The Channel Tunnel was built by two teams of workers digging from both sides of the Channel. The work was started in 1987 and both teams raced to reach the middle of the tunnel first. They used huge machines, called borers which could dig 75 meters a day. The amount of rock and dirt removed by these machines increased the size of Britain by 36 hectares!
4. By the time the Channel Tunnel opened in 1994, almost 13,000 people had worked on the project. Today trains travel through the tunnel at 160 kilometers an hour, and it’s possible to get from one end to the other in just twenty minutes!