Channel Tunnel Green Paper says Brussels axle weight discussions crucial
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5 to 8m freight tons a year, no concession to BR
from our Parliamentary correspondent
• Freight services would provide the proposed Channel Tunnel operators with between £.14m and 18m of their revenue if the tunnel opened in 1980, rising, to between £26m and £35m in 1990.
These estimates were disclosed in a Government Green Paper published on Wednesday setting out the basis on which the Cabinet will decide in July whether to proceed with the project.
Preliminary studies indicate that between 5m and 8m tons of freight might go through the 'tunnel in a year. The Green Paper makes it clear that there would be no concessions for British Rail: services supplied by the tunnel operators would be "on a commercial basis".
Further studies are in progress to break down the estimated figures by commodity groups, value, origin and destination and these are expected to be completed by early summer.
The Green Paper confirms that the 066m project could be open in 1980 if a final decision to go ahead is taken this year. The tunnel would run between Folkestone and Calais and would provide two types of service; "rolling motorway" vehicle ferry service and normal through-rail passenger motorail and Freightliner container services. A shuttle service of drive-on/drive-off ferry trains could run at least every four minutes at peak periods, the Green Paper says.
Lorries and trailers would be carried separately in specially designed single-deck wagons some of which would be open sided with special enclosed seating areas for drivers, but all other ferry trains would be fully closed.
Cars would be carried in either double-deck wagons or in single-deckers which would also carry coaches. Vehicles would be driven on and off the ferry trains by their own drivers. Tests have shown that trains could be unloaded and reloaded for departure in 10 minutes overall.
The overall time from entry to one terminal to emerging from the other is expected to be about one hour --faster than any existing sea ferry service and advance booking is unlikely to be necessary. Further studies are being made of the dimensions of road vehicles likely to use the tunnel and these in turn would affect the size of the rolling stock needed and hence the size of the tunnel.
The design of the wagons would also be affected by decisions on the gross axle weights of vehicles to be carried and here the negotiations in Brussels will be crucial.
It is proposed that there should be three tunnels — two main ones each with a single rail track and a service tunnel slightly below the main tunnels. Each tunnel would