A history of the building of the Channel Tunnel, which connects England and France, with emphasis on the difficulties of digging a tunnel where some engineers said it could not be done.

The Channel Tunnel, has been one of histories most protracted and at times acrimonious, construction projects. From the paranoia of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when there was a fear that foreign hordes would rush through the tunnel and invade Britain, to the lethargic attempts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its a miracle, that this great feat of Engineering, was ever constructed at all. Nicholas Faith, has delved into the archives and researched the fascinating truth about this project, that took so long to authorise and construct. The author has found material in the archives, both in Britain and abroad, that has not been previously published or seen, outside a closed group of people.

The Channel Tunnel is a huge construction project, employing over 14,000 people at peak, and costing over 15611 billion of private money. It has succeeded in spite of great financial, political and techncial difficulties, and a fundamentally flawed contract. This book tells the story of the project, based on the coverage in Construction News and with commentary taken from recent interviews with key project sources.

The Channel Tunnel may be the greatest engineering project in Europe this century. This book describes the tremendous engineering achievement of the construction of the tunnel. Written by twenty of the key engineers involved, it provides a fascinating, informative and inspiring account of the project for both engineering professionals and general readers.

Commissioned by the Cabinet Office and using hitherto untapped British Government records, this book presents an in-depth analysis of the successful project of 1986-94. This is a vivid portrayal of the complexities of quadripartite decision-making (two countries, plus the public and private sectors), revealing new insights into the role of the British and French Governments in the process. This important book, written by Britain’s leading transport historian, will be essential reading for all those interested in PPPs, British and European economic history and international relations. The building of the Channel Tunnel has been one of Europe’s major projects and a testimony to British-French and public-private sector collaboration. However, Eurotunnel’s current financial crisis provides a sobering backcloth for an examination of the British Government’s long-term flirtation with the project, and, in particular, the earlier Tunnel project in the 1960s and early 1970s, which was abandoned by the British Government in 1975.

This book approaches the English Channel as a border which connected, as much as it separated, France and England in the eighteenth century.

In a "business narrative of high risk and high finance, of culture clashes and reckless blunders," the author explains the tunnel from an engineering standpoint and also from the viewpoint of the financiers who had planned to make money on the project.