High-Speed Connection

By Amy Mason Doan
Photographs by QA Photos/Rail Link Engineering

When British Prime Minister Tony Blair attended the opening of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link’s first section on September 28, 2003, he joked that “there aren’t many prime ministers or even ministers who launch an infrastructure project in front of the words ‘on time, on budget.’”

Those four little words are all the more impressive given the many engineering accomplishments that made up the five-year project. Section 1 of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) is the UK’s first high-speed rail line and its first major rail undertaking in more than a century. Trains running at up to 300 kilometers per hour shaved the one-way travel time from London to Paris and Brussels by 20 minutes, luring new day travelers and enticing others to make the switch from flying.

But making things so easy for passengers could not have been harder for the project team. Combining the new high-speed line with the UK’s antiquated rail networks required a painstaking fusion process. Trains had to be outfitted to run on both the newest and oldest tracks in Western Europe. One of the bridges constructed along the route qualifies for the record books as the longest ever built in Europe for high-speed rail. And just to keep things from getting dull, fate threw in a record flood in 2000.

British Parliament authorized the CTRL in 1996, sending the country on its way to joining the high-speed rail club. CTRL is the biggest public-private partnership in Britain’s history, so the team was under pressure to demonstrate that the “yea” votes had been wise.

Building the 74-kilometer section of railway from Fawkham Junction in north Kent southeast to the Channel Tunnel involved more than just laying track and stringing overhead wires. Thoroughfares were rerouted. Golf courses and go-cart tracks were transplanted. A team of 35 ecologists reseeded fields and carefully moved ancient woods and such wildlife species as voles, badgers, and dormice.

Several historically significant structures, such as a Georgian farm and a 16th-century timber-framed home, had to be preserved. A dozen buildings were moved, either in one piece on rollers or brick by tedious brick.

The team faced tight deadlines almost from day one. In late 2000, just as major grading and track laying projects were set to begin, England experienced its worst flooding in 200 years. Schedules had to be pushed back. The difficulty of coordinating plans with the many subcontractors and regulating bodies was also an early concern.

“We were nervous at many stages during the run-up,” says Paul Charles, director of communications at train operator Eurostar. “That’s why this is such a dramatic piece of civil engineering and a landmark event. Bechtel has a lot to be proud of.”

Construction of the 1.3-kilometer Medway River Viaduct was one early achievement. The bridge’s main span is the longest of its kind ever built in Europe. Because of the bridge’s length, the roadbed had to be constructed in pieces. Nearly two dozen 40-meter sections of concrete were slipped into position across piers spanning the riverbed.

Another accomplishment was the 2001 construction of the 3.2-kilometer North Downs Tunnel, the first high-speed rail tunnel and largest-diameter train tunnel in the UK.

Despite such early successes, as recently as September 2002 it looked like the project might finish eight to 10 months behind schedule. So the team drew on one of Bechtel’s strengths—solving design problems on the fly wherever possible.

“We set very optimistic but achievable targets,” says Fady Bassily, Bechtel project director and now head of rail projects for Bechtel in Europe. “We did some things out of sequence, and there were people in every segment of the partnership working 14, 15, 16 hours a day, seven days a week.”

He says the most stressful time was between September 2002 and September 2003. Most of the track and high voltage wires were completed, and the team had to interface the new line’s 25,000-volt alternating current (AC) system with the existing railway’s 750-volt direct current (DC) system. In addition, the old light-and-semaphore signaling system had to be combined with the modern CTRL track-to-train system. But once the first interim milestone was successfully met in February 2003, it gave the partners confidence that the remainder of the project could be completed on time.

During the first Section 1 test runs in July 2003, trains reached speeds of 334.7 kilometers per hour, shattering the previous UK record. (For passenger travel, trains will be limited to 300 kph in the country and 270 kph along part of Section 2 beneath the center of London.)

In the first seven weeks of operation, the line carried a million passengers with 90 percent reliability—unheard of performance for a new high-speed line. Eurostar estimates that it now has a 65 percent market share of the London-Paris traffic, more than all airlines combined.

The second section will make the journey even more attractive. Whereas bridges are common fixtures in Section 1, tunneling is the main feature of Section 2, which winds under the Thames River through densely populated areas close to central London. About one-fourth of Section 2 will be in tunnels. The final phase, which will include the grand international terminal at St. Pancras, is on pace to be completed in 2007.

When it is complete, a trip from downtown London to downtown Paris will take only two hours and 15 minutes. London to Brussels will be only one hour and 45 minutes.
That’s barely enough time to watch Strangers on a Train.

“From the British perspective, we have always been envious of the French with their fast and reliable TGV network,” says Robert Holden, managing director of London & Continental Railways. “CTRL joins the UK to the Trans-European Network of high-speed rail.”

The word Holden uses to describe the feeling of riding the train when it officially reached 334.7 kph? “Exhilarating.” And, he says, it’s only the first step.

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