Papers in the first special issue of Civil Engineering published in May 2003 described how it took a quarter of a century to get the politics and finance right to build the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Construction of the first 74 km section from Fawkham Junction to the Channel Tunnel terminal at Cheriton has moved very swiftly in comparison. First works began in the autumn of 1998 and each of the civil engineering contracts was completed in barely three years, a short period considering the magnitude and complexity of the task and the severe environmental constraints placed on the contractors.
Installation of railway infrastructure of permanent way, power supply and signalling equipment then took about a year. Several months of commissioning trials and approvals then followed, throughout this summer, the line has been used for training those who now operate Britain's first 300km/h rail line. It opened to public service right on schedule on 28 September 2003.
The characteristic of a railway that dominated the construction programme was its linear nature. Construction of the railway itself—ballast, trackwork, overhead catenary system, signalling and other safety equipment—could not start until the all of the railway formation, structures and drainage were completed. The pressure was severe. Should any part of the civil infrastructure have run into a serious setback and fallen behind, the entire project would have been delayed.
Frank discussions of any delays that might have been building up were the core of Rail Link Engineering's (RLE) monthly meetings of all the contract managers. Early on, due to the project's near instant start up after years of false beginnings, there was a sudden demand for finished working drawings. Pressure was on the design office to deliver.
Out on site, inevitably with a string of projects in intimate contact with the ground, there were unforseen occurrences. Parts of the work fell behind because of difficulties such as obstructions met in piling and flooded ground from one of the wettest winters on record.
As work progressed the programme had to be juggled all the time in detail and resources applied to pull each part back in line to meet the overall objective – more plant was applied here, more resources there and an expensive additional set of shuttering ordered for a major structure that was running late.
The framework for coping with such difficulties was an open contractual relationship relying on self-certification by contractors and no surprises for the project manager RLE. Methodical and inclined to being bureaucratic the relationship has worked well overall, delivering the railway to time, within budget and with an excellent safety record.
The papers in this special issue tell the story of how CTRL section 1 was built, largely, but not entirely, from the project managers' point of view. We hear how French Train Grande Vitesse (TGV) technology has been applied with typical British compromise so that the line can accommodate the political requirement for medium-high-speed commuter and freight traffic as well as 300 km/h expresses.
With such a huge project—some £1.8 billion expended on planning, proposals, new plans, approvals and eventually construction—it is not possible to tell the story of every bridge, embankment and culvert. What we have here is essentially a snapshot of characteristic features of the scheme on which thousands of staff and operatives have laboured over the past five years.
In these pages you will read that CTRL is quite unlike the railways of the Victorian era. It does not consist of a string of bold, geometrically engineered earthworks and structures dominating the landscape. Geometric precision is essential for the tracks but overall the railway has been largely sunk into the ground and surplus soil used as noise barriers sculpted into the natural landform.
Excavation for the line was made into an opportunity to investigate the rich archaeology of this long-inhabited corridor through Kent. Tremendous efforts have been to reinstate or relocate flora and fauna disturbed along the route.
In between there have been some spectacular engineering feats—both in the country and adjacent to working railways—a huge bored tunnel at Blue Bell Hill, a vast cut-and-cover tunnel through Ashford, several land bridge cut-and-cover tunnels, a spectacular bridge across the Medway, many other bridges and a couple of major viaducts.
And the end result? The project can be viewed from the Eurostar train as it switches off the old line at Fawkham Junction then winds up to full speed. The journey to the Channel Tunnel portal at Folkestone takes barely 20 minutes, half the time required on the old route. As each minute slips away nearly £100 million worth of infrastructure can be viewed flashing past the window.
My thanks go to the authors for writing the papers and to the referees for reviewing them. A date for a meeting at the ICE to discuss the papers will be announced shortly.
