Three hours from Paris or Brussels to London

The ferry and hovercraft companies are worried about competition from the Channel Tunnel, or the "Chunnel" as it is commonly known.

The Chunnel was officially opened on 6 May 1994. It took ten years to build and cost £ 9.8 billion (more than double the original estimate). All of the money came from private companies.

There are two ways of travelling through the tunnel. Lorry and car drivers take their vehicles onto special trains. They stay inside their lorries and cars for the 20-minute journey through the tunnel. Foot passengers sit in a normal train compartment.

Direct trains already run from London to Paris and Brussels. The journey between London and the English coast is relatively slow in comparison to the journey between the French coast and Brussels and Paris. There have been considerable delays in planning the high-speed rail track in England and it is not due to open until 2002 at the earliest. The entrance to the Channel Tunnel is near Folkestone in Kent.

Michael Vaughan-Rees, Geraldine Sweeney, Picot Cassidy: In Britain; Cornelsen Verlag, 2000, page 30