Today in History—May 6: A Tunnel Beneath the Channel Opens

On this day in 1994, a train slipped beneath the sea in England and reappeared in France.

Crowds gathered on both sides of the English Channel. England’s Queen Elizabeth II and French Pres. François Mitterrand marked the opening with twin ceremonies in Folkestone and Calais. The pair even took a turn through the tunnel themselves that day, riding in the queen’s Rolls-Royce as it was whisked through aboard the train.

After more than a century of false starts and second thoughts, Britain and France were—at last—physically linked.

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Plans for a cross-Channel tunnel date back to the early 1800s, but fears of land invasions halted progress. The concept resurfaced in 1986, when Britain and France agreed to move forward—not with a massive suspension bridge or hybrid bridge-tunnel scheme but with a privately financed rail tunnel.

This time, it would actually be built.

Digging for this ambitious project began the following year, with British and French teams tunneling toward each other from both sides of the Strait of Dover. When the two sides finally met in 1990, the breakthrough was precise enough that the crews were able to shake hands.

The finished tunnel (often called the Chunnel) stretches about 31 miles between Folkestone and Sangatte, near Calais. Of that, some 23.5 miles run beneath the sea—the longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world. Travelers can sit in standard rail coaches or remain in their cars, loaded onto special shuttle trains for the roughly 35-minute crossing.

What was once an audacious idea is now routine: Commuters, tourists, and cargo slip between island and continent without a second thought every day. But on opening day in 1994, Britain’s long-standing sense of isolation quietly shifted, with the knowledge that a physical link to Europe now exists.

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