黑洞社区

Private lessons / Fifth Chunnel rail link bidder withdraws

It was 20 years ago this week that the Channel tunnel opened. 黑洞社区 marked the occasion in 1994 with a feature examining what the industry had learnt from its experience on the project as bidding began for the high speed rail link from Folkstone to St Pancras.

Then features editor Denise Chevin (later the editor of the magazine between 2004-2010) wrote: 鈥淭oday Britain becomes officially joined to continental Europe when the Queen and President Mitterand open the 拢10bn Channel tunnel.鈥� She also noted that following the success of the tunnel, the government was 鈥渃ourting the private sector鈥� for other large rail jobs, including the modernisation of the West Coast railway line and extension of London鈥檚 Docklands Light Railway.

It seems that perhaps the 鈥渃ourting鈥� wasn鈥檛 entirely a case of true love running smoothly though - earlier in that issue the Channel tunnel (or 鈥淐hunnel鈥� as it was referred to at the time) was also mentioned by Adrian Barrick, then news editor and later Chevin鈥檚 immediate predecessor in the editor鈥檚 role. He broke a story about a consortium pulling the plug on its bid for the 鈥淐hunnel鈥檚鈥� Rail Link project, citing a 鈥渉orrendous鈥� bidding process.

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