The incredible journey

Some of the operatives who did the actual work at the St Pancras site.

The Channel Tunnel Rail Link is characterised by grand ambitions and even grander achievements. Since London & Continental Railways won the government’s commission to build the 109 km link in 1996, the team it assembled to deliver the project has worked wonders. By the time CTRL opens in 2007, they will have bored 18.5 km of tunnels underneath London, built 152 bridges and three viaducts, moved 12 listed buildings, planted 1.2 million plants and trees and created 255 ha of woodland. In all, 50 million man hours will have been devoted to it. Rob Holden, the executive chairman of LCR, has been involved in all this since the start, and he is a proud man. He’s proud of “the sheer scale of it”, and the fact that after spending £5.2bn in seven years on the project, it is running on time and on budget.

His first task on joining LCR as finance director was to put together the link’s unique funding arrangement – a mix of government-guaranteed bonds, grants, bank debt and structured finance. The early days were not exactly plain-sailing, but they were characterised by the co-operation and teamwork that has made the project’s successes possible throughout its life.

“In the early part of 1998, we had to close down the project for a few weeks owing to the poor performance of the Eurostar business. We entered into discussions with John Prescott, then transport minister, and put together the deal we have today.” The project was split into two phases – the first ran from the Channel Tunnel complex to Fawkham Junction in north Kent; the second from Southfleet Junction to St Pancras. In October 1998, Prescott’s silver spade sliced through the turf on the bank of the river Medway and the project was well and truly under way.

Holden’s pride is mixed with wonderment at the feats of engineering pulled off by Rail Link Engineering, the consortium made up of Arup, Bechtel, Halcrow and Systra that has designed and managed the project. He cites the restoration of William Barlow’s railway shed at St Pancras and the 1.2 km Medway Viaduct.

Section one was completed in July 2003, and a rail speed record was set for the UK as a Eurostar train reached 334.7 km/h. Holden remembers it well: “Those on that train were privileged. The fact that we were setting a record so far in excess of the previous best was clearly a momentous event.”

He is also especially proud of CTRL’s environmental credentials. The need to mitigate the impact of construction on ecology, archaeology and heritage has been at the heart of the project, and about 85% of the route is in tunnel or in transport corridors.

“What we’ve had to do is mind-blowing – the relocation of an ancient wood for example – how do you do that? We’ve rehabitated wildlife, moved houses on rollers and taken historic buildings apart brick by brick only to reassemble them in another location.”

CTRL has won environmental awards and its archaeological investigation of Kent is the largest of its kind ever undertaken in Britain.

CTRL will have a lasting influence on railway construction in the UK, Holden believes. “We’ve got a lot to do over the next couple of years, but then we’d like to put our skills and experiences to use on another rail project in the UK. Being able to have a role in something like Crossrail would be immensely satisfying …”

One of the Land Rovers that took the Olympic judges from Stratford to King’s Cross.