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Calais Terminal | |||||||||||
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Eurotunnel Shuttle vehicle transport terminal | |||||||||||
General information | |||||||||||
Location | Coquelles France | ||||||||||
Coordinates | 50°55′22″N1°48′50″E / 50.92278°N 1.81389°E | ||||||||||
Owned by | Getlink | ||||||||||
Line(s) | Channel Tunnel | ||||||||||
Platforms | 10 island platforms | ||||||||||
Tracks | 10 | ||||||||||
Construction | |||||||||||
Structure type | At-grade | ||||||||||
History | |||||||||||
Opened | 6 May 1994 | ||||||||||
Services | |||||||||||
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The Eurotunnel Calais Terminal is a railway terminal built for the transport of road-going vehicles on specially constructed trains through the Channel Tunnel. The station is located in the commune of Coquelles in the Pas-de-Calais department near the city of Calais. It is the terminal for the France and by extension the rest of Continental Europe. On the British side is the Eurotunnel Folkestone Terminal located at Cheriton, near Folkestone. The passenger service building at the Eurotunnel Calais Terminal is called the Charles Dickens Terminal, named for the British author Charles Dickens. [1]
As part of the Channel Tunnel project, the plan for services included the use of dedicated shuttle trains that would carry both passenger and freight vehicles between Britain and France, which would compete with the cross-channel ferries. In order to accommodate these services, it was planned to build a brand new vehicle terminal on each side of the tunnel that would allow cars and lorries to be loaded quickly onto the trains. The site chosen for the French terminal was Coquelles, near Calais, not far from the French tunnel portal.
The site chosen was a large greenfield area of more than 1700 acres, which provided significantly more space than the British terminal. However, a large proportion of the area chosen for construction was marshland, with anything from 3 to 10 metres (9.8 to 32.8 ft) of peat on top of the solid ground. [2] As a consequence, 12,000,000 cubic metres (420,000,000 cu ft) of material had to be removed to provide solid foundations, before work could begin on building the actual facility.
The main parts of the passenger terminal to be built were the platforms and overbridges that connect it to the A16, and thence to the rest of the autoroute network. The tunnel was officially opened on 6 May 1994, with services between Cheriton and Coquelles beginning in July the same year, when the first freight shuttles started running. Passenger services then started in December 1994.
As a result of the Sangatte Protocol signed between France and the UK in 1991, juxtaposed controls have been established. Travellers going from Coquelles to Cheriton clear French exit checks as well as UK entry immigration and customs checks before boarding the train in Coquelles, rather than on arrival in Cheriton. [3]
The terminal consists of ten island platforms, with four overbridges connecting each platform to the autoroute. The overbridges are located at approximately equidistant points along the length of the platforms so that vehicles have to drive for as little distance as possible along the platforms themselves; vehicles unloaded from the front to the middle of the train would use the furthest bridge, while those unloaded from the centre to the rear would use the next bridge in, and vice versa for those vehicles embarking. The bridges at the western end of the platforms are intended for embarking vehicles, while those at the eastern end are for those disembarking. The island platforms are separated by single track, allowing vehicles to access the train from both sides.
The terminal is located at the end of a loop connected to the route from the tunnel; trains exiting the tunnel travel anti-clockwise around this loop and then pull into the terminal, meaning the locomotive that pulled the train will remain at the front for the next service through the tunnel. The terminal at Cheriton also has a loop arrangement, but instead trains travel clockwise; this is intended to ensure equal wear on the flange of the wheels.
The terminal has a larger loading gauge than the rest of the French network owing to the oversized trailers used to carry the road going vehicles. As a consequence, all maintenance of the rolling stock is undertaken within the small, self-contained Channel Tunnel rail network, with the major work carried out at the large maintenance facility at Coquelles.
The Channel Tunnel, sometimes referred to by the portmanteau Chunnel, is a 50.46 km (31.35-mile) undersea railway tunnel, opened in 1994, that connects Folkestone with Coquelles beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. It is the only fixed link between the island of Great Britain and the European mainland.
Getlink, formerly Groupe Eurotunnel, is a European public company based in Paris that manages and operates the infrastructure of the Channel Tunnel between France and the United Kingdom, operates the LeShuttle railway service, and earns revenue on other trains that operate through the tunnel.
The Channel Tunnel fire of 18 November 1996 occurred on a train carrying Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) and their drivers through the Channel Tunnel from France to the United Kingdom. The fire was seen on the train as it entered the tunnel and, in line with the policy at the time, an attempt was made to drive to the UK where the fire would be dealt with. However, after an indication of a serious problem with the train, the driver stopped at 21:58 CET, 19 kilometres (12 mi) into the tunnel. The locomotive and passenger coach were rapidly enveloped in thick smoke, and the locomotive lost power. Reconfiguration of the tunnel ventilation systems was delayed, but by 22:30 all passengers and crew were safe, in the service tunnel, with minor injuries.
The Ligne à Grande Vitesse Nord, typically shortened to LGV Nord, is a French 333-kilometre (207-mile)-long high-speed rail line, opened in 1993, that connects Paris to the Belgian border and the Channel Tunnel via Lille.
Cheriton is a northern suburb of Folkestone, in the Folkestone and Hythe, in the county of Kent, England. It is the location of the English terminal of the Channel Tunnel as well as of the major army barracks of Shorncliffe Camp.
Operation Stack was a procedure used by Kent Police and the Port of Dover in England to park lorries on the M20 motorway in Kent when services across the English Channel, such as those through the Channel Tunnel or from the Port of Dover, are disrupted, for example by bad weather, industrial action, fire, or derailments in the tunnel. Since 2019, it has been superseded by the Operation Brock contraflow system.
Folkestone West railway station is on the South Eastern Main Line in England, serving the western area of Folkestone, Kent. It is 69 miles 22 chains (111.5 km) down the line from London Charing Cross. All trains that call are operated by Southeastern.
LeShuttle is a railway shuttle service between Calais in France and Folkestone in the United Kingdom. It conveys road vehicles and passengers by rail through the Channel Tunnel. Freight vehicles are carried in separate shuttle trains hauled by the same locomotives, that also contain a passenger carriage, known as the Club Car.
The Eurotunnel Class 9 or Class 9000 are six-axle high-power Bo′Bo′Bo′ single-ended electric locomotives built by the Euroshuttle Locomotive Consortium (ESCL) of Brush Traction and ABB. The class was designed for and is used exclusively to haul the LeShuttle road vehicle services through the Channel Tunnel.
The Eurotunnel Class 0031 0-4-0 diesel locomotives were built by the Hunslet Engine Company between 1989 and 1990 for Channel Tunnel construction work and now used for maintenance duties. They were originally built as 900 mm gauge, and were subsequently rebuilt by Schöma to 1,435 mmstandard gauge in Germany between 1993 and 1994.
Coquelles is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department near Calais in northern France.
The European route E15 is part of the United Nations international E-road network. It is a north–south "reference road", running from Inverness, Scotland south through England and France to Algeciras, Spain. Along most of its route between Paris and London, the road parallels the LGV Nord and High Speed 1. Its length is 2,300 miles (3,700 km).
The Elham Valley Railway was a line connecting Folkestone and Canterbury in Kent, England. It opened between 1887 and 1889 and closed in 1947.
In rail transportation, a rolling highway or rolling road is a form of combined transport involving the conveying of road trucks by rail, referred to as Ro-La trains. The concept is a form of piggyback transportation.
On 11 September 2008, a France-bound Eurotunnel Shuttle train carrying heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) and their drivers caught fire while travelling through the Channel Tunnel. The fire lasted for sixteen hours and reached temperatures of up to 1,000 °C (1,830 °F).
A car shuttle train, or (sometimes) car-carrying train, is a shuttle train used to transport accompanied cars (automobiles), and usually also bicycles and other types of road vehicles, for a relatively short distance.
The Eurotunnel Folkestone Terminal is a railway terminal built for the transport of road-going vehicles on specially constructed trains through the Channel Tunnel. The station is located in Cheriton, a northern suburb of the town of Folkestone in the county of Kent. It is the terminal for the United Kingdom. On the French side is the Eurotunnel Calais Terminal located at Coquelles, near Calais. The passenger service building at the Eurotunnel Folkestone Terminal is called the Victor Hugo Terminal, named for the French author Victor Hugo.
Juxtaposed controls are a reciprocal arrangement between Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom whereby border controls on certain cross-Channel routes take place before boarding the train or ferry, rather than upon arrival after disembarkation. With the exception of the Eurotunnel Shuttle route, customs checks remain unaffected by juxtaposed immigration controls and continue to take place upon arrival after disembarkation. Belgium, France and the Netherlands are all member states of the European Union and part of the border-free Schengen Area. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, has never participated in the Schengen Area, even when it was a member state of the European Union. As a result, juxtaposed controls aim to increase the convenience and efficiency of border checks when travelling by train or ferry between the Schengen Area and the UK by removing the need for immigration checks on arrival and by streamlining checks on departure. At the same time, juxtaposed controls are intended to detect and prevent illegal immigration. In 2016, there were over 56,000 instances when people were refused entry to the UK at the juxtaposed controls.
Pedal cycles in the Channel Tunnel are normally allowed to cross the Channel Tunnel fixed link between the United Kingdom and France only by using the Eurotunnel cycle service, on board a LeShuttle train. That consists of a minibus and bicycle trailer for six bicycles.
The second use of the TOPS classification Class 21 for locomotives used on the British railway network came through the use of a number of related diesel-hydraulic and diesel-electric locomotives procured following the opening of the Channel Tunnel. The total of 16 locomotives were obtained by two separate operators, with some used for freight, and others to propel service trains and as "Thunderbird" locomotives.