American Reacts to the Channel Tunnel - The UK to France Connection
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- Опубліковано 19 січ 2024
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Reacting To My Roots
P.O. Box 439
Jasper, Indiana 47547
USA
In this video I react to the Channel Tunnel for the first time. I had of course heard of the Channel Tunnel before, but knew nothing about it. I'm surprised to learn that not only does this tunnel cross the English Channel, connecting England and France, but it's also the longest under water tunnel in the world!
This is such an amazing engineering feat. It's incredible when you see the two tunnel workers breaking through and meeting in the tunnel during construction. Knowing one came from the UK and the other came from France, yet here they are meeting underneath the waters of the English Channel. I also had no idea people drive their cars onto trains and the trains are how they actually cross. That's wild! I'm really excited to see the process of what it's like to actually travel the Channel Tunnel.
Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this reaction please give this video a thumbs up, share your thoughts in the comments and click the subscribe button to follow my journey to learn about my British and Irish ancestry.
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It's crazy to me that you guys don't have drive-on, drive-off trains in America, given how much you guys love driving and how big the country is.
The USA has a lot of catching up to do
They barely have trains yet!
Why would they need it ? You can drive everywhere and don’t need to put cars on trains .
@VillaFanDan92 That's a very good point, I hadn't really thought about it but I didn't even know they don't have them.
@@patrickmulcahy1176 .
You would rather sit at the wheel of a car for hours than in a comfortable carriage having a snooze or reading a book?
My cousin worked on this project, maintaining one of the tunnelling machines. His claim to fame is that he was the first, probably only, person ever to play the bagpipes below the centre point of the English Channel 😂
so your cousin he's a 40-60 years old guy ? my step father worked on this when he was 21
@@anthonybaleur9296 Early 60s, yes. I think at the time this was one of the largest civil engineering projects in Europe, so my cousin and your step father were just two of thousands who worked on it.
I have a piece of rock given to my husband from one of the guys who broke through and shook the hand of the French man..my husband was a British customs officer and the first to shake hands with the French officer at the official opening in Folkestone
Is he scottish by any chance, and did he wear a kilt to work that day?
@@anthonybaleur9296 In his 60s now, yes.
I live in London and work in Paris, so happily commute through this beast twice a week. Love it!
That's really cool
I mainly watch this channel to see your mind blown by common things or stuff we take for granted in the UK / Europe. 😂
haha, glad I can be of service 😂
I'm the same, I'm not big into reaction content but this guy has such a wonderful fascination for so many things it's really cool
@@Kalbot84 Yeah. I think it’s also because I grew up thinking the US was this pinnacle of everything in society and culture, but in adulthood videos like this remind me that’s not entirely true and other countries have things a lot better. And it seems mostly down to geography, better laws, a degree of socialism, and centuries of culture moulding people without you realising it.
@@danowen79 it's good to hear you say that, in my forty odd years on this rock I've definitely noticed a change in American world view, as an outside observer (UK) it definitely seems as though the people of your country have grown more curious and respectful of other cultures, and looking back in history I truly believe that the roots of your nation were sown with good intent. Also I'm not trying to sound superior here so I hope it doesn't come across that way, Britain is currently a failing nation and if you guys could just get social healthcare worked out I'd repatriate in a heartbeat
@@Kalbot84 I’m from the UK
Imagine being the first person of all time to see and shake hands with someone from the other side of the channel without having to sail across the sea. What a truly historic moment.
Up until about 6000 years ago, you could walk from France or Denmark to England, the land was known as Doggerland and fishing trawlers are still picking up human artifacts from the sea bed from that time today :)
These facts are astonishing to me. I like details like that. Thank you
Apparently, the River Thames also used to be a tributary of the River Rhine.
All this global warming from the cars and coal power plants raising sea levels destroyed doggerland.
Ford and Shell are to blame for the emissions back 6000 years ago. 😂😂
Correct - not as the video says "over ice". As far as I was aware, the ice sheets never made it that far south. But what they did do was lock up a lot of sea water in solid form so the sea levels were lower - which meant what is now the sea floor was actually tundra and marshes. Human hunter gatherers wandered backwards and forwards across this land hunting bison, mammoth, bear and other animals. Now and then, fishing boats haul up bones of extinct land animals from the sea bed.
@@EricIrl Yeah it wasn't ice sheets it was actual land lol
There are two services. 1) A passenger train, called Eurostar, from London to Paris, Lille and Brussels, which now goes to Amsterdam. Summer trains also did London to Marseille, and winter (ski) trains did London to Bourg St Maurice. This takes 20 minutes to do the tunnel. I have done Eurostar over 70 times. 2) A car carrying service, called Le Shuttle, from Folkestone to Calais. This is slower and takes 35 minutes to do the tunnel.
Eurostar does 186 mph, but only 100 mph in the tunnel. Some French TGVs now do 200 mph, even the double decker / bi level ones.
First class on Eurostar includes meals, wines, beers, spirits. The best are lunch and dinner, with hot meals.
With just one connection at Brussels, Lille, or Paris you will be amazed how far you can get. Lille do direct trains to Nice and Bordeaux. Paris had a direct train to Moscow ! Cologne goes to Oslo. Paris goes to Istanbul.
In London, some local trains run every 45 seconds.
I have done the AMTRAK Maple Leaf from Toronto to New York, and the AMTRAK Vermonter between New York and St Albans Vermont. I have done every railroad in Canada except one. Including Prince Rupert and Vancouver to Halifax and Calgary, Windsor and Sarnia to Quebec City, Toronto to Moosonee, Sept Iles to Schefferville, Senneterre and Jonquiere, and all lines around Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, plus Skagway Alaska to Carcross Yukon, and all five railroads in Alaska.
I have done every railway in Britain, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Norway and Portugal, plus most of Europe as far as the Ukraine.
Any questions, happy to help.
But do you like trains ? 😏😆😆🤣. (Sorry ). British humour 🙌🏻
One of the things i like most about using the channel tunnel is that you just stay in your car to go through customs. Whichever direction your travelling the passport control for both countries are on the side where you're departing from...then when you get to the other side you just drive off the train, out of the station and onto the roads. Also...for cars the trains are double decker..you drive onto the train up an inside ramp and onto the top deck..guided on by staff
@@SteveT--UK😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Wow ! That's great !!!
We once rebooked our departure time from London to Brussels on the Eurostar, and got upgraded to first-class in the process. It was a really good multi-course French themed diner with adjusted wines (which we as Belgians really liked). The service staff was dressed to the occassion.
The only problem was that we actually forgot about the upgrade, we had diner at Mac-Donalds before we left, after having been on our feat in London on hot day, all day long. Filled with grime we really felt out of place haha.
By foot traffic he meant passengers that aren't taking cars across. You can't walk through the tunnel.
I believe it is possible to walk through the central service tunnel, it's just not something that you can do without having special permission to do so.
Just emergencies
Yes, I meant that it's not possible for the general public to walk through it. Obviously it is physically possible to do...
As you wouldn't want to, that expierence would be horrifying.
@@saladspinner3200 I'd love to run through the tunnel. Running from Calais to Dover, what a trip.
I’ve used the tunnel a few times, my first time I was still amazed about being in the centre of London just jumping on a train then stepping off in the centre of Paris
I once went to Paris for a work conference. I was the only to get back that day, because I went by train and they all flew, but fog stopped the flights.
I used to travel from London every week to either our Paris office or Leeds (Northern England) office - much faster on the train to get to the Paris office!
Yeah, that's pretty cool!
The channel tunnel is the last modern wonder of the century and millennium, and one of our greatest partnerships with France, this and Concorde can show what British and French can do together.
The problem is that the French and the English don't really like doing things together, other than fighting😂.
We do more than fighting, however sadly our governments seem to not get along with each other, UK parliament seems to prioritize making Britain worse, they sold out to the U.S which is why French and British relations took a turn for the worse.
French Government wants Europe to be a union, then the UK ruined that with the awful "Brexit"..... Worse cereal I ever ate, I did vote leave as our governments lied, I don't praticular care for it, our sovereign lands have been tainted by corruption, which is why French and British relations are failing :(
Everything is broken in 2024, why are the U.S not being responsible and least mend relations??? Why must they try and take Europe when actuality, Europe works better working together than against.
Just a general opinion on the said topic, hopefully gives you some insight to why relations failed, it wasn't just brexit that caused this, was relations between UK and U.S instead of, UK and rest of Europe, immigration is another responsible factor for this!!!
Europe needs a back bone ASAP, we cannot let these once flourishing lands become tainted by corruption, sadly it is heading that way, let's just hope UK can save U.S'es A** in WW3 😱👿
The French like stealing our money
I'm not keen on their cheese though ???😜😜
@@chucky2316Straigh from the Daily Mail ...
The British call it the English Channel but the French call it La Manche. Depends on which map you look at. English map or French map! Great videos, keep up the good work 👍🏻
Indeed ; for example: we are talking about the Gulf of Mexico, but that does not mean that the gulf belongs entirely to Mexico ^^
Haha that slightly irritated me too, it's just called 'The Channel' (Het Kanaal) in Dutch
@@jojannekevisscher9923pretty weird to get annoyed about what the English call the channel while watching a video in English about something that concerns England and made primarily for English people to watch. You think we give a toss about what the Dutch call things?
I live about 45 minutes from Folkestone and used to do regular trips to buy cheap booze and cigarettes in France. Eurotunnel used to stagger the crossing price during the day, so later in the afternoon (around 6pm) you could get a return trip for about £9 (this was about the mid to late 90s, early 00s).
One time, I took the opportunity to go and stock up on booze pre-Christmas (a "Booze cruise") and booked on to a departure at 18:05 at the cheapest rate. I'd also booked a return for about 20:30, which would give me enough time to do my shopping. When I arrived at the terminal in Folkestone at about 17:00, I was offered the opportunity to go on the next available crossing as there was space available, so I took it, leaving on the 17:30 departure. After arriving in Calais, I drove off the train and went to the Hypermarket, which is next door to the terminal about a 5 minute drive away. I did my shopping in about 20 minutes as I knew what I wanted and was back in my car. I went to the Calais terminal, where again I was offered the next departure as there was space. All-in-all, from the moment the train left Folkestone, to me getting back there again, was about 2 hours and 5 minutes!
Another FYI, the trains that the cars travel on are double-deckers! 🙂
and thats why we drove the cars on a train , DUI 😄what with all that cheap booze back then , sad to see thats all gone , no good deals nowadays
Trains carrying vehicles through tunnels are quite common in Europe, for instance there are several tunnels under the Alps where you can put your vehicle on a train, saving a very long drive.
My uncle used to take his car on the Motorail train between London & Scotland he was miffed when their service stopped in mid 90s, he never got to go to Scotland again.
The British and the French have been rivals throughout most of history. There have been periods were we have been allies, and periods were we have been at war. There has always been a grudging respect between the countries. We're like two friends that both like to be top dog. Thankfully the outright hostility is a thing of the past and we have an "entente cordiale" which means things are (usually) friendly at a governmental level. At a person to person level I don't think there are many on either side that have any ill will to the other side.
As this and Concorde show we can achieve fantastic engineering feats when we work together.
There is a bridge between Denmark and Sweden.
And the Norwegians have built a sort of elevated highway round the West coast from Oslo, taking in Bergen, Stavanger and going up to - I think - Trondheim. This means you can drive straight up north without getting out of your car to ferry across a fjord 80 times, or drive ten times more miles than a straight distance would give you by having to go round fjords.
Yes I saw it on a ship and didn't know it existed before that, I was so surprised and in awe of it!
I know you like engineering. You should look up Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He was a pioneer of the UK and built some beautiful structures that still stand. I think you will like him.
Hahaha his first name is Isambard. Predictive txt eh! Lol
@@blueray1878 yer I wrote it correctly and it changed it lol
I still read it as isambard 😆
IKB was voted the 2nd greatest Britain in a 2002 survey (Winston Churchill being number 1).
@@Sophie.S.. Well the UK would look a very different place without both of them.
I often travel to the Netherlands from England by car, and so to me hopping onto the train under the water with my car is normal, but I suppose if I think about I now, it really is unreal that you can drive your car onto a train, and it will drive you off an island and onto mainland europe!
12000 years ago you could walk there across Doggerland.
Put it this way. You wouldn't get me going on it, but credit to the engineers who built it.
Small claim to fame here, my husband who is an electrician worked in the Channel tunnel for about 4 months way back then. Love you channel Steve.
The English Channel is called "La Manche" (the sleeve) in France
No it's called "the channel" 😂
The Channel.
The tunnel is called "la Manche", not the channel.
The English Channel. The la france insist on calling it 'le manche'. Nothing at all to do with the tunnel.
@@stuartauld3193 BS! Please do your research.
My daughters do the Paris marathon most years for the last 8 or so anyway, they jump on the train at Euston, 20 minutes from home & get out in Paris less than 2 hours later, run the Marathon, enjoy a beautiful bistro meal after a shower in the evening with a celebration carafe of red wine &, next morning, do the journey in reverse , 2 & 1/2 hours from their airb&b in Paris to their own doorsteps. Win, win 🏆
St Pancras, not Euston. Or are they being silly and using the London Underground between Euston and St Pancras?
@TimothyEBaldwin picky, picky, next to King's Cross, the station I use from Northumberland, or do you want to pick me up on that too , 3 stations abutting each other, 1 minute apart !
You may be interested in the giant SRN4 cross channel hovercraft that ceased running after the tunnel opened.
I remember when I was 13 and we took a school trip to Paris for 5 days. We used the Euro Tunnel to get there and back and I remember my mind being blown when the coach actually drove onto the train haha
At 18:45, the cross-section, Sea level is marked at 200 above that on the UK side are the cliffs of Dover or Shakespeare cliffs rising vertical to the sea. The average depth of the Chunnel under the seabed is 45 meters.
I was only 6 when the two met in the middle and shook hands through the hole, and I remember it clearly. When I was about 12 I saw one of the enormous drills used in an exhibition. And finally, in 2019 I got to go on the eurostar for the first time London to Paris. Its definitely not something all Brits have experienced! But for some business men and women it's a regular trip.
17:21
At the tunnel's deepest point, it is 75 m (246 ft) below the seafloor. Chalk marl is a semi-unique marine limestone, consisting mostly of chalk, clay and calcite. It is unique to the English Channel area, and shouldn't be confused with limestone, chalk or marlstone.
My Family and I use the Tunnel every year to drive through France and Spain in a Camper, stopping off at Campsites along the way using our Journey as the holiday.
That's awesome!
On the diagram shown, sea level was actually marked.
The drive on drive off trains also take coaches. When I was a teacher, as soon as the tunnel was open, we never used the ferries again for school trips.
People do not have to stay on the coach or in their cars, though a lot of people do. Many take the chance to stretch their legs.
In my opinion, it is fantastic to save time, but it is rather a dull trip, unless, like me, you persuade pupils to look out of the few windows for signs of leaks 😁
I've never been through the tunnel to France (only once - there & back), by ferry with my school to visit Rome for a 10-day school trip...train to Dover, ferry to Calais, train to Basle, another train to Milan, then a coach to Rome!! A convoluted journey but fascinating to a couple of classes of British Secondary Modern schoolkids in 1969 !! - I was 13...and haven't been abroad since!!
I had thought, originally that it might be good to see the fish whilst travelling across to France, but then again...seeing fish like sharks (etc) might be somewhat "unsettling" ?!!🤔😊🏴🥺😏🇷🇴❤️🙂🖖
I’ve been through on both the Eurostar as a foot passenger and on the Eurotunnel trains in a car many times. I’ve been to Calais, Lille, Brussels and Paris via the tunnel. It smooth, quiet, fast and very efficient. Also, it’s not weather dependent like the ferries. You could definitely do a short trip to Paris for a day or two when you are over here, I would highly recommend it. Maybe take the tunnel one way and the ferry the other so that you can sea the gloriously iconic white cliffs of Dover as you arrive back at Dover. Then drive up to Dover castle for a day packed with history.
That’s a very good idea. Steve, take note! 😊
My wife and I did a coach trip to Italy about 8 years ago, coming back from France we used the tunnel, they made an announcement that we were almost back in England, I hadn't realised the train was moving, a really smooth journey, highly recommended!
We have two of these underwater tunnels in Liverpool to connect Liverpool to the Wirral peninsula. They’ve always fascinated me, the first tunnel in Liverpool began construction in 1934. Blows my mind when you driver under it. I’ve never been on the channel tunnel myself but it’s an amazing piece of engineering
The channel tunnels is a rail only servixe, you either drive a vehicle onto a train, or you can walk onto the train like a normal passenger service
The tunnel boring machines are a factory on rails, they bore the hole, the waste is taken by coveyor all the way out, concrete sections are taken in and the machine installs them to make rings, the predecessor to the TBM is the greathead shield, original concept was by Brunel, but the circular form was by Greathead.
What he didn't tell you is that you can't simply reverse the machines out of the tunnel, so they had to bore at an angle and bury themselves, they are still there under the sea.
A couple on either side were removed and are on display, one in Folkestone. A couple more were dismantled and used on other projects. Only two out of the six are buried.
I've used the channel tunnel many times and it's just become "normal". It's great to see your reaction and as always with your videos, makes me appreciate things in the U.K. again that we just take for granted.
The diagram at 17:58 does actually include a tag showing where sea level is. Foot passengers are basically normal passengers getting on a train, which is why there are more places where they can get on/off. Cars do indeed drive into the train as shown at 22:07. This can only be done at Folkestone in the UK and Calais in France, as these are the only places with the infrastructure to do this.
For ur last point, it could technically be done anywhere else along the coast; but it would be multiple times more difficult and expensive due to the amount of distance it would need to travel under the sea, as well as the new terminals on either side, so Folkestone and Calais makes the most sense.
The only other spot I could see one being built is from Bournemouth or Portsmouth to Cherbourg En-Contnntin, but even this would be twice as long as Folkestone to Calais.
I don’t actually remember that much, but I did a commute for a school trip. Hopefully I’ll get to see Holland by Eurostar this year
@@NK-bj8li I'm not saying that Folkestone and Calais are the only place they could have built the Eurotunnel terminals, but as that is where they did build them, they are now the only paces that you can get on/off with a car.
The Shuttle trains can only run between Folkestone and Calais because they are MUCH taller and broader than ordinary trains in either country, and they simply wouldn’t fit on the ordinary lines in the UK (certainly) and (probably) in France.
The video didn’t mention them, but they were shown on the profile diagram, there are two huge “crossover caverns” where trains can be switched between the north and south tunnels e.g. in the event of having to do maintenance on the tracks, so effectively the tunnel can be divided into thirds.
It's great if you have small children and they want to sleep on a long journey. On the Shuttle they can stay asleep but by ferry they have to be woken up because passengers aren't allowed to stay on the car decks.
It feels colder this year to me,im in uk
It’s fun trying to get a coach onto the shuttle trains, you have to be very confident of judging your width . First time I did it , I followed what the coach in front of me did and it was fine. An amazing thing to travel on
I have strolled down to my local station on the coast of Mid-Wales and travelled by train to the centre of Cologne.
Back in 1997 I travelled from Luton to Quimper totally by train x
No-one calls it the Chunnel anymore, that was only a thing when it was being built and shortly afterwards. It is a railway tunnel, not a road tunnel.
Cars on trains is nothing new. There are plenty of similar services in Europe. Even the US has one operated by Amtrak between Florida and Virginia.
Funnily enough the ferries didn't really lose much business. The tunnel was an expensive option and the crossing time was so quick that truck drivers couldn't use it as a rest period. It took a long time for the tunnel to see a significant amount of traffic. Ferries provide a more comfortable service, you get out of your car to stretch your legs, and you can visit the onboard shops and cafeteria. In the tunnel you just sit in your car the whole way, you can get out but there is nowhere to walk to. But the tunnel is a lot quicker and isn't affected by weather.
There are 4 different types of trains.
Normal freight trains that you'd find anywhere in Europe.
Eurostar passenger services. These are just normal high speed trains, similar to those you'd usually find in France.
Passenger Le Shuttle. These are fully enclosed and carry cars and coaches, you stay on your vehicle.
Freight Le Shuttle. These are open and carry trucks, the driver gets off the truck and rides in a passenger carriage.
We’ve been to Avignon from London several times on the Eurostar and through the tunnel with our car dozens of times as our son lives in Northern France. One of the machines is in the middle of a roundabout in Coquelles. It takes about 28 minutes in the tunnel, 35 minutes start to finish. A brilliant service, a smooth crossing whatever the weather!
At its deepest point, the Chunnel is 75 meters(246 feet) below the sea bed, and 115 meters(377 feet) below sea level.
Concorde was also an Anglo-French project; when you've been fighting each other for 1000 years, it's perhaps no surprise that putting your heads together now and again can result in achievements beyond all expectations.
so a few points:
- numbers are likely in metric as the only used in science
- you can see marked "sea level" in the graph
- the english channel is called "la manche" in french, and by international law, it would be half in France / half in UK
I take the eurostar several times a year, it's really great :)
12:58 the ferries are still doing just fine for themselves - the sheer volume of tourists going cross channel can’t be serviced just by the Chunnel. It’s a lot more expensive than the ferry as they can’t fit as many cars on board the trains (multiple decks for ferries) and whilst it does save about an hour on your journey, it’s quite nice sometimes to work the ferry ride in as a break to your journey - plus it’s a lot more relaxing being in the open air, not stuck in a wee box. I’ve taken the tunnel once and opted for the ferry ever since
I'm the opposite, but then I've a long run on either side usually so shortening the day by an hour is useful, that and the tunnel is immune to the weather, the last time I took the Dover-Calais ferry my arrival home was delayed 9 hours by weather.
People enjoy the ferry. Can have a meal and relax, and it is cheaper. But for me I wanted to go to Bruxelles so train was great.
If you are not on a tight time schedule the ferry is just as good. I only took the route once and used the ferry because of prices. The trains go more often. On the other hand the ferry can be quite cheap during the night.
Glad to hear this... I have never been thru the chunnel ...I can't imagine being under all that water😂😂...ferry all the way
I experienced very bad weather, the ferry was already moving at quai ! And lots of delays at Dover ! Last ferry I took was the new Herald of free Entreprise, sink 6 months later with other 300 deaths ! After that I only cross via overcraft, no risk to over load ! Was very pleased with the tunnel, so simple, so quick to embark, debark, no more hours waiting in Dover !
I never noticed your camera flips you around until some of your recent food reactions and now I am more aware when I see the backwards UK and Ireland Map 😂😂😂 how slow I was and not very observant 😅 love your videos and you and your family are so sweet ❤
I just copped this after reading your comment 😂
The white cliffs of Dover are made from chalk marl.
That layer of chalk travels under the sea and connects with France.
France also have some white cliffs!
Chalk is very soft and easy to drill. So the designers chose to follow the line of chalk all the way to France.
The tunnel is not flat nor straight.
It goes up and down regularly to follow the line of chalk 😉
We also have white chalk cliffs in Bridlington, north Yorkshire.
Hello Steve! Good video as ususal. The few points you asked about:
1. Ownership of the English Channel. Well, only we English speakers call it that, in French it is La Manche. The usual practice in international law that a country`s territorial waters extend to 12 miles from the coast, beyond that is the exclusive economic zone, which can be up to 200 miles, but in many cases it is less, for example here where the English Channel is nowhere near 400 miles wide. As you guessed, the halfway point is the `border`. As the Channel is only about 26 miles wide where the tunnel crosses, the British bored into the seabed under French territorial waters, hence they were welcomed in France.
2. Car on train. There are plenty of youtube videos about the crossing from small cars to lorries (that`s trucks for you :) ), check them out. As the tunnel is deep and long, exhaust fumes from cars would be problematic (and very expensive) to constantly remove therefore you can`t drive through the tunnel in your car, you have to get on a train which takes you to the other side. The trains are electric (hauled by electric locomotive in case of the car carriers), so no exhaust fumes.
3. Eurostar - the passenger train which connects the cities (London to Paris, Brussles, Amsetrdam and some of them have a few intermediate stops). Le Shuttle - the car carrier just runs between the English (Folkstone) and French (Calais) side of the Tunnel, basically like a ferry, but instead of a ship on the surface of the English Channel it`s a train underneath it.
I have used the tunnel a lot. Still makes me smile though.
I recently took the train from Bath to Dusseldorf. Brilliant and it was only an 80mins slower than flying. So much less stressful. As for cars, it's just super easy to take your car on the train. You just drive onto the carriage and relax. 35 mins later you're either in France or England. 👍
It really is amazing to me!
I live in England only never knew other tunnels existed! thanks for the info. We are going to do a driving holiday in Europe in September so a great helpxx
You say slower than flying, but you have the advantage of city centre to city centre. So you cut out the journey to and from the airport.
@@cjmillsnun Not to mention the time spent going through the airport
Okay! This might sound strange to anyone outside of Britain or France but, we have always had in the back of our minds (probably, rivalry. Who’s better 🤷🏻♂️), that we hate each other. I’m guessing it goes back hundreds of years, when we had many battles. The thing is, they mock us and we mock them but, when we get together and make something, that no other country has done before. The Anglo-French (Anglo meaning English)do it amazingly. I don’t want to blow our horns (well definitely the French horn😂. Joking).
Look at the channel tunnel, constructed from both sides and met each other exactly in the right spot(yes! There’s no gps saying turn left in 20 yards (15 metres). It was Anglo-French engineers that made Concord. One of the most iconic aeroplanes ever constructed. The English and French have a love and hate relationship but, it works.
To the French that stretch of water is not known as the English Channel but rather La Manche and they call what the English call the Straights of Dover, Le Pas de Calais.
I once went on a course in London and one of the presenters of the course was a French Lady. She had lived in Brighton on the English South coast and commuted into London daily. Eventually she got tired of the delays on Southern Rail and the regular increase in costs along with the very expensive cost of housing and she moved home to Northern France. She still commuted daily by train but she used the Channel Tunnel to do so. She said the service was virtually certain to run, that the cost of housing was drastically lower and she could budget the cost of travel because the French weren't constantly trying to squeeze more out of her.
If you like this Steve, take a look at the Öresund Bridge which runs between Denmark and Sweden. It is a combination of bridge and tunnel and carries both road and rail traffic between the 2 countries.
(It is also the setting for a very good Nordic TV crime series 'The Bridge'. ( not to be confused with the American remake! ))
And do not forget the Storebelt connection between Fyn and Sjælland.
In the northeast of England it dipping under freezing day and night at the moment
Yeah we had snow that actually settled here in Blyth, it doesn't usually lol.
I worked for 3 years at the Eurostar terminal in Paris, gare du Nord, it was the beginning of the tunnel.
For my job, I had to take the train one or two times in the month.
Between Paris and the tunnel entrance, the train was very fast. As a French person, I was used to high speed trains (the Eurostar is a sort of a special version of the French TGV).
In the tunnel, the train went slower, and after the exit, it was catastrophic! The train usually went very slowly, stopped, then again very slowly...
You had the time to admire the English countryside, even the little rabbits which were running next to the rails!!!
At this time, the part between the tunnel and London was not equipped for a high speed train.
I remember that when we get back to Paris, when the train was leaving the tunnel on the French side, the mechanic could drove the train in full speed, and if he was a French mechanic, he usually announced to the passengers the highest speed with proud and with a hint of irony in his voice...
In France, the Channel is just know as "La Manche" (the Channel). Even on older maps and text, it is never given a nationality, it's just The Channel.
Most Brits I know also only call it the Channel, so I do'nt know if calling it the English channel is common.
Side note, why not getting a propane or petrol heater for your room? :D
I’ve been through it several times. Once in a coach just after it opened and a couple of day trips in the car. Ferries take about 90 minutes to cross, the tunnel takes 35. I liked the ferries because after the drive to Dover and you got on the boat I would go straight to the restaurant for breakfast and relax for the rest of the crossing. You can’t beat the tunnel for speed and convenience drive up, check in, passport and security check, on the train and go. It is not quite as slick now that all passports need to be stamped and when the biometric e-visa rules come in this year, that is going to be chaos at first. If you don’t live in London, it is still quicker and cheaper to fly to Paris than use the Eurostar, but for taking a car, tunnel every time.
Earlier in the video it was said that the tunnel was "70 metres, 230 feet below the water". I think that was meant to mean 70 metres below the sea bed.
70m is 230 feet (approx) - it's just a two-fold statement of the same measurement in metres then feet
you forgot the baquette
The Channel Tunnel basically spans the Border between the UK & France; The way it is set up effectively creates a land border crossing between the two in either direction, as BOTH sets of frontier controls are on the same side, so upon disembarkation one just drives straight on to the French Autoroute or British Motorway, that is so for "Le Shuttle", the vehicle carrying shuttle trains between the two ports / terminals at Folkestone & Calais; for foot passengers (those travelling without their own vehicle cross border) that service is "Eurostar"; The UK Terminus is at London's St. Pancras International, which is on the northern side of Central London, and services operate year round to Lille in Northern France, also Paris's Gare Du Nord; some services also run (Via Lille) on to Brussels, Belgium (most terminating there), but a few also run further to both Rotterdam & Amsterdam in The Netherlands, and few (not many, and seasonally) run further into France; There used to be a seasonal weekly direct service to Disneyland Paris, but covid eventually saw that service discontinued; the Eurostar frontier controls are BOTH at the London terminus, an effective pre-clearance facility similar to that for the US CBP checks in Ireland, and some Canadian and Caribbean airports, and now also at Abu Dhabi in the UAE; on the same subject, I'd also recommend checking out videos on how to ride Le Shuttle & Eurostar
I remember visiting the construction site before the tunnel was completed for a school trip when I was 12. I’ve only been on the euro tunnel and the Eurostar once each since but it really is a wonderful way to travel. Though I took many ferries to France as a kid and that’s also really fun. Love that you enjoyed this 😊
And the brits pushed through the hole first onto the French side 😂👍🇬🇬
😁
The TBMs for this fantastic Project where actually Built in the USA and shipped over and rebuilt inside the tunnel i think its 45m below the sea bed so the UsA wasn't left out!!😊 The spoil on the English side was used to form an added peninsula called Samphire Hoe it is a Nature reserve that you can visit below Shakespeare Cliff, i have yet to travel on it ,i will one day, the TBMs where built by the ROBBINS COMPANY You might have heard of them, the one on the English side there where more than one was turned and diverted to bury itself underneath the tunnel, French dismantled theirs.😅😊
Best bit of the meeting video is that the pressure difference between the two sides created a draught that made the flags flutter.
Back in the 80's we used to get the Motorail - drive your car onto a special sleeper train - from Stirling, Scotland to London overnight and then drive down to Dover for the Ferry. Sadly motorail doesn't exist anymore.
When I was living in London in the 90's nipping onto the Eurostar to Paris was a great day out.
Never knew this but then I'm over west side. This would be amazing to have between Scotland & Cornwall if only!
I never knew it either and I'm from Alloa, only seven miles from Stirling😂 - but then again a trip to Stirling was a big day out for our family in the eighties. Stirling was the big city😂
The Motorail Shed still stands as a car park at Kensington Olympia.Station
When it first started, Hertz the car rental company ran a scheme called “Le Swap” which allowed you to drive to Calais via Le Shuttle, the car transporter train, in a right hand drive British car and then swap to a left hand drive European car for the rest of your journey on the European continent. On return, you would again swap cars at Calais to a British car for the last leg home, again via the train. It worked well apart from the limited opening hours of the rental office which operated only between 8am to 8pm. 8pm being 7pm in England due to the time zone change. I did France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, Belgium this way in 1995. The service ceased about 3 years later. 😎😇
It was brilliant - I used the service quite a few times and would happily use it again.
The only downside I came across was Hertz being useless in not having the right types/sizes of cars available (they'd give you a much smaller one than the one you had paid for) and being absolute buggers to chase for a refund...
@@alexshapley8331 yeh, I had that problem. I booked a Mondeo Estate to do the booze cruise thing on the way back. Was upgraded to a Volvo 850 estate on the way over. They tried to give me a smaller Astra estate for the trip to Italy which I rejected. They would not let me drive the Volvo around Europe and I ended up in a Renault Saffrane hatchback, which was okay because the booze shopping was to be done in Calais anyway. Then picked up a Mondeo estate (having slept overnight in a Eurotunnel overflow car park car park because of being delayed by traffic queues in Germany and the terrible operating hours. I then went booze and cigarette shopping that morning. The other good thing was the Le Shuttle ticket was not time restricted so you could travel as soon as arriving at the terminal similar to a Flexi-plus ticket now. Driving the Mondeo up to the Belgium border for the cigarettes with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car didn’t phase me at all so I wouldn’t use it again but have used Le Shuttle 30-50 times since in my own or indeed Hertz UK rentals (they charged a small supplement of about £30 for taking their UK vehicles overseas).
Hi Steve, temperature in my part of England is in the minus centigrade day and night at mo, no snow but very icy mornings. Used to use the tunnel a lot and as I get sea sick it was a blessing. You can feel it undulating on the sea bed which was weird at first.
Simon does good work. I like the places you are going too - I can't imagine what a confusing journey it must be to try and grasp centuries and centuries of British history and cultural nuances without going down a thousand rabbit holes!
Steve. The Channel tunnel is a great way to get to France, Paris in particular. I’ve been through three times, once to Paris and on to Dijon & Switzerland. The second time was to Brussels and on to Bruges. The third time was again to Paris but this time for a river cruise on the Seine. I’ve yet to use the car train. the ferries still run from Dover to Calais and are cheaper, but slower. There are other ferries to Europe, for example Harwich to the Hook of Holland, Portsmouth to Santander, Newhaven to Dieppe and they are all busy, so busy that when the sailors strike the coastal motorways are turned into car parks for trucks waiting to travel.
Due to security concerns, there is an airline style security check at both ends. Still required to check in early, but it seems quicker than flying. You travel from the centre of London to either central Paris (or Disneyland), central Brussels or central Amsterdam, no travelling miles from city centre to airports.
Us British do like to hold a Grudge lol
I live 7 miles away from the channel tunnel. Right now, (Saturday) it's 4c. -5c a couple of days ago. Cold but not stupid cold.
Cost of return journey in the tunnel from Folkestone to Calais is appx £300..
I've taken the channel tunnel many times but only by car.
It's happens like the video says, you drive on the highway to a regular looking exit, you go through customs/security (back the the UK was still in the EU so it didn't take that long) usually you would park for some time waiting, for your train to board, in a small mall (think of it as an airport terminal) that's located on either side of the tunnel. When your time is up, you would go back to your car, and drive into a door in the back of the train that has 2 levels, up an down, but no separations between the train cars. So if you board the train first, you would drive the entire length of the train, inside the train, right up to the exit. (if you board last, you would do the same drive but at the end of the journey).
When the car in front of you stops moving forward (provided you are not first), you would stop and park the car and then exit the car (for safety reasons), you would wait 35 minutes for the train to go through the tunnel (there are no amenities provided except for some narrow bathrooms). When the train stops, you would resume driving trough the train until the exit at the front, and take the highway on the other countries.
The funniest part is the numerous signs in multiple languages (not just french and english) to remind people to drive on the other side of the road.
Wow, Steve, -29°c 🥶🥶🥶, glad I'm not there 😂
-29°f not Celsius 😂
@@Si-mc9bbyou do realise that -29f is even colder it's nearer to -34c.
@xhogun8578
*
-29°F
-34°C
You missed out the degrees sign (°). And it's °C & °F with capital F and capital C. Kelvin is just "Kelvin", K, not "degrees Kelvin", °K, apparently; but also with a capital letter, K.
@@Si-mc9bb*
-29°F
Fahrenheit and Celsius both have capital letters not small letters.
@Si-mc9bb
And (I thought) he said -20°F anyway. And that's WITH windchill factor. So not really as cold as -20°F (whatever that is) in fact, just feeling like that.
There are lots of train tunnels throughout europe because its fairly mountainous. You have to bare in mind that a lot of Europe is connected by railways, the way you get the multiple destinations is when out of the tunnel the train just continues to other places. Foot traffic is what it says people getting on without a vehicle like a normal train. Many people prefer this as there is good train services at either end if its a quick trip
Steve, you will probably be surprised to learn that most of the tunnel boring machines(TBM’s), are still in storage in sealed off chambers to the side of the main tunnel. This is because as the TBM’s moved forward towards the eventual meeting point the hole they had just dug was immediately lined with a segmented concrete ring. Because there was no way to dismantle the TBM’s into a smaller size to return through the tunnel behind themselves and despite the cost of designing and constructing them the decision was made to simply use the TBM’s to dig a separate chamber and effectively mothball them in their own garage space/tomb. Apart from regular checks for the condition of the garaging chamber, they have been abandoned as no longer needed.
There are 3 types of train in the tunnel.
1) Freight. Truck version. Trucks drive on, and a bus takes the drivers to the crew car.
2) Vehicle version, for Cars, Camper vans, Buses etc.
3) Passenger only, and yes, London destinations to Paris, Lille, Brussels, Amsterdam, Lyon, and Marselle. London to Amsterdam in around 3.5 hours.
Hi Steve always watch your channel and really enjoy them when you put your vids out. keep putting out the great video's god bless you and your family
Thank you! Appreciate you following along on the journey :)
now if you would of said chunnel there instead of channel :) 🤣
by your standards we' ve been a mild -4 at worst here in South Wales but has got milder as I didn't have to de-ice the car screen this morning
Dude, I’m a viewer in Minnesota- with your wind chills, we wear shorts
Hi Steve, travelled the eurostar back in 1996 , all I remember of it was how comfortable it was and fast . I've travelled by ferry too back in school on day trip to calais in the 80s . 😊
Good morning Steve 😊
Ha how weird! I was just watching Simon Whistler on one of his channels, when your video popped up.
Yes Steve, you drive your car onto a train. Foot passengers however, those on foot, with no car, or who parked up their car, choosing not to take it with them, and walked on by foot, go on separate passenger trains.
Actually our languages are not so different. English is, in origin, a West Germanic language. The Germanic tribes who settled here named our country. The came from a small town called Angle, and when they set up home here, they named it after their homeland. Angle Land > Angleland > England as it is now.
After the Norman invasion in 1066, (I've mentioned this before; The Battle of Hastings, because it is vital history as to what formed the country we still have today) the official language in England was changed to French following that, and that lasted around 400 years! Many of our Germanic origin words were in time influenced by Danish and Swedish following the Vikings arrival, and later French with the Norman arrival.
So while our languages appear unique at first, many European languages are reflected in English.
Love to you guys 😘😘😘 xxxxx
.................
London to Paris trip on the train:
ua-cam.com/video/95npC2JrH74/v-deo.htmlsi=XkecTJojIKWhJ06v
...................
Super quick video inside the car train and tunnel itself:
(Warning, for God's sake turn the music off! Seriously, it's enough to drive you crazy!!! 😵)
ua-cam.com/video/i4Z9-R9DEFw/v-deo.htmlsi=Awj_rEiXpXLBx2PB
.................
Battle of Hastings and how it shaped England:
ua-cam.com/video/uAkP0_rl0nE/v-deo.htmlsi=qU3OdzgHVnUDmFYK
It is named The English Channel by the UK but the French call it La Manche (meaning "the sleeve" after it's shape)
Didn’t realise the French had their own name for it, but I am I right in thinking the international name is English Channel ?
There is no such thing as international names. Each countries will use their own label in their own language for everything. What you have is that english is turning in practice more and more into the international lingua franca. Which means that "english channel" will certainly be more common internationaly.
@@DavidDoyleOutdoors But then the "English" Channel is mostly international waters. The territorial waters of the UK and France only extend 3 miles (4.8 km) into the Channel. SAR duties are split between both nations by the median line.
@@estranhokonsta Wrong. There are many examples of international names. Where you got your idea from is worrying.
@@estranhokonsta ah I see
I have. U S pen friend of 64 years we have visited each other many times with families. The first time we took them to France was on a ferry but years later we took them on the car train (Chunnel). Their reaction was much like yours. They first took their children to Paris on Eurostar and their children like the presenter were very upset you cound not see the fishes 😂
If you look at the map on the wall you can see where Americans get their knowledge of geography from.
A forward facing (towards one) phone camera records a reversed image.
@@tonys1636 To be honest, the American system is one of the worst in the west these days especially anything to outside their country and Geography is top of the fail list!
Yes ! The camera's Mirror setting is wrong :-)
@@nickclark6001 One would have thought that if the poster had a basic grasp of geography he would have noticed the error when editing the video prior to uploading. Oh well...
i also love how usa has some uk city named places, like birmingham, la manchester, 🤣couldnt resist , but yes maybe theres more i forgot some , intresting too
I remember several years ago we had some icy conditions. I had just bought a mini and parked it outside of my house, and when walking back to my house I noticed a bus sliding sideways down the road towards my car. I closed my eyes, but when I opened them again the bus had stopped a couple of feet from my car. Phew!
I feel with you😀
I left my home in Sussex and drove to Kent and parked. I then got on the train to Paris, had lunch beside Notre Dame, and got the Paris Metro back to the main station and came home to Sussex by mid-evening. Wonderful Lunch too!
You have to remember the state Europe was in at the time- we'd been a divided continent for decades after WW2 (and before that WW1 etc etc). The Berlin Wall had fallen only the year before as the Iron Curtain collapsed. Germany reunified only a couple of months earlier. It was the year when the Schengen Convention happened (when several countries agreed to drop their borders to improve freedom of movement). It was also around this time that several nations started seriously thinking about having a shared currency (the Euro). We were a Europe who could suddenly see a way forward with friendship and shared economic goals. The 1990s should be remembered as a decade of hope for Western Europe in particular, and we all felt the buzz of what the future held. Two dirty workers shaking hands in a tunnel under the sea was a visual representation of what we were trying to achieve, and it was very emotional for those of us who can remember it!
The most amazing thing I think about the technology is- how did they KNOW they were going to meet in the middle? You can't use a compass underground and even if Satnavs had been around then they're useless too (it's fun being in the Tunnel and watching your Satnav have a panic attack lol). They used a gyrotheodolite to work out their location- a piece of kit designed by a German. It was truly a European project.
As for "seeing" the bores- apparently the French dismantled then rebuilt theirs, so I guess they must be around to see somewhere. But the British ones were programmed to bore themselves into the ground after the project was finished- much to my dismay!
It's actually cheaper to fly to UK than catch a train through the channel tunnel. There are some cheap fares at certain times but flying is usually cheaper!! Crazy but true
but its a million times easier to bring your thc vape and edibles on holiday if you take the train though
Flying can be cheaper but not much use if you want to take your vehicle.
It may be cheaper to fly but you have to get to and from the airport. If you take your car from Folkestone you don’t
Depends on where you live and where you are going.
It can be cheaper to fly between cities like Manchester to Birmingham - which is a sign of how fucked our rail network is
If it wasn't for the French digging from their side, we'd of probably just dipped under France and headed for Benidorm 😆👍
My Father-in-law emigrated to France about 20 years ago so we use the Tunnel nearly every year, .. great way to travel to France 👍
14:34 That's why the "White Cliffs of Dover" look like they do, they're also made of that same chalky material.
"English Channel" to the _British_ but "La Manche" (the "sleeve") to the French, "Armelkanal" ("sleeve" canal) in German. In fact, most of Europe refers to the "English" Channel as a sleeve ('cos it sort of looks like it). Some countries shorten it to simply: The Canal.
In Italian it is La Manica same as the French meaning the sleeve
❤ Thank you... I couldn't remember what the French called it.🤔🏴🧡🇷🇴🖖
We call it the "Noordzeekanaal" in Belgium.
Canalul Manecii (Sleeve Channel). Romania.
Where I live in England it's been down to minus 6 degrees Celsius (American terms 21 degrees Fahrenheit). And even colder in other parts. Shout out to all the men and women that have just participated in the Montane spine race, that looked bitterly cold.
There also used to be the boat-train, where trains used to board a ferry to go to Europe.
I saw that done - Harwich to Hoek.
"""""There also used to be the boat-train, where trains used to board a ferry to go to Europe."""""
Now the important stuff... It's been damn cold in UK, but small potatoes compared to you, about -4 centigrade and my car heater screwed up! Warmed up now but a big storm coming in tomorrow. Thanks for showing this.
We've had -4C this week and have been frozen here in Scotland. I have never travelled through the Chunnel. I have always travelled by Ferry or plane to France regularly for 3 weeks every summer as my dad was a French teacher. I grew up during the times of the troubles in Ireland and my dad wouldn't sanction us using the Chunnel as there were lots of bomb attacks in Britain and he said it wouldn't take much for someone to plant a bomb there. These days with Isis there's still a risk of suicide bombers, so I can't get my head around being under the sea.
these days sadly :( it really dont matter to them kinds of perspns , or where you are at the time or how many there are of you ... bad things are happening so much now these days , bombs , now guns and knife like weapons been obtained easily and used :( , the use of a truck to charge through huge crowds of people, going to a club , or a concert, a wedding , no where these days is safe from monsters sadly , i know they check for the train on foot and luggage but not sure for the cars boarding the train tbh for checks
The idea of taking an under water tunnel train to a foreign land is exciting until u realise the destination is France...il stick to planes and go anywhere but france😂😂
L’idiot. France is fantastic.
France is one of the nicest countries I've been to.
The only downside France has is that it's full of French people! 🇫🇷
France is a staggeringly beautiful country and the French people are wonderful.
France is a wonderful country to visit, especially for the food (if you go to the right places, it's also possible to get terrible food at the wrong places).
@@jerry2357 exactly! Go where French people go to eat, you’ll never go wrong.
We are -5 in Inverness my husband worked on the tunnel love watching your programs x
I've been taking the train through Germany and the Alps for many years. I've ridden my bike (BMW GS) to Hamburg, and onto the AutoZug (Car Train). Then found myself a nice sleeper cabin on board, had a nice meal and a few beers, then been waking up somewhere south of the Alps on my way to Italy, Croatia, the Riviera or Spain.
I don't know if you have checked this out before but you might be interested in the RNLI, royal national lifeboat institution which has lifesaving stations all around the coast and has lifeguards on many beaches. The most amazing thing about is that it is not run by the government or the coastguard It is a CHARITY run entirely by public donation and it frequently surprises foreign visitors who have their lives saved that there is No Charge. This year is the 200th anniversary of its creation and the history is as fascinating as what it does.
Love how excited you was about the tunnel, as most of us are like blar the tunnel, the English Channel isn't owned by the English, spilt in half and I'm pretty sure the French call is someone different.