- Start
- May 6, 199490% CONFIDENCEfrom the source
The Channel Tunnel Opens
- The Channel Tunnel was officially opened on May 6, 1994 in a ceremony led by Queen Elizabeth II and French President François Mitterrand, connecting Britain to the mainland "for the first time since the Ice Age"[3][4]
- It links Folkestone in England with Coquelles in France and is the only fixed link between Great Britain and the European mainland[3][4]
- The two sources measure it slightly differently: History.com gives 31 miles end to end with 23 miles under water at an average depth of 150 feet below the seabed, while Wikipedia gives 50.46 km (31.35 miles) with a 37.9 km (23.5 mile) underwater section, 75 m below sea level and averaging 45 m below the seabed - the longest underwater section of any tunnel and the third-longest railway tunnel in the world[3][4]
- Cost is stated three different ways: History.com says about $16 billion, roughly twice the original estimate and a year behind schedule; Wikipedia gives a final cost of £4.65 billion (equivalent to £9.8 billion in 2025); and the B1M video's cited research includes an Independent piece headlined "12 billion pounds under the sea"[1][3][4]
- Start of construction is also given two ways - History.com says the tunnels were begun in June 1988 and Wikipedia's timeline has tunnelling starting in France in June 1988, but its infobox dates the work's beginning to 1 December 1987[3][4]
- The build ran as two single-track running tunnels 7.6 m wide plus a 4.8 m service tunnel with 270 cross passages, electrified at 25 kV AC, designed for 200 km/h but limited to 160 km/h for safety; the engineer was TransManche Link and the modern project was initiated by Eurotunnel in 1988[3][4]
- Human cost and scale: 15,000 people were employed at peak and ten were killed during construction[4]
- Opening cut the crossing to 35 minutes and London-Paris eventually to two and a half hours, carrying about 30,000 people, 6,000 cars and 3,500 trucks a day[4]
- The service tunnel broke through in December 1990; freight trains followed in June 1994 and passenger trains in November 1994[3]
- Early operation was difficult: Eurotunnel announced a huge loss one year into service and was saved by a debt-for-shares swap before its first net profit in 1999, and freight was suspended for six months after a lorry fire in November 1996[3][4]
- The idea long predates the build - Albert Mathieu's 1802 proposal, Thôme de Gamond's surveys from 1839, Colonel Beaumont's mile of bore in 1880, and British and French machines driving 1,840 m and 1,669 m before abandonment in 1883 over invasion fears; a UK-France scheme was cancelled in January 1975 and the Treaty of Canterbury signed in February 1986[3][4]
- The ASCE named it one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World in 1996, and The B1M's 2024-01-17 film, published as "the seventh wonder of the modern world, the Channel Tunnel, turns 30 this year", calls it the world's longest undersea link[1][4]
References 478% CONFIDENCE
The first entry is always the pin's source. Overall confidence is a weighted average of how firmly each reference supports the start and end times used above; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newest.
- [1]90%youtube.com/watch?v=gAPahZAapMQyoutube.com· Posted Sep 15, 2026· Starts May 6, 1994 ✓· 36% of score
Happened as dated, per the source: the tunnel "was officially opened on May 6, 1994," presided over by Queen Elizabeth II and President Mitterrand.
- [2]65%Railway Architecture | The Longest Underwater Tunnel in the World | FD Engineeringyoutube.com· Added Sep 15, 2026· 36% of score
FD Engineering documentary on the Channel Tunnel, the same real-world subject as this pin’s 1994 opening.[1]
- [3]78%Channel Tunnel – Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org· Published Jul 1, 2026· 27% of score
Wikipedia confirms the tunnel was "officially opened" on May 6, 1994 by the same two heads of state, while noting full public passenger service did not begin for several months and freight service started June 1, 1994 - matching the pin's stored date while adding useful nuance.
- [4]82%English Channel tunnel opens – HISTORYhistory.com· Published May 6, 2020· 0% of score
History.com states the Channel Tunnel was opened in "a May 6, 1994 ceremony presided over by England's Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterrand," matching the pin's stored date exactly.
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