Celebrating 20 years of the Channel Tunnel

The first time I used the channel tunnel we were both eight. My parents had briefly explained the concept of the tunnel under the sea, but it still confused me no end. Wasn’t the sea bottomless? But there we went, with a loaded car and a very unamused cat. A man in a neon vest signaled everyone with a paper letter “R” onto what was the biggest train I’d ever seen. So big it had ramps. France disappeared, and for 35 minutes the popping in my ears was the only sign that we were actually moving, until the darkness made way for a green hill with a white horse painted on the side. My first glimpse of England.[pullquote style=”right” quote=”dark”]The concept of a tunnel under the sea confused me no end. Wasn’t the sea bottomless?[/pullquote]

That was twelve years ago. The chunnel and I are now both twenty. With two months’ worth of luggage I’ve decided not to brave the airport’s luggage weight restrictions and taken two trains to catch the Eurostar: the chunnel for people. The terminal in Brussel Zuid, or Bruxelles Midi, doesn’t look all that different from the series of gates at Schiphol airport that the flights to Britain depart from. Behind the baggage scanner a blond guy with a heavy Flemish accent comments on some shoes his colleague bought. They glance over to make sure I can get the suitcase off the scanner, but apart from that they pay the fact that it’s clearly over the airplane-allowed 20kg no attention. Nor do they question whether my rucksack still fits in a little metal box despite the helmet dangling from one of the straps and make me unpack everything for that tube of hand cream I forgot I had put in a back pocket. In fact, maybe I should have taken that extra pack of stroopwafels after all.

photo: flickr/Tony Hisgett

The waiting room doesn’t look 20 years old. It mainly consists of rows and rows of black chairs, with grey walls lightened up with posters with things like Creativity is Great… Britain! They’re even on the ceiling. A giant Wallace smirks down from between a poster of Food is Great… Britain! and Buckingham Palace.

There is one sign of the station’s age: I cannot find a plug.

The waiting area fills up with people: a group of boy scouts, a German family, two backpackers, an elderly couple, and people who look like they really wish there would be a plug because they don’t have time to waste because of business. Some get coffee (it is between 10 and 11 after all, sacred coffee time in this part of Europe) or a newspaper. The family beside me pours over a tube map the tourism office kindly left with the rest of its posters. Perhaps most aptly, people have already begun queueing.

Eventually we file onto a train. It’s a bit like efficiently herding cattle that can read, with neat little signs by each of the carriage doors to stand by in yet another queue. Big suitcase goes in its designated compartment, little suitcase goes overhead with a neighbour’s help. The driver, whose name is Claude, announces we’ll be stopping in Lille Europe (which sounds more fancy than South Brussels), cross the chunnel, and pass a place in England that starts with an A before arriving at King’s Cross. He announces this in English, French and Dutch, puzzling over how to say his colleague’s name with a Dutch-French accent. My resolve to stay awake and watch the beautiful French and English countryside rush by quickly crumbles. By now it’s 11. I’ve been on three trains in four hours. Just like the majority of the carriage, I nod off.

The waiting room doesn’t look 20 years old

Slight minus point about the Chunnel. It takes a while to get there unless you live near Brussels. On the upside, no one wakes you up to check your seatbelt or tell you to switch off your iPod for landing.

And then Kings Cross. More signs in French and English guide us past passport control into the main station. No one has weighed my luggage, checked it for liquids, forgotten compasses or size. I haven’t had to wait around for hours, nor do I now have to wait for my suitcase. Though it may not have the excitement of an airplane take off, for a one-way trip it sure was convenient.

Well then. Happy birthday Channel Tunnel!