Word: chunnel
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...According to the timetable laid out in a government White Paper, on Nov. 15 Britain and France will sign a treaty committing the two nations to support the construction of a 32-mile tunnel between the Kentish village of Cheriton and Fréthun near Calais. Construction of "the chunnel," as it has been unfortunately dubbed by Britons, is expected to start within 18 months. Estimated cost: $2.1 billion. By 1980, if all goes well, sleek, fast trains will be whisking passengers between London and Paris in a mere 3 hours and 40 minutes...
...Britain last week decided to connect island and mainland with a crossChannel tunnel. The governments approved a recommendation made last September by an Anglo-French study group that found a railroad tunnel "technically possible and economically desirable." But still to be answered were two major questions. Should the "chunnel" (for channel tunnel) be bored through the chalk of the channel bottom, or should 23 miles of segmented tubes be laid across the intervening seabed? And how would the $448 million project be financed? Chunnel buffs talked excitedly of the first auto carrying train zipping smoothly from Folkestone to Sangatte...
...plumping for the "chunnel" (for channel tunnel), the committee rejected a proposed 21-mile cross-channel bridge. It would have cost twice as much, placed 164 dangerous steel-and-concrete pillars across the foggy Pas de Calais bottleneck which carries some 500 ships...
Even today, many Britons dislike the notion of a pack of foreigners popping out of the ground. Though the military long ago dropped its objections, the citizenry is still concerned about invaders. "The chunnel would be an entrance for an enemy," worried one Londoner. "It's always been that little bit of water that's kept us safe," said another. Despite the committee's report, Gladstone's silver streak seemed as wide as ever...