Empire News Sunday March 16th 1919.
From Kearney files.
London to Paris in three hours,
Channel tunnel for speed
Can compete with the aeroplane,
How I would construct the tube.
By E.W.C. Kearney, who prepared a plan for an up to date Channel tunnel for the War Cabinet.
To many the idea of travelling to Paris from london by rail in less than three hours may sound impossible.
Some will say"A train is not an aeroplane. You cannot run as fast as you can fly". That is exactly where people err. There is no reason whatever why we should move more slowly on earth than in the air, and I am certain of this that when people as they soon will, become accustomed to the speed of the aeroplane they will demand a similar speed on the ground.
When men learn to fly in the air they will no longer be content to crawl on the earth. Therefore I believe public opinion will demand a great speeding up in all forms of transit.
In a splendid undertaking like the Channel tunnel scheme it all the more essential to anticipate this certain public demand.
How can this be done?
Not fast enough.
It certainly cannot be done by adopting the earlier tunnel schemes. These schemes have all the grave defect that they were prepared in times when ideas were far different from what they are now. The present scheme for example to cover the distance between London and Paris in something like six hours and is complicated by the fact that at the English end of the tunnel there would be a loop approach which makes high speed impossible and at the French end a right angle junction with the Paris railway which would entail an even greater reduction in rate of travel. We must eliminate all such hindrances to high speed. Therefore it is essential in the first place to make the route as straight as possible.
Look, not at the Paris railway, but at the Lille railway and you have the key to the whole situation. There is on the Calais- Lille line a perfectly straight run from just South of Calais to Emmett.
This line extended across the Channel takes you to a point on the English coast just ideal for linking up with either Dover or Folkstone.Moreover at the French end you can easily link up with the Paris line.
It is essential to bring London into the closest possible touch with Paris, but it is also very necessary to join up with the most direct to the vast industrial tracts of North - Eastern Europe to which the Lille railway is the high road.
Rising tunnel.
The scheme I propose is in a section like a big letter W. Imagine the letter with the first and last legs very short and the middle legs very long and squat. Then the first and last legs will represent the land dip of the railway. The upper ends of these legs will represent the points where the tunnel dips below the shores at either side.
At these points the tunnel will be approximately 350 feet below the sea level, and from these places the tunnel will not fall, but rise at a gradient of one in a thousand to a point in mid channel where the rail level would be just 110 feet below sea level. The reason for this rise is of course to allow for drainage. Any water filtering into the tunnel would fall away naturally to the lower ends of the W legs, at which point it would be pumped to the surface.
Under my plans there is no need for a separate tube for drainage. The drainage system can perfectly well be worked into the two train tubes thus effecting a great saving in cost.
Not a steel tube.
Now as to the tube itself. People are saying quite rightly that owing to the world scarcity of steel and construction of this sort would be very costly. But it is quite unnecessary to have the tunnel lines with steel throughout. We should remember that the success of tunnel construction depends a great deal upon this sort would be very costly.
In the case of the London tubes engineers had a splendidly firm blue clay to deal with and in the case of the Channel tunnel we have no less excellent chalk, which in itself is very firm. Steel casing is therefore totally unnecessary, just as any sort of stone masonry is unnecessary. In any case the results secured by Terri - concrete are such that modern engineers are putting faith in this material. The lining of the Channel tunnel if best results of recent research are followed will therefore be done in this way.
Spraying process.
A sort of steel netting set with spikes will be thrown round the circumference of the tunnel as it is cut by a special quick tunnelling machine of British invention. This steel netting will fly into place and then the concrete spray will come into operation. A rotating machine will spray concrete with great force against the sides of the tunnel so that every nook and crevice behind the steel net will be completely filled and the spray process will then be continued until more than a 6" wall of concrete is created on the inside of the netting. Apart from this all that is needed to guarantee perfect stability is a circular steel ring say every 10 feet. When this part of the work is completed rails can be laid and it is essential that at the very outset ground and overhead rails for the Kearney High - Speed system should be installed at the same as the tunnel is being built. Because it is upon the Kearney system that we must depend for Earth transit being able to complete with transit by air.
Three hours!
I calculate that with system in operation between London and Paris the journey can be accomplished in under three hours and I am of opinion that the tunnel part of the system can be completed in three years, with the aid of the Bucknell Boring Machine which is destined to revolutionise both the speed and the cost at which tunnel construction can be undertaken.
The two great points we have to keep in mind are :-
We must provide for the highest possible speed in order to satisfy all
Future demands for rapidity and therefore economy in railway transit.
We must not merely join up Paris and London but must keep clearly in
mind that the Channel tunnel is to be a main artery in a system of World
communication and that therefore it is of vital importance to have the
tunnel so placed that it will be most easily applied to existing systems.
From both these utility points of view as well as from the point of view of
Speed in construction, the scheme I put forward is the only possible way
of meeting all the requirements that the public will demand from a
Channel Tunnel service.
E.W. Chalmers Kearney.
From Kearney files.
London to Paris in three hours,
Channel tunnel for speed
Can compete with the aeroplane,
How I would construct the tube.
By E.W.C. Kearney, who prepared a plan for an up to date Channel tunnel for the War Cabinet.
To many the idea of travelling to Paris from london by rail in less than three hours may sound impossible.
Some will say"A train is not an aeroplane. You cannot run as fast as you can fly". That is exactly where people err. There is no reason whatever why we should move more slowly on earth than in the air, and I am certain of this that when people as they soon will, become accustomed to the speed of the aeroplane they will demand a similar speed on the ground.
When men learn to fly in the air they will no longer be content to crawl on the earth. Therefore I believe public opinion will demand a great speeding up in all forms of transit.
In a splendid undertaking like the Channel tunnel scheme it all the more essential to anticipate this certain public demand.
How can this be done?
Not fast enough.
It certainly cannot be done by adopting the earlier tunnel schemes. These schemes have all the grave defect that they were prepared in times when ideas were far different from what they are now. The present scheme for example to cover the distance between London and Paris in something like six hours and is complicated by the fact that at the English end of the tunnel there would be a loop approach which makes high speed impossible and at the French end a right angle junction with the Paris railway which would entail an even greater reduction in rate of travel. We must eliminate all such hindrances to high speed. Therefore it is essential in the first place to make the route as straight as possible.
Look, not at the Paris railway, but at the Lille railway and you have the key to the whole situation. There is on the Calais- Lille line a perfectly straight run from just South of Calais to Emmett.
This line extended across the Channel takes you to a point on the English coast just ideal for linking up with either Dover or Folkstone.Moreover at the French end you can easily link up with the Paris line.
It is essential to bring London into the closest possible touch with Paris, but it is also very necessary to join up with the most direct to the vast industrial tracts of North - Eastern Europe to which the Lille railway is the high road.
Rising tunnel.
The scheme I propose is in a section like a big letter W. Imagine the letter with the first and last legs very short and the middle legs very long and squat. Then the first and last legs will represent the land dip of the railway. The upper ends of these legs will represent the points where the tunnel dips below the shores at either side.
At these points the tunnel will be approximately 350 feet below the sea level, and from these places the tunnel will not fall, but rise at a gradient of one in a thousand to a point in mid channel where the rail level would be just 110 feet below sea level. The reason for this rise is of course to allow for drainage. Any water filtering into the tunnel would fall away naturally to the lower ends of the W legs, at which point it would be pumped to the surface.
Under my plans there is no need for a separate tube for drainage. The drainage system can perfectly well be worked into the two train tubes thus effecting a great saving in cost.
Not a steel tube.
Now as to the tube itself. People are saying quite rightly that owing to the world scarcity of steel and construction of this sort would be very costly. But it is quite unnecessary to have the tunnel lines with steel throughout. We should remember that the success of tunnel construction depends a great deal upon this sort would be very costly.
In the case of the London tubes engineers had a splendidly firm blue clay to deal with and in the case of the Channel tunnel we have no less excellent chalk, which in itself is very firm. Steel casing is therefore totally unnecessary, just as any sort of stone masonry is unnecessary. In any case the results secured by Terri - concrete are such that modern engineers are putting faith in this material. The lining of the Channel tunnel if best results of recent research are followed will therefore be done in this way.
Spraying process.
A sort of steel netting set with spikes will be thrown round the circumference of the tunnel as it is cut by a special quick tunnelling machine of British invention. This steel netting will fly into place and then the concrete spray will come into operation. A rotating machine will spray concrete with great force against the sides of the tunnel so that every nook and crevice behind the steel net will be completely filled and the spray process will then be continued until more than a 6" wall of concrete is created on the inside of the netting. Apart from this all that is needed to guarantee perfect stability is a circular steel ring say every 10 feet. When this part of the work is completed rails can be laid and it is essential that at the very outset ground and overhead rails for the Kearney High - Speed system should be installed at the same as the tunnel is being built. Because it is upon the Kearney system that we must depend for Earth transit being able to complete with transit by air.
Three hours!
I calculate that with system in operation between London and Paris the journey can be accomplished in under three hours and I am of opinion that the tunnel part of the system can be completed in three years, with the aid of the Bucknell Boring Machine which is destined to revolutionise both the speed and the cost at which tunnel construction can be undertaken.
The two great points we have to keep in mind are :-
We must provide for the highest possible speed in order to satisfy all
Future demands for rapidity and therefore economy in railway transit.
We must not merely join up Paris and London but must keep clearly in
mind that the Channel tunnel is to be a main artery in a system of World
communication and that therefore it is of vital importance to have the
tunnel so placed that it will be most easily applied to existing systems.
From both these utility points of view as well as from the point of view of
Speed in construction, the scheme I put forward is the only possible way
of meeting all the requirements that the public will demand from a
Channel Tunnel service.
E.W. Chalmers Kearney.
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