Editing Channel Tunnel (section)

=== Completion ===

[[File:319008 at Sandling.jpg|thumb|right|[[British Rail Class 319|Class 319]] EMUs ran excursions into the tunnel from [[Sandling railway station]] on 7 May 1994, the first passenger trains to go through the Channel Tunnel.]]

A {{Cvt|50|mm||}} diameter pilot hole allowed the service tunnel to break through without ceremony on 30 October 1990.<ref name="WashPost">{{cite news |title=Britain and France Link Up-at Last |first=Glenn |last=Frankel |newspaper=The Washington Post|date=31 October 1990}}</ref> On 1 December 1990, Englishman Graham Fagg and Frenchman Phillippe Cozette broke through the service tunnel with the media watching.<ref name="Evening Mail birthday">{{cite news |title=Chunnel birthday |work=Evening Mail |publisher=Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd |date=2 December 2000}}</ref> Eurotunnel completed the tunnel on time.<ref name="Flyvbjerg p. 96/97"/> (A [[BBC TV]] television commentator called Graham Fagg "the first man to cross the Channel by land [[Last Glacial Period#Deglaciation|for 8000 years]]".) The two tunnelling efforts met each other with an offset of only {{Cvt|36.2|cm||}}. A [[Paddington Bear]] soft toy was chosen by British tunnellers as the first item to pass through to their French counterparts when the two sides met.<ref>{{cite news |date=4 October 2016 |title=Paddington Bear: 13 things you didn't know |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/10777912/Paddington-Bear-13-things-you-didnt-know.html |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/10777912/Paddington-Bear-13-things-you-didnt-know.html |archive-date=12 January 2022}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

The tunnel was officially opened, one year later than originally planned, by the French president [[François Mitterrand]] and Queen [[Elizabeth II]], at a ceremony in [[Calais]] on 6 May 1994. The Queen travelled through the tunnel to Calais on a [[Eurostar]] train, which stopped nose to nose with the train that carried President Mitterrand from Paris.<ref name="BBC openingceremony">{{cite news |title=On This Day – 1994: President and Queen open Chunnel |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/6/newsid_2511000/2511653.stm |work=BBC News |date=6 May 1994 |access-date=12 January 2008}}</ref> After the ceremony, President Mitterrand and the Queen travelled on [[Eurotunnel Shuttle|Le Shuttle]] to a similar ceremony in [[Folkestone]].<ref name="BBC openingceremony"/> A full public service did not start for several months. The first freight train, however, ran on 1 June 1994 and carried [[Rover Group|Rover]] and [[Mini]] cars being exported to Italy.

The Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), now called [[High Speed 1]], runs {{convert|69|mi|km|0|}} from [[St Pancras railway station]] in London to the tunnel portal at Folkestone in Kent. It cost £5.8&nbsp;billion. On 16 September 2003 the prime minister, [[Tony Blair]], opened the first section of High Speed 1, from Folkestone to north Kent. On 6 November 2007, the Queen officially opened High Speed 1 and St Pancras International station,<ref name="High-speed Newswire">{{cite news |first=Peter |last=Woodman |title=High-speed Rail Link Finally Completed |work=Press Association National Newswire |date=14 November 2007}}</ref> replacing the original slower link to [[Waterloo International railway station]]. High Speed 1 trains travel at up to {{convert|300|km/h|mph|0|abbr=on}}, the journey from London to Paris taking 2&nbsp;hours 15&nbsp;minutes, to Brussels 1&nbsp;hour 51&nbsp;minutes.<ref name="NewsAsia High Speed 1">{{cite news |title=New high-speed rail line opens to link Britain to Europe |publisher=Channel NewsAsia |date=15 November 2007}}</ref>

In 1994, the [[American Society of Civil Engineers]] elected the tunnel as one of the seven modern [[Wonders of the World]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.asce.org/People-and-Projects/Projects/Seven-Wonders/Seven-Wonders/ |title=Seven Wonders |publisher=American Society of Civil Engineers |access-date=7 October 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121026093022/http://www.asce.org/People-and-Projects/Projects/Seven-Wonders/Seven-Wonders/ |archive-date=26 October 2012 }}
</ref> In 1995, the American magazine ''[[Popular Mechanics]]'' published the results.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Pope |first=Gregory T. |title=The seven wonders of the modern world |newspaper=Popular Mechanics |pages=48–56 |date=December 1995 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O2YEAAAAMBAJ&q=itaipu&pg=PA52 }}</ref>