Michael Bell wrote to uk.transport.london on Sun, 19 Dec 2004:


When the channel tunnel was started, that thoroughly commercial organisation,
British Railways, started a programme of bringing goods waggons into this
country by ship to build up traffic for when the tunnel opened. The tunnel
took longer to build than planned, so this built up to quite a traffic; I saw
a lot of Italian goods vehicles in Luton. But BR didn't live to harvest the
fruits of its labours - and were there any?

Oh, I think so! I had a ten-minute wait at Denmark Hill the other day,
changing trains, and there must have been at least 2 goods trains in
either direction, including a huge car-train. You never used to see
them at all, and now it's almost rare not to!

It's ironical to remember how the pundits said that the building of the
channel tunnel would bring vast traffic and make British Railways safe. But
as I understand it, goods traffic, like passenger traffic, has been
disappointing. It's strange how things turn out, not the opposite of what was
expected, but at a slant that makes the forecasts and their negations both
irrelevant.

It may have been disappointing, but it certainly still exists! And I'm
not sure how disappointing passenger traffic is, since they run the
shuttle service every 20 minutes or thereabouts, and 4 passenger tph
through the tunnel - which surely they wouldn't do by now if passenger
levels didn't warrant it?
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 18 December 2004