On this day, 31 years ago, on May 6, 1994 (March 26, 1994, the Anglo-French Cross-Harbour Tunnel was opened to traffic. May 6, 1994 was a very important day in the history of relations between Britain and France and even the European continent. With nearly seven years of hard work, 11,000 engineers and technicians finally turned the dream of nearly two hundred years since Napoleon into reality: the surging sea became a thoroughfare, and an undersea tunnel connected the three British islands suspended in the Atlantic Ocean. The close connection between the European continent and the European continent has written an important chapter in the history of European transportation. Eurotunnel refers to the undersea railway tunnel that traverses the Strait of Dover between Britain and France, also known as the Channel Tunnel. It starts from Folkestone in the United Kingdom in the west and ends in Calais in France in the east. It has a total length of 50 kilometers and an underwater length of 38 kilometers. It is the longest undersea tunnel in the world. The project consists of three tunnels and two terminals. The three tunnels are arranged in parallel from north to south. The north and south tunnels are 30 meters apart. They are single-track and one-way railway tunnels with a tunnel diameter of 7.6 meters; the middle tunnel is an auxiliary tunnel used for maintenance and rescue work of the above two tunnels, with a diameter of 4.8 meters. At 1/3 and 2/3 of the auxiliary tunnel, horizontal connecting tunnels were built for the two operating tunnels respectively. When a railway fails, trains running in one tunnel can be transferred to another tunnel to continue running without disrupting the operation of the entire tunnel. On the auxiliary tunnel line, there are channels connecting the two main tunnels every 375 meters for maintenance personnel to work and evacuate people in emergencies. The opening of the tunnel has halved the land travel time from London to Paris, taking it to 3 hours. Flying from London to Paris generally takes about 3 hours. However, you have to book tickets in advance and take the train through the tunnel. The time is the same, but it saves you a lot of trouble. According to estimates by the British Railway Authority, 18 million passengers and 8 million tons of freight can pass through the tunnel every year. Eurotunnel officially started on December 1, 1987, at a cost of US$15 billion. It was originally planned to open to traffic in 1993, but was later delayed by one year. The construction funds mainly came from international bank loans and stock sales, and were undertaken by an Anglo-French consortium. The passenger and freight trains used in Eurotunnel are all pulled by two locomotives, each locomotive has a power of 7600 horsepower and an average top speed of 140 kilometers per hour. At the opening ceremony of the European Tunnel on May 6, 1994, then French President Mitterrand Queen Elizabeth II co-hosted a grand opening ribbon-cutting ceremony at both ends of the tunnel, Calais of France and Folkestone of the United Kingdom. The two heads of state delivered speeches at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Mitterrand said that the ideal of more than two centuries has been realized, and both he and the French people are happy with the realization of this project. This project will promote the construction of European unity, and what Britain and France are doing will not make the rest of Europe feel indifferent. Queen Elizabeth II said this was the first time that the heads of state of Britain and France had met neither by boat nor by plane. She hopes that the Cross-Harbour Tunnel will increase the mutual attraction between the two peoples and hopes that the two countries will continue to pursue their common cause.