Fire in the Channel Tunnel
Breaking news that has not made it to the BBC yet but my sources tell me the Channel Tunnel is closed owing to a freight vehicle fire on the French side. All the freight vehicle drivers were evacuated safely. The Emergency Plan has not been activated but services are likely to be reduced for the time being. You read it here first!

Thank you Rev. News.

Oh boy am I glad I returned from France last night, and am not attempting to get home this evening :)

I know ... I went along to my wedding rehearsal this evening to be told that the uncle who is going to read the lesson lives in France and is currently on the wrong side of the water ... he has 40 hours and counting to adjust his location ...

I heard that the tunnel is likely to be re-opened at some point tomorrow afternoon / evening; I hope that l'oncle francais arrives in time.

Well so do I: he is supposed to be reading an excerpt of Shelley's Loves Philosophie and they are going to be hearing too much of my voice as it is .... hmmmmm must go and write very short sermon for the event ...

I just heard this morning there's no traffic in either tunnel today and no comment on tomorrow. They were talking about the amount of people and trucks that use these trains on a daily basis. Jeeps that was a lot, something about 50 passenger trains of about 750 persons each. I forgot how many lorries. I really had no idea.

It's very busy - they really need to build another fixed link, maybe a bridge tunnel combo, but the present one will have to sort its finances out before that can happen.

*remembers when you had to take the ferry or the hovercraft across*

When was that tunnel opened to public transport again? (1994, thank you wikipedia). I've traveled to the UK quite a few times over the years, but only once used the tunnel. Both kinda odd and kinda cool.

It's a great way to travel for intercity journeys(London-Paris, London-Brussels or London-Liege), and also if you're travelling by car. IIRC it was monumentally expensive to build, and can't even pay the interests on its debts...

This summer my daughter took the train from Paris to London, saw a matinee of King Lear, and got back to Paris in time for a late dinner. As a student, it was less expensive for her to do that than it is to take a train trip from Philadelphia to New York.

*hates tunnels and gets scared in them*

Apparently they are going to run a couple a test trains throught the unaffected tunnel tonight. My sources tell me that the damage to the UK bound tunnel was much worse than Eurotunnel are currently owning up to - the whole train was alight at one time not just the vehicle carrying Phenol - a nasty volatile material at the best of times, I'm surprised that they let it through to be honest.