A tangent from the never-ending short straits foot passenger discussion in the international transport section, GetLink's (channel tunnel owners) accounts published today and the newish electrical interconnector seems like a much more profitable business than the transport business. Sharpening my crayons, could we see the main tunnels converted to carrying electricity, and people and freight going back to ships?
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Channel tunnel more profitable as an electrical connector than transport service
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The Planner
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Clear and to the point as always The Planner!
The Planner
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Always of the view of not messing about...
Sad Sprinter
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Ridiculous the Chunnel is not profitable as a rail artery. I wonder what can be done to improve that.
Trainbike46
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noone said it wasn't profitable, just that last year more money was made transporting electricty rather than trains (was the shuttle service included or reported separately?)
If I remember correctly, a big part of the costs for the tunnel is repayments on debt taken out to build the thing in the first place
And anyway, is the purpose of infrastructure really to be profitable?
For the chunnel? Yes, Getlink is a private company and the chunnel was privately financed.
The tunnel is big enough for electricity and trains, as long as trains are still profitable they'll be carried.
coppercapped
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Quite so, electrons are very small...
(I'll get my coat)!
No.
Not least, it would be an awfully big cable!
Put the prices up, obviously.
Sad Sprinter
Established Member
Thus making passing the costs over onto the Eurostar and pricing passengers away? Doesn't sound like a good idea to me.
I was more thinking along the lines of what could be done to increase freight and passenger numbers.
They didn't say that rail operations were unprofitable, just that the electricity side generated more.
The transmission cable's running costs will surely fall on the owner, not Eurotunnel, so the fees received will go straight to the bottom line
China has a HVDC link with a maximum capacity of 12GW so you would only need 4 cables to power the entire country. In theory. I would guess there would be some "interesting" electromagnetic effects from currents of that magnitude being near each other
China has a HVDC link with a maximum capacity of 12GW so you would only need 4 cables to power the entire country. In theory. I would guess there would be some "interesting" electromagnetic effects from currents of that magnitude being near each other
The cable’s owner is GetLink, ie the tunnel’s owner.
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Not necessarily. Besides, they make lots more money off the shuttles than Eurostar. And the shuttles always see to be full when I use them (at all sorts of odd times of day).
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