Eurostar 04346

Engels opstel 4Ha
Maarten Batenburg

(This is the upgraded version: autumn 1997)
(The original was written in spring/summer 1997)

This story is located in the tunnel between Dover and Calais, the "Chunnel" (wordplay upon the words Channel and Tunnel), also know as the Eurotunnel, Channel-tunnel and so on. Through this tunnel the Eurostars, the highspeed trains, travel from Brussels / Paris to London. The Shuttle commutes between the two terminals Folkestone (Dover) and Calais and carries cars and small lorries. Freight-trains travel also through the tunnel.

The breadbin was still laying in the main-service tunnel. The breadbin was forgotten by one of the workmen who helped by the reparation of the left tunneltube. Four loafes with cheese and three with sausage. And everywhere where it is warm and moist (like a tunnel), there are rats. The rats in this tunnel were attracted by the bread in the bin. They began to gnaw the bin open. By the quarrel of the rats the bin fell into an air passage and felt into the train-tunnel, between a point of the track. The tongue of the point was now jammed by the bin and it was impossible to shift the point. The rats were looking for something else to eat and when they saw the new electric cable, which contained a colouring-matter that was edible for rats, they began to gnaw it. The electric cable itself was now exposed. The rats were "shocked" and ran away. The two points of the cable were touching each other and emitted sparks. The cable was the safety and controlling cable from the railpoint. The point of the railtrack was still jammed by the bin. The track was now leading to one of the big halls under the Channel where trains could change to the other track, in case of an accident. Now, however, the opening between the two tracks was closed as usual, by a big massive iron door, preventing draught and the spreading of fire.

The driver was controlling the Eurostar 04346 from Paris to London. When he entered the tunnel entrance at approximately 200 kilometres (about 125 miles) an hour, everything was as usual. All the signs along the track were showing green. The softly lit tunnel always gives a strange view. "Like an abandoned secret moon-base or something like that", the driver thought. He was now approaching the big crossing-hall and he already saw the lights. By 200 kilometres you can't see the point, so the driver was leaning backwards in his chair and watching the control panel. At that moment the train passed the point. The train shot to the left and the driver fell onto the floor. In the train all people were jolted against the wall or the side of the chair. Due the sharp bend the Eurostar began to lean over and fell onto the floor. The train was overturning and the wagons were collapsing and rumpling. The driver was rolling through his cabin and his hand went through the broken window, just when the train felt with that side onto the ground. The train was crossing the hall and did go through the iron door. The door went out of his flush and fell onto the train, where the people were flatted. The train stopped at last at the other side of the hall, on the track from England.

The freight train was travelling at a speed of 120 kilometres an hour. The 2000-ton freights consisted of gass, oil and sulphuric acid. The driver of the train was approaching the second hall, just behind the next bend. The driver was stirring his coffee and took a pull. Shit, that is hot! The beaker fell and the coffee flowed over the floor. Damn! The driver bent down and began to clean the floor. What a mess. When the floor was dry and proper enough, he craned his neck and looked through the frontwindow.
Just 20 metres in front of him was the Eurostar, lying up-side-down with its lights blinding the freight train-driver...

The people who survived the crash climbed out of the wagons, cried and looked around. All they saw was a mess of broken and distorted steel, crying and screaming people within, and between the carriages. Everywhere you could see limbs and other parts of human beings. Then the people felt a draft come up. It was caused by a train approaching the hall. Now the people heard a heavy noise from the other tunnel. That was clearly another train. The people who could run away, ran away from that tunnel to the other side. People who couldn't, remained where they were. Then the freight-train came out of the tunnel and collapsed into the Eurostar. The sound of steel along steel was a terrible sound. The train was driving over the other carriages and turned over. The people who were still at the Eurostar and who were too slow were now killed by the moving wall of train-steel. The freight-vans were rit up by the former Eurostar and the contents flowed over the ground. People were hit by the acid and screamed caused by the intense pain. When the freight-train and the Eurostar finally stopped, the mess was even greater. The whole hall was one big iron terrain with the overwhelming smell of a petrolstation. One of the trucks from the freight-train in the tunnel fell of another truck and a crack appeared and liquid was dripping out of the wagon. One of the drips fell onto an electric cable and caught fire. That small flame fell into the plain of benzine and benzene. Boom. The whole hall rumbled and a fire wall came to the hall where the fire exploded by the large amount of oxygen. All the iron beams were blown away and people were hit by beams and the fire itself. Most people died by the big intense fire and toxic vapours, that corroded their lungs. The walls were totally black, and the people near the centre of the explosion too. The big fire ball consumed all the oxygen, so, some people choked. Due the big explosion the wall of the tunnel and the hall began to show some cracks. The noise of cracking concrete scared the people who were still alive and they went to the other tunnel, if they could. The tunnel was still intact. Then some walls of the hall were dislocated and tumbled down. By the quake, the other walls became dislocated too and collapsed. All the tunnels were down now. The 40 metres of earth and water above the tunnels collapsed into the tunnel and a big stream of mud went into the former tunnel. All the steel and train wagons were carried by the stream. At the end of the tunnel, where the tunnel was higher than the sea-level, the stream with the beams and bodies finally came to an end.

• Several things are fiction (hopefully); Dangerous goods like oil are not allowed in the chunnel. As far as known, there are no rats in the tunnel.
• And I've made a mistake; in the tunnel the trains drive on the left track (like in England, France and Belgium), in the story on the right track.
• No animals were harmed during the filming of "Eurostar 04346".
• "Eurostar 04346" was filmed by a live audience.
• I wrote this story before the real accident in the chunnel took place. A lorry on the freight-shuttle caught fire and the whole tunnel was damaged for more than a half year. I hope this was coincidence.