Le Shuttle

Eurotunnel Le Shuttle (sometimes shortened to Le Shuttle or The Shuttle) is a railway shuttle service between Coquelles (near Calais) in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France and Cheriton (near Folkestone) in Kent, United Kingdom. It conveys road vehicles (including bicycles by appointment) and passengers (including some animals) by rail through the Channel Tunnel. Passenger and freight vehicles are carried in separate shuttle trains hauled by the same locomotives.

The service is owned and operated by Getlink, the Channel Tunnel owners.

Both the terminals are provided with passport and vehicle check in booths, a large convenience outlet, long loading platforms and a loop of track. Upon arrival, having booked beforehand or not, vehicles can check in (in separate freight/passenger booths), make their way to the outlet (except freight) and go through various passport checks once the train has arrived and boarding has commenced. The train is unloaded and loaded again in just over half an hour. Various safety announcements are played and the train departs once the loading wagons are stowed. After a train comes out of the tunnel (after 22 minutes), it travels around the loop and stops at the terminal platform. It is then unloaded, and re-loaded with a new set of vehicles to go through the tunnel again. Once at the other end, vehicles can simply drive off of the train onto the French Autoroute or the British Motorway. The complete journey takes at least one and a half hours between the motorways, with the crossing being 35 minutes.

The rail loop at Folkestone is clockwise and is in a cut and cover tunnel, while the loop at Coquelles is anti-clockwise. This evens the wear on the wheels of the shuttle locomotives and vehicles, as each set (left or right) spends only half the time at the outer edge of the line traversing the corners. Because of the land space available, the French loading platforms are designed so that they can be entered and exited in two directions and by both freight and passengers.

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