Eurostar's chunnel vision

In just seven weeks, St Pancras station replaces Waterloo as London's Eurostar terminal. That first commercial journey will mark the completion of a project that surely ranks among the wonders of the modern age.

Involving the construction of 150 bridges and major stations at Stratford and Ebbsfleet, the high-speed rail link between London and the Channel tunnel has taken 11 years to build at a cost of £5.8 billion ($13.8 billion). It is the single largest construction project to be undertaken in Britain.

The headline news is that journey times to the Continent are set to be slashed by an average of 25 minutes, but the project's impact promises to reach considerably further. In two years, high-speed domestic trains will begin running on the line, dramatically cutting journey times between the capital and the outer reaches of the Thames Gateway.