Over the years The Engineer has reported on several schemes to connect the UK to mainland Europe and, as we know, only one project has been successful so far.
Tunnels and bridges have been proposed and in 1880 work started on experimental tunnels in Folkstone that were dug by hand and an early tunnel boring machine.
Nineteen years earlier, The Engineer reported on how a certain James Chalmers of Montreal had ‘patented the means whereby he proposes to open a railway communication under the channel.’
Chalmers’ idea was somewhat unique in that he’d connect sections of tube and submerge them, rather than dig a tunnel.
READ THE ENGINEER'S ORIGINAL ARTICLE ON CHALMERS' PROPOSAL
The Engineer said: “The shape and form of the tubular roadway may be varied, but it is preferred that such tubular roadway for deep water should be of a circular section, having a rectangular inner way formed therein, as thereby the pressure of the water at great depths may be divided between the tubes by allowing the leakage of the outer or circular tube to collect between it and the inner one, until it obtains such pressure as the inner or square tube may safely carry, then drawing it off through valves into the inner tube, thus relieving by reaction the pressure on the outer or circular tube.
“The length or sections of a tubular way have each bulkheads or partitions, one near each end, which are of a strength to resist the pressure of the water when the length or section is submerged, and when it has been emptied of water.”
Each end of a length or section of the tubular way would be formed with inner flanges, as well as with an outer flange. The construction of a tubular roadway could be commenced from shore or bank, and Chalmers thought it preferable to start at a spot ‘intermediate of the two shores or banks of the River, Sea, or other water’.
In the tower, suitable steam engines, pumps and machinery are to be constructed, in order to pump away the water in the tower, and to keep it free from water
“In order to commence the works at a point intermediate of the two shores or banks, a tower is first submerged of such dimensions as to descend to the bottom of the water, and to ascend to some height above its upper surface, provision being made for connecting the ends of the tubular ways on opposite sides of the tower in like manner to that in which the ends of the lengths or sections of the tubular way are connected end to end, when they are submerged,” said The Engineer.
Our Victorian predecessor continued: “In the tower, suitable steam engines, pumps and machinery are to be constructed, in order to pump away the water in the tower, and to keep it free from water. The lengths or sections of the tubular roadway are in succession floated out to positions they are to occupy, and are then submerged and coupled up, and their inner flanges riveted or connected by screw bolts and nuts, and, as each length section of the tubular roadway is in succession coupled up, the water used therein to aid in submerging it is allowed to flow from it into the sections previously submerged, and thence to the tower where the water is raised and pumped away.
To have a clear way through the lengths of tubular roadway between the tower and the length next to the one last submerged, the bulkheads or partitions were removed as the work proceeded. The outermost bulkhead or partition would remain until another length had been submerged and fixed to the end of the one previously submerged.
When compiling our archive pieces, it is common practise to investigate the career of the main protagonist, but Chalmers left little trace of himself to study. Luckily, The ICE Archive helped to fill in the blanks. They pointed out that Chalmers was quite an inventor, having invented the Chalmers Target, armour for naval warships detailed in Ships of War—Petition of Mr James Chalmers - Hansard - UK Parliament. The ICE Archive told us also that he wrote a book about naval construction. We might also assume he wrote ‘The Channel Railway, connecting England & France’ prior to his untimely death at the age of 49.
His passing warranted a small obituary in the January 1, 1869 edition of The Engineer, which noted that Chalmers left his widow and family in ‘very straightened circumstances’.
“It is to be hoped his exertions on behalf of the public service will not be overlooked by the government,” said The Engineer.
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