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Before the tunnel, there was trade, but sending rail cars was difficult due to the need to use the train ferries. There was even a "Boat Train" which used sleepers built to the UK loading gauge and travelled overnight via the ferry - passengers would depart London, be shunted onto the ferry in Dover, and land at Dunkirk (where the most recent train ferry linkspan still survives though it's now out of use and the rails have been partially tarmaced over to give access to the new road linkspan alongside it - I have a rather poor photo of it taken with a camera phone from the deck of a Norfolk Line RoRo ferry this summer if anyone is interested?). I think there were one or maybe two sailings per day of freight. Interestingly the final train ferries built for the route were designed to be multi-purpose so that they would still be useful in the event of a tunnel opening - I think the old Sea France Nord Pas de Calais (the last train ferry used on the route) is still running as a freight ferry. Specially designed rail cars were built for the ferry services - they had to be small enough to run in the UK loading gauge and usually displayed an anchor symbol on the data panel to show that they were equipped with the required tie-down points for ferry use. <br /> <br />We too see an increasing quantity of Chinese-made goods coming in, though I think this is mainly by ship and then either truck or train from the port rather than through the tunnel. I'd guess that continuing around Europe to the UK is cheaper than leaving the cargo in Italy and sending it on by rail, though I'm not sure of the economics of that - my main knowledge of container operations comes from watching ships whenever possible!
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