Eurostar

Eurostar is a high-speed railway service connecting London with Paris and Brussels. All its trains traverse the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France, owned and operated separately by Eurotunnel.

The London terminus is St Pancras International, with the other British calling points in Kent. Calling points with trains to Paris terminate at Gare du Nord. Trains to Belgium terminate at Midi/Zuid station in Brussels. In addition, there are limited services from London to Disneyland Paris and to seasonal destinations in southern France in summer and the Alps in winter.

The service is operated by eighteen-coach trains which run at up to 300 kilometres per hour on a network of high-speed lines. The LGV Nord line in France opened before Eurostar services began in 1994, and newer lines enabling faster journeys were added later–HSL1 in Belgium and High Speed 1 in southern England. The French and Belgian parts of the network are shared with Paris-Brussels services and also with TGV trains. In the United Kingdom the two-stage Channel Tunnel Rail Link project was completed on 14 November 2007 and renamed High Speed 1.

Eurostar was until 2010 operated jointly by the national railway companies of France and Belgium, and Eurostar (UK) Ltd, a subsidiary of London and Continental Railways, which also owned the high-speed infrastructure and stations on the British side. Eurostar has become the dominant operator in cross-channel intercity passenger travel on the routes that it operates, carrying more passengers than all airlines combined.

In 1995 Eurostar was achieving an average end-to-end speed of 171.5 km/h (106.6 mph) between London and Paris. On 8 January 1996 Eurostar launched services from a second railway station in the UK when Ashford International was opened. Journey times between London and Brussels were reduced by the opening of HSL 1 on 14 December 1997.

On 23 September 2003 passenger services began running on the first completed section of High Speed 1. Following a high-profile glamorous opening ceremony and a large advertising campaign, on 14 November 2007 Eurostar services in London transferred from Waterloo to the brand new St Pancras International.

An advantage held by Eurostar is the convenience and speed of the service: with shorter check-in times than at most airports and hence quicker boarding and less queueing and high punctuality, it takes less time to travel between central London and central Paris by high-speed rail than it does by air. Eurostar now has a dominant share of the combined rail-air market on its routes to Paris and Brussels. In 2004, it had a 66% share of the London-Paris market, and a 59% share of the London-Brussels market. In 2007, it achieved record market shares of 71% for London-Paris and 65% for London-Brussels routes.

Unit 5

Ex. 1. Read and memorize the following words and word combinations:

Word-box:

boring – бурение catenary – контактная подвеска chalk marl – известковый мергель communication system – система связи concession radio – местное радио (радио, принадлежащее компании) crew – бригада loading gauge – габарит подвижного состава roll-on/roll-off – трейлерные перевозки service tunnel – служебный туннель third rail – контактный рельс tunnel boring machine – буровая туннелепроходческая машина tunneling – проходка туннеля

Ex.2. Copy the following words and memorize their meanings:

beneath – ниже; под

either – и тот и другой; оба

expenditure – издержки

internal – внутренний

onward – вперёд

overrun – превышение

peak – достичь максимума; разгар

possess – владеть

predict – прогнозировать

shaft – шахта

share – иметь долю

shuttle – челнок; челночный рейс

via – посредством, с помощью

Ex.3. Describe the relationship between each of the following words (antonyms, synonyms, neither).

1. via / by means of 11.beneath / below

2. beneath / above 12.onward / ahead

3. onward/ farther 13.predict / provide

4. peak/ weaken 14.internal / external

5. possess / own 15.shaft / mine

6. share / participate 16.shuttle / weave

7. predict / forecast 17.possess / borrow

8. either / some 18.expenditure / profit

9. overrun/expenditure 19.either / both

10. internal / inner 20. overrun / amount

Ex.4. Read the following sentences and translate them into Russian:

1. Sales peaked in August, then, fell sharply.

2. We can offer a comfortable home to a young person of either sex.

3. He was standing on the bridge looking at the river beneath.

4. Under the proposals, investors would pay a greater share of the annual fees required.

5. Some roofs collapsed beneath the weight of so much snow.

6. A modern day elevator consists of a cab mounted on a platform within an enclosed space called a shaft.

7. You can access our homepage via the Internet.

8. Russia has plans to expand its high-speed network by 12,000 km by 2030 and these plans require expenditures worth USD 200 billion.

9. There was an unexpectedly large cost overrun in the program.

10. Hotel rooms are difficult to find at the peak of the holiday season.

11. He walked onward to the head of the lake.

12. Land that is possessed by the city should be turned into parks.

13. It is difficult to predict what the long-term effects of the accident will be.

14. We have no interest in interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.

15. There's a shuttle service from the city center to the airport.

Ex. 5. Read the table and translate the text using a dictionary if necessary.

Trains	Speed	Seating capacity	Car Length	Num. of cars
100 Series Shinkansen	220 km/h	1321	25metres	16
the InterCity 125Class 43	200 km/h	262	17.79 metres	5
Eurostar Class 374	320 km/h	900	18,7 metres	16
Sapsan	250 km/h	604	25 metres	10
TGV Duplex	320 km/h	508	20 metres	10

Compare the given trains using the given adjectives in the appropriate form of comparison. Make as many sentences as possible.

fast long capacious many slow few short

Examples: Eurostar Class 374 is the fastest train of all.

Eurostar Class 374 is faster than the InterCity 125 Class 43.

TGV Duplex has as many cars as Sapsan.

Ex.6. Match the words and word combinations in A with their definitions in B. Translate the definitions.

A	B
1. boring	a. a group of people who work on and operate a ship, boat, aircraft, spacecraft, or train
2. catenary	b. designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as automobiles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, trailers, and railroad cars, that are driven on and off the vehicle on their own wheels
3.communication system	c. providing electric power to a railway train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway track
4.concession	d. the digging, excavation, or construction of a tunnel
5.crew	e. a collection of individual communications networks, transmission systems usually capable of interconnection and interoperation to form an integrated whole.
6.loading gauge	f. an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for entrance and exit, commonly at each end.
7.roll-on/roll-off	g. is used to transmit electrical energy to trams, trolleybuses or trains at a distance from the energy supply point
8.tunnel	h. a machine used to excavate tunnels with a circular cross section through a variety of soil and rock strata
9.third rail	i. the maximum height and width for railway vehicles and their loads to ensure safe passage through bridges, tunnels and other structures
10.tunnel boring machine	j. the process of enlarging a hole that has already been drilled
11.tunnelling	k. a grant of rights, land or property by a government, local authority, corporation, individual or other legal entity

Ex.7. Translate the words and word combinations given in the box into English. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words and translate the sentences.

бурение контактная подвеска системы связи бригады габариты подвижного состава трейлерные перевозки туннель контактный рельс буровая туннелепроходческая машина проходка туннеля

1. In the case of a public service _____, a private company enters into an agreement with the government to have the exclusive right to operate, maintain and carry out investment in a public utility for a given number of years.

2. ____ are used as an alternative to drilling and blasting methods in rock and conventional mining in soil.

3. A revolution in wireless _____ began in the 1900s with pioneering developments in radio communications by Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi.

4. For water crossings, a ____ is generally more costly to construct than a bridge.

5. One can be amazed at the levels of spare _____ allocated on some railways.

6. _____ wires are kept at a mechanical tension because the pantograph causes mechanical oscillations in the wire and the wave must travel faster than the train to avoid producing standing waves that would cause wire breakage.

7. The _____ determines the sizes of passenger trains and the size of shipping containers that can be conveyed on a section of railway line and varies across the world and often within a single railway system.

8. Since 1970 the market for exporting and importing cars has increased dramatically and the number and type of _____ has increased also.

9. Much of the early technology of _____ evolved from the techniques of mining and military engineering.

10. ____ is used for a wide variety of applications in geology, agriculture, hydrology, civil engineering, and oil and natural gas industries.

11. ____ systems are a means of providing electric traction power to trains, and they use an additional rail (called a "conductor rail") for the purpose.

Ex.8. Match the word combinations on the left with their translation on the right.

A	B
1. undersea portion	a. система защиты
2.onward travel	b. ежедневные затраты
3. total construction cost	c. имеющие равную долю
4. cost overrun	d. реальные цифры
5. peak of construction	e. ограничение движения
6. daily expenditure	f. общая стоимость строительства
7. shared equally	g. подводный участок
8. protection system	h. разгар строительства
9. actual numbers	i. перерасход средств
10. traffic limitations	j. движение вперёд

Ex.9. Read the text and translate it using a dictionary if necessary.