January 1893: The cross channel bridge

Wonders of modern engineering skill, such as China's 20-mile Donghai bridge and Portugal's 10-mile Vasco de Gama bridge, would be dwarfed by a long-abandoned project considered by the Engineer back in 1893 — a bridge across the English Channel. 

While today the prospect of a bridge that crosses the sea and dissects one of the world's busiest shipping lanes is almost inconceivable, back in 1893 many considered the idea a far more realistic proposition than a tunnel. Indeed, just a couple of years earlier, one of the many early attempts to dig a tunnel linking the UK and France had been abandoned in the face of fears that enemies could use it to mount an attack.

In a detailed article on the subject, the Engineer considered the work of the Channel Bridge and Railway company, which had been established to draw up a 'complete set of plans and calculations relating to the construction of a bridge' stretching from Cape Blanc-Nez, near Calais, to the opposite shore at Folkestone in Kent.