Channel Tunnel over £3 million. Ten workers, eight of them British, were killed during construction between 1987 and 1993, most in the first few months of boring. A two-inch (50-mm) diameter pilot hole allowed the service tunnel to break through without ceremony on 30 October 1990. On 1 December 1990, Englishman Graham Fagg and Frenchman Phillippe Cozette broke through the service tunnel with the media watching. Eurotunnel completed the tunnel on time, and it was officially opened, one year later than originally planned, by Queen Elizabeth II and the French president, François Mitterrand, in a ceremony held in Calais on 6 May
History of rail transport in France of the private railway operating companies began to face financial difficulties. In 1938 the socialist government fully nationalised the railway system and formed the "Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais" (SNCF). Regional authorities have begun to specify schedules since the mid of the 1970s with general conventions between the regions and the SNCF since the mid-1980s. From 1981 onwards, a newly constructed set of high-speed TGV ("Train à Grande Vitesse") lines linked France's most populated areas with the capital, starting with Paris-Lyon. In 1994, the Channel Tunnel opened, connecting France and Great Britain by rail under the English Channel.