How we made the Eurostar

‘We had whole meetings devoted to how hot the water has to be to make a decent cup of tea’I was based in Paris, overseeing the trains, and my remit was simple: just make it happen. There was a very positive feeling: “Yes we can! Yes we can!” But so many things were incompatible . We used a TGV train, but it had to be modified so it could work on tracks in Britain (750 volts), France (1,000) and Belgium (3,000). And British platforms are about 950mm above rail level; on mo