However, LCR has defended the delays, insisting that it will not go to the capital markets until it has a cast-iron investment case and is certain of its costings.LCR also defended the performance of its Eurostar services to Paris and Brussels, saying that passenger levels had risen by more than 20 per cent to 6 million in 1997, giving it 60 per cent of the rail/air market between London and Paris.Analysts estimate that Eurostar will have to increase passenger numbers to nearer 10 million before its starts to contribute profits. The biggest are SBC Warburg Dillon Read and Bechtel, each with stakes of 18 per cent, followed by Virgin and National Express, each with 17 per cent.LCR has come in for criticism from the City for the lack of detailed information about the project and delays in fund raising, leading to fears that it would turn into another Eurotunnel – vastly over budget and behind time. Railtrack is one of six outside parties with which LCR is in discussions about helping to finance or construct the link.There are eight members of the LCR consortium at present. However, discussions are still at a preliminary stage.”The other attraction of bringing Railtrack into the project is that it has a triple A debt rating, making it easier and cheaper for LCR to raise loans.

A spokesman said: “There are all sorts of options as to how Railtrack could be involved and putting in equity is one of the them. The link is scheduled to open in 2003.LCR also said that it was close to signing a deal to redevelop St Pancras Chambers, the listed Gothic-style building at the front of the planned Eurostar terminus, while the planning application to develop an intermediate station at Ebbsfleet in north Kent had been approved.LCR plans to raise about pounds 1bn through a share issue and a further pounds 4.4bn in bank loans of which pounds 1.4bn will be repaid from a government grant payable once the project is two-thirds complete.However, LCR declined to quash speculation that Railtrack may emerge with a significant equity stake in the project. The go-ahead for construction of the pounds 5.4bn Channel tunnel rail link was signalled yesterday as speculation continued to mount that Railtrack is preparing to take a stake of up to pounds 500m in the project Michael Harrison reports. London & Continental Railways, the consortium chosen to build the 68- mile link and operate Eurostar services, announced an important breakthrough yesterday by naming contractors for the key tunnelling sections into St Pancras station.
Work on the tunnels, worth pounds 200m, will start in April and removes any lingering doubts that the project would stop short of central London because of financing difficulties.Adam Mills, LCR’s chief executive, said the consortium was on course to raise up to pounds 5.4bn in debt and equity in the middle of this year to cover total financing costs, including construction which is estimated at pounds 3bn. The UK contribution includes communications and electronic systems for the carriages.. The 100mph trains, which will be leased through Angel, one of the three rolling- stock leasing groups, will replace a fleet of 20 trains dating from the 1960s.The new trains, which are similar to those built by Siemens for the Heathrow Express line, will be assembled in Spain, with parts supplied from Germany and some from Britain. Jurgen Gehrels, Siemens UK chief executive, said Virgin had also insisted on unrealistic delivery times.Separately yesterday it emerged that Siemens has won a contract worth up to pounds 65m to supply a fleet of 16 electric trains to Regional Railways North East, the privatised train operator based in York.

Virgin was yesterday heavily criticised for the reliability of its West Coast services.Siemens yesterday attacked Virgin, claiming the operator had insisted on draconian penalty clauses for late delivery amounting to some 30 per cent of the cost of the order. They would cut journey times to Birmingham to one hour, replacing some of the most outdated stock on the rail network. About 70 per cent of the work would come to the UK, with bogies, tilting mechanisms and body shells sourced from Italy and the remainder of the work, including final assembly, carried out in Britain.The 55 trains, each with seven carriages and capable of speeds of up to 160mph, would be based on Fiat’s Italian Pendolino design. It emerged yesterday that one of three bidders, Siemens of Germany, had pulled out of the shortlist while Adtranz, the joint venture between ABB of Sweden and Daimler Benz, was lagging behind GEC. Industry sources said GEC had been chosen for the final detailed discussions on the order.
The joint bid made by GEC and Fiat would guarantee jobs at GEC-Alsthom’s plants at Birmingham and Preston, which employ just under 2,000 people. GEC and Fiat look set to win the UK’s largest train order yet, the pounds 1bn contract to supply Virgin with high-speed tilting trains for the West Coast Mainline. Tucking them into bed with blankets rather than laying a duvet over them further reduces the risk during the vulnerable first year..

Duvets do not tuck in whereas blankets, which do and are therefore secured, are less likely to be pulled over the face.Parents have been advised to put their babies to sleep on their backs since the start of the decade and the number of cot deaths has more than halved. The increased risk applied only if the baby slept on its back – the recommended position – or side, and not when it slept on its front.
The authors of the study, which was conducted in Tasmania and is published in the British Medical Journal, say that when babies reach the age of 16 weeks they can pull bedclothes over their faces and may move their sleeping position. “Just like humans, plants have an immune system and it’s the chemicals they use to defend themselves that have these medical applications,” he said.”Plants have the ability to synthesise extremely exotic molecules which would take chemists years to copy, if they could ever do it at all.”. Duvets and quilts should not be used for babies under the age of one year because of the risk that they will cover their faces and obstruct their breathing, doctors warn. A study of 100 families of babies who died from cot death found that the use of a duvet or bed quilt increased threefold the risk of the baby dying. But IGER and Xenova, which specialises in the discovery of novel pharmaceutical drugs from natural sources such as fungi, were keeping quiet yesterday about the possibilities of other flowers.Professor Clive Loveday, one of Britain’s leading Aids experts, who has an interest in herbal medicines, said he was not surprised by the potential for the bluebell. “Some of these compounds are very difficult to produce synthetically, so you have to farm the plants.

They could certainly be very pretty.”The bluebell is not the only plant being investigated. Dr Watson said they might be dependent on whole fields of the flowers being grown for their commercial value. They are not identical, but similar enough to get us excited.” They all work by inhibiting certain enzymes in the body.The institute, which is part of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, yesterday announced an alliance with Xenova Discovery Limited to build up a library of such potentially money-spinning compounds.They aim to apply new analytical techniques to the search for previously unknown bioactive compounds from both European and tropical plants.However, it may prove impossible for the development to be wholly high- tech. Scientists at an institute in Wales have shown that bluebells, and their close relation the harebell, are packed with chemicals which they use as a defence mechanism against animals and insect pests.
The biologically active compounds are strikingly like two similar compounds extracted from a plant in Australia and America which are now undergoing clinical trials with cancer and HIV patients in the US.Dr Alison Watson, of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (IGER) in Aberystwyth, Dyfed, said: “The bluebell produces compounds very similar to them. Treatments for HIV infection and cancer could be developed from the humble bluebell after a government scientific body joined forces with a drugs company yesterday to spearhead research. “A more explicit statement of the minimum requirements for each level of award could be helpful as would an indication of the relative importance of different professional achievements,” he says..