EUROTUNNEL, the Anglo-French company on the verge of finalising its vital £9 billion refinancing deal, yesterday published traffic figures for September showing passenger numbers had doubled since last year.

The Channel Tunnel operators' train service, Le Shuttle, carried 224,759 tourist vehicles compared with 105,914 in September 1995. The trains also carried 53,513 trucks last month, a 40 per cent increase on the 38,136 it carried in same month last year. Eurostar, the high-speed passenger train service from London Waterloo to Paris and Brussels, carried 486,966 people last month against 293,502.