Work on the fire-damaged Channel Tunnel is almost finished as the vital crossing gears up to re-open in February in time for the half-term holiday.

Since the inferno on September 11, hundreds of underground engineers have worked round the clock to complete the £50 million repair job ahead of schedule.

The fire is thought to have occurred on a lorry being carried on a Kent-bound freight shuttle some seven miles from Calais.

Around 30 truck drivers and shuttle crew escaped to the safety of the service tunnel.

With the Chunnel restricted to a single bore, shuttle and Eurostar services have continued but with reduced speed limits.

The bore will re-open overnight on February 9/10. From February 10, there will be two passenger shuttle departures an hour in each direction, and from February 13, up to four departures an hour in each direction, depending on demand.

From February 10, there will be up to six freight shuttle departures an hour, followed soon after by a resumption in full shuttle and Eurostar services.

A new timetable for Eurostar comes into force on February 23, restoring a service between Ashford International and Brussels.

Eurotunnels' chief operating officer Jean-Pierre Trotignon, said the works have been "completed safely, in record time and below expected costs."

He said that tunnel use had been kept up as much as possible through a "reactive commercial policy.". However, Eurotunnel and Eurostar have seen a drop in business, but not as much as they perhaps feared.

But the Port of Dover claimed on Friday that the restricted service had boosted ferry business.

Bob Goldfield, the port’s chief executive, said: "The fire in the tunnel diverted all modes of traffic on to the ferries, boosting ferry freight by 34 per cent initially. Even now, as the tunnel returns to its pre-fire capacity, haulage companies are sticking with sea crossings as a means to keeping costs under control."

He expects to keep some of the business that switched as part of a trend and in response to the economic downturn.

"As the UK economy moves into recession, we would expect the volume of HGVs through the port to shrink at the same rate. However, while the economy shrank by 1.5 per cent in the last three months of 2008, overall numbers of lorries through Dover fell by 2.5 per cent over the whole year."

He added: "Long-term, cross-channel freight volumes will grow, and when the UK economy moves back out of recession, we have to be ready to allow it to flourish," says Bob Goldfield.