BY  Del Jones

        FOLKESTONE, England  - The railroad tunnel beneath the English Channel ceremonially opened in the drizzle Friday as England's Queen Elizabeth and France's President Francois Mitterrand rode 31 miles in the tunnel in the queen's Rolls-Royce, hauled by train.
        The tunnel symbolizes a united Europe and is expected to make travel between the countries quicker and more convenient than taking a hovercraft or ferry.
        Crossing the channel on a hovercraft takes 3 hours and costs $81. The ferry is 3 1/2 hours and $76. Driving your car onto a tunnel train and zipping across underwater should take 1 hour, 35 minutes. Chunnel fares haven't been set.
        The tunnel - nicknamed Chunnel - opens to regular passengers this summer. Here's a look at the stir the Chunnel has caused.

        Beer traffic: Big beneficiaries will be French supermarkets in Calais, which cater to thousands of British day-trippers looking for cheap beer. They have been ferrying their cars over and loading up.
        Buying beer in France saves Britons 30% to 50% because of high taxes in England. Favorite: a light French brew, Stella Artois, about $8.25 a case in France, vs. $12.75 in Britain. German and Belgian beers sell well, as does Budweiser.
        Simon Torrington, a computer programmer from Crowborough, England, and his brother, Paul, supervisor at a chicken factory, loaded an Isuzu Trooper with $300 worth of beer last week. They make the trip four times a year, easily saving enough to pay the ferry fare.

        One owner: Heavy machinery used to dig the 31-mile tunnel is being sold at deep discounts. Henry Butcher, an auction firm in London, is asking $3.8 million for a used 1,000-ton boring machine that cost $11.3 million new. It bores train-size holes 30 feet in diameter. You can see it along Motorway 20, a freeway between London and the channel. Painted on its side: "For Sale. One Careful Owner."
        "We've had interested parties around the world," says John Davis, a Henry Butcher partner. Among them: builders of a proposed Tehran, Iran, subway.

        It's about time: The British press covered the Chunnel inauguration as a social event. While the French press touted the engineering marvel, British newspapers were concerned about what Queen Elizabeth and President Mitterrand ate (duckling and champagne), and whether the queen smiled much. "She looked crosser and crosser" as the day wore on, according to the Daily Express. U.K. newspapers were preoccupied with whether the queen made the trip on schedule. Seven minutes late, said the Daily Express; 3 minutes early, said the Guardian; 127 years and 9 minutes late, said the Daily Mirror, recalling the first attempt at a tunnel last century.
        Most newspapers gave bigger play to sexual-harassment charges against President Clinton. They waggishly wondered whether he will have to submit to photographs of his body parts for the investigation.

        Investments: French home prices near the Chunnel have zoomed. British homes, after a run-up, are about the same as before construction.
        A French fixer-upper cottage went for $7,500 to $12,000 before Chunnel construction began in 1986. Now: $30,000. A similar two-bedroom home on the English side is about $50,000 to $60,000 now, same as before Chunnel construction. The English values jumped 30% to 50%, but were clobbered by a recession in 1989 and haven't recovered, says Paul Francis, branch manager of Alliance Leicester Property Services in Folkestone.
        Speculators who bought $1,000 of Eurotunnel stock at the low point and sold at the peak, in 1989, got back $2,800 - an $1,800 gain in 18 months.
        But a naive investor lured to the stock at its '89 peak would have seen that $1,000 investment crumble to just $379 now.
        Delays in opening the $15 billion Chunnel have cost Eurotunnel $75 million a month in lost fares. Nevertheless, Eurotunnel predicts profits for itself and dividends for investors "by the next century."
        Folly, say some investment analysts. "It's extremely difficult to visualize profitability, unless Eurotunnel takes massive market share from the airlines," says stock analyst Ian Furnivall of the Hoare Govett firm in London. The firm recommends that stockholders sell because Eurotunnel's credit rating is weakening. "The company's situation is deteriorating," Furnivall says.

Rocky ride for Chunnel stock How stock of Eurotunnel, which trades on the Paris exchange, has fared: 
Jan. 1, 1988:  $3.76 
June 2, 1989: $19.20 
April 1:           $7.67

1 - in francs. Dollar translations use Friday's exchange rate