
London's Buried Diggers - wormold
http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2014/06/bizarre-secret-london-s-buried-diggers
======
sambeau
Further reading:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mulligan_and_His_Steam_Sho...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mulligan_and_His_Steam_Shovel)

([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt3ZQxKl_ZQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt3ZQxKl_ZQ))

~~~
sp332
My favorite version:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z1R5vDG2Tg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z1R5vDG2Tg)
(and the Madeline reading is even better)

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webnrrd2k
I have trouble believing this story.

For one thing a used digger would be worth far more than $10,000 USD, and for
another there are strict building codes that must be met. I'm sure a used
digger would not be considered legal fill-dirt material and they would be
forced to dig it out and re-do the whole lot if it was buried in place. I
remember when I was a kid in California the apartment I lived in filled in a
pool and they had to bust up the concrete. Someone threw an old couch or
stuffed chair or similar down in the hole and they just threw the dirt over
it. The city found out and made them dig it out and fill it with proper fill-
dirt. I believe the reason was that something might eventually be built on top
of that area and it had to be up to code.

~~~
tim333
"London's Very Own Urban Legend: There Are NOT Hundreds of JCB Diggers Buried
Beneath The Capital's Streets.."

[http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/06/london-urban-
lege...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/06/london-urban-legend-jcb-
digger_n_5459717.html)

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sp332
I've heard this before... Oh yeah, _Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel_
[http://blog.acton.org/archives/67697-lessons-creative-
destru...](http://blog.acton.org/archives/67697-lessons-creative-destruction-
mike-mulligan-steam-shovel.html)

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kentwistle
This is the underwater dive pool referenced
[http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/08_01/38MHouseES_468x477...](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/08_01/38MHouseES_468x477.jpg)

------
mocko
I call BS on this. No sources and burying all that engine oil and diesel would
contravene a mountain of regulations.

[http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/5459717](http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/5459717)

~~~
jrockway
This article derides the other for not having any sources, but still doesn't
actually have a source that says, "no, there are zero buried diggers". There's
a screenshot of Twitter and some guy saying "my company wouldn't do that".

I think we still have no idea if this is done or not. Someone call a real
journalist.

~~~
ZenPro
You are asking someone to prove a negative?

That is ludicrous. Imagine your statement applied to any other scenario such
as law...

Prove the person _didn 't_ commit the murder or he gets life.

It is precisely why those alleging a hypothesis must _prove the thesis_ , it
is not the job of everyone else to disprove an unproven hypothesis.

~~~
jrockway
That escalated quickly! Yes, the fact that they can't find a source that says,
"oh yeah, we bury those things all the time!" is certainly suspicious. But on
the other hand, I don't trust any of the blogs involved to actually dig up a
source. Instead they just post screenshots of Twitter, which doesn't really
add any information.

~~~
ZenPro
In your mind how would that source verify JCB's are _not_ there?

They would have to ground-penetrate the entire City of London and Greater
London conurbation.

~~~
ZenPro
Downvoted for being right again. Oh HN - you are nothing if not predictably
petty. :-)

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joshvm
If you have the money, why not? Though surely the diggers could just be
dismantled and taken out?

Clive James recorded a wonderful and amusing Point of View (BBC Radio 4) on
the subject of rich people and their basement palaces.

[http://www.clivejames.com/point-of-
view/underground](http://www.clivejames.com/point-of-view/underground)

~~~
sean-duffy
This same thought occurred to me, surely rather than wasting the whole digger,
there must be some salvageable parts that can be easily carried or hoisted out
of the holes and sold as spares?

~~~
ronaldx
Suppose you are one of London's 72 resident billionaires, and you're making 5%
or so on your income.

You can pay for this digger in an hour, by spending that hour sitting on your
ass, and it's not that you will be re-spending that money in your lifetime
anyway. Fill it in or have someone salvage it, do whichever is quicker: you've
got other things to do with your life and one of those things is to enjoy your
new pool.

(Whether true or not, this acts as a good illustration of the scale of income
inequality)

~~~
sp332
Chances are you didn't get to be a billionaire by throwing away $5k if it's
easily recoverable.

~~~
ronaldx
Chances are you don't get to be a (self-made) billionaire _without_ throwing
away $5k here and there.

If you're spending your time saving easily recoverable $5ks, you might get to
be a millionnaire but you will never get to be a billionaire: it's totally
irrelevant on that scale.

Equivalent statement: You don't get to buy a house without picking pound coins
up off the street.

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ccleve
Someone explain why you couldn't just build a plywood ramp and drive it out?

Or winch it up an incline too steep to drive?

Somehow, there needs to be a hole large enough to extract the dirt, bring in
the structural elements, bring in the new foundation and the concrete for the
pool, and bring in any large pieces of furniture. And large enough to get the
digger in in the first place. Surely if you're bringing heavy stuff in, you
can get heavy stuff out.

This story has to be nonsense.

------
DanBC
Digging in London ised to be difficult, especially if tou were digging a
tunnel. There was an extra step where the security services could veto your
plans (without telling you why).

Not sure if that still happens. Here's why it used to happen:
[http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/oct/18/london-
underground...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/oct/18/london-underground-
secret-tunnels)

------
ChuckMcM
I could see the cost/benefit trade-off going that way, after all one of the
multi-million dollar tunnel boring machines digging the Chunnel was left
entombed [1].

That said, I have to wonder if you couldn't use a balloon to extract the
digger or even a simple gantry crane over the excavation. A bit of prep before
you start digging and you'd save your $15K.

[1] "In December 1990, the French and British TBMs met in the middle and
completed the Channel Service Tunnel bore. In all of the tunnels the French
TBM was dismantled while the U.K. TBM was turned aside and buried." \--
[http://www.therobbinscompany.com/en/case-study/the-
channel-t...](http://www.therobbinscompany.com/en/case-study/the-channel-
tunnel/)

~~~
colanderman
Reads like not one but two machines (both the British ones) were left
entombed.

~~~
jeroen
Three, according to wikipedia:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel#Tunnelling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel#Tunnelling)

"Six machines were used, all commenced digging from Shakespeare Cliff, three
marine-bound and three for the land tunnels."

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cstross
Worth noting: regular housing in London currently changes hands for £1000-1500
per square foot (that's US $1600-2400 per sq. ft.). In Knightsbridge and
Belgravia you can add a zero to the end of that; these are areas where _Eric
Schmidt_ couldn't afford to buy a modest family house. Most of the home-owners
are oligarchs, sheikhs, and sovereign wealth funds speculating in London real
estate futures.

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tritium

      But developers are stumbling on a new kind of obstacle 
      as they burrow deeper still: abandoned diggers from the 
      last round of improvements.
    

I say we dust off, and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

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Stratoscope
These diggers are the very definition of a sunk cost.

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firstOrder
First world problems.

Decades from now, under a portrait of Lenin, this article will be one of the
readings of the lesson in a social studies class.

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sbierwagen
What, is this author using "digger" to mean "excavator", or something?

~~~
dyadic
That's what we call them in Britain

