
Why are there so many tunnels under London? - kevbin
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/11/economist-explains-17
======
VLM
Nobody else caught on to the "its booming economy provided the financing."
bit?

To say a tunnel is capital intensive is an understatement. So you need rule of
law, stable and very large financial markets, relatively low corruption.

In comparison, there are other large cities built on good tunneling dirt that
are perfectly unsuitable for a tunneling project for purely human reasons.

Manhattan is no picnic to dig a tunnel thru, but finances being what they are,
it also looks like swiss cheese.

~~~
dredmorbius
Excellent point.

I've been looking at economics as a discipline, and what it does and doesn't
take into account. Three of those factors are stability (which allows complex
and advanced concepts to flourish, including advanced infrastructure), risk
(and who bears it), and power relationships (again, who has power over whom).

Another example would be religious catacombs -- underground structures with
religious significance, notably in Rome, Paris, London, and elsewhere. Again,
the Church (large, stable, wealthy) established these.

Another aspect of London's underground infrastructure is its sewerage system,
constructed in the 1850s, and one of the modern world's first sanitation
systems. It was constructed in the face of a massive cholera epidemic
(imported from India) which was claiming millions of lives throughout Europe
and tens of thousands in England, and exhibiting a mortality rate of 10-20%,
often killing within 12 hours. The mechanism (oral ingestion, gut development,
fecal-oral transmission) had just been posited and demonstrated by John Snow
and his famous map of cases identifying the Broad Street pump, contaminated by
a nearby (3 foot distant) septic tank which was leaking into it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_sewerage_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_sewerage_system)

There are many histories of this, one of the better ones I've encountered is
James Burke's "The Day the Universe Changed", episode 7, "What the Doctor
Ordered". The entire programme covers the emergence of the modern medical and
public health system. The portion specific to the cholera epidemic and the
infrastructure effects starts at 19 minutes in:

[http://fixyt.com/watch?v=wM2UZ26b1EQ](http://fixyt.com/watch?v=wM2UZ26b1EQ)

The fascinating part is that much of what's now considered to be "British
nature" (cricket, stiff upper lip, jolly good) emerged as a consequence of
this epidemic as well.

~~~
Kell
The Church had almost nothing to do with the catacombs in Paris (I don't know
about the others, but IIRC in Rome it's also more complicated since they were
created at a time where the Church had almost no political power and not very
much wealth... but I could be mistaken for Rome). The Parisian "catacombs"
were created in preexisting tunnels. And actually weren't catacombs at all,
because people never wanted to be buried there, it's not a necropolis. The
catacombs were created because the monarchy in France was pissed with the old
Innocent Cemetery which was in the very center of Paris, just north of the
City Island and was spreading diseases, wasting real estate and serving as a
harbor to criminals etc. Also the graveyard was literally overflowing (yep,
literally, basement walls in houses nearby had started to crumble under the
pressure of the accumulated bones). So by a royal edict of 1785 the bones in
the Innocent Cemetery where moved to an underground ossuary, that became known
as the Catacombs of Paris. The Church only did the praying and rituals
allowing for the transfer of the dead.

But the tunnels where actually the old Parisian quarries.. And people dug
those for centuries, at times of war and peace, with rules or without. It was
everything but based on a large, stable and wealthy institution. Damn, even
during the Revolution people still worked in those tunnels. And miners who
worked in the 16th and 17th century were pretty much free workers who lived by
selling building material that they mined underground.

~~~
dredmorbius
There's power and wealth, and there's stability, of purpose and project if not
of institutions (taking your point on Paris under advisement). Simply existing
for a long time (and having a long-term vision) will get you some of the way
there. What modern times offers is the ability to complete massive
undertakings quickly by devoting vast resources to them _all at once._ What
ancient times had was fewer resources but often a much, much longer time
horizon. What current projects are undertaken with even a 10-20 year time
horizon, let alone several centuries?

------
CraigJPerry
The post office tunnels
[http://www.silentuk.com/?p=2792](http://www.silentuk.com/?p=2792) just seems
crazy to abandon these recently.

Use of these must be worth a fortune given where they run.

~~~
michaelt
Things like this can end up like steam trains and classic cars - very nice,
certainly wouldn't want to see them abandoned or destroyed, but expensive to
maintain due to the poor availability of spare parts or experienced workers.

------
junto
There are lots of secret MOD tunnels as well. Some of them run out of London
across the country with rail tracks to nuclear bunkers that were to be used
when nuclear war broke out. To put the scale of it in perspective, one if the
tunnels runs to a bunker in Wales south of Aberystwyth.

~~~
jdsnape
Do you have a source for that last example? Seems like it would be a bit
difficult to keep a tunnel of that scale secret.

~~~
junto
I was dubious too, but I trust the source of that information.

The bunker in question isn't on any of the lists you'll find on the Internet.
The bunker is also very well hidden. I can't find the entrance on Google Maps,
but I'm very sure of the location within a few kms.

~~~
gushie
It does exist. I heard from another source that they filmed the Apollo Moon
Landings inside it...

------
dredmorbius
Similar: NYC is absolutely riddled with tunnels and underground
infrastructure: subways, power, sewage, and as I recall, deepest of all the
projects which transport Catskills water into the city.

I seem to recall a graphic which showed these tunnels at various depths, but
have been unable to find it via numerous searches.

There _is_ a pretty cool spread at Gizmodo showing the East Side Access
project for the LIRR though. The scale of this is simply staggering:

[http://gizmodo.com/5985618/incredible-images-of-the-new-
mass...](http://gizmodo.com/5985618/incredible-images-of-the-new-massive-
tunnels-hollowing-new-york-city)

~~~
hundchenkatze
I believe this maybe the image you're referring to.
[http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nyunderground/docs/nymain....](http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nyunderground/docs/nymain.html)

~~~
dredmorbius
It is. You win teh Intarnets.

Previous HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4365970](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4365970)

------
leke
One of the Sherlock Holmes episodes claimed he knew of a unknown Roman temple
chamber hidden in one of the lost tunnels. His explanation cited pretty much
everything in this article. I wonder if there is any truth to that.

------
Frozenlock
Article is behind a paywall.

~~~
tobykier
God forbid people get paid for their work

~~~
Frozenlock
I wouldn't care if it wasn't an article posted on HN.

IMO when someone posts an article that's behind a paywall, he should at least
put something like [paywall] in the title.

~~~
MarcusVorenus
I believe The Economist gives you 3 articles for free per week, so it's not
paywalled for everyone.

------
zhuzhu
The city is too old.

~~~
mjn
Just new enough that you can usually safely dig without too many delays,
though. A problem with tunnel construction in _very_ old cities, in places
like Italy and Greece, is that you have a high probability of running into an
interesting archaeological site, and then you have to pause construction and
decide what to do about it. E.g.: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-
europe-21743758](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21743758)

~~~
alister
> in very old cities ... running into an interesting archaeological site

Why are archaeological sites are so far underground? Are ancient cities
actually getting higher in altitude as old ruins get covered up?

Why Pompeii was buried is clear. I am more curious about continuously occupied
cities like Rome. How did the ruins get underground _there_?

The best answer I could find was this:

[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/813/how-come-
archae...](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/813/how-come-
archaeological-ruins-are-always-underground)

It says that abandoned ancient cities have in fact risen in altitude over the
centuries becoming "mounds". But it also says that Rome's famous ruins are at
surface level, but doesn't explain ruins that have been found deep
underground. So I'm left wondering if Rome and cities like it have gotten a
lot higher or not.

~~~
lnanek2
Don't forget that things aren't the same everywhere. The land in Alaska and
New York is rising pretty fast, geologically speaking, since the weight of
glaciers came off. Meanwhile New Orleans is sinking. Chicago took matters into
their own hands and raised street level an entire floor to combat flooding. We
still have ancient caves at ground level in New York, but I'm sure stuff
buried under a city survives better.

~~~
Piskvorrr
"raised street level an entire floor to combat flooding" \- yup, that's pretty
much the same technique by which "the ancient cities are rising." Except that
Chicago was _lifted up_ , whereas the old cities were only readjusted -
essentially, ground level becomes the first basement, entrance is now on what
used to be second floor. This process could be repeated, giving rise to old
ground-level floors becoming the third basement or similar. Case in point:
Prague's Old Town, founded at riverside, was gradually raised by up to 30 feet
(which has unexpected consequences, and actually _worsens_ the flooding
problems it was always expected to solve).

