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Underground (Miscellaneous: Tunnels, Roads, Bunkers Etc.)

Hi guys, was browsing the message board and became very interested in the underground post. Following some mention of tunnels beneath Manchester I can confirm that I've recently been down into the tunnels beneath Victoria Station. There are several layers of disused store rooms and doors leading off into other directions that are locked. Worthy of note there is also a river that runs beneath the station that is visible from the tunnels which flows into the River Irwell.

On the subject of tunnels and holes......does anyone remember an episode of Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World where a hole opened up in a church yard. Apparently several people witnessed this but the next day the hole had vanished with no sign of the earth being disturbed. I have only a vague memory of this episode and a google search has failed to yield any answers.

It was just one of those unexplained instances that does not fit into any category and sometimes I find those the most interesting.
 
adam2306 said:
On the subject of tunnels and holes......does anyone remember an episode of Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World where a hole opened up in a church yard. Apparently several people witnessed this but the next day the hole had vanished with no sign of the earth being disturbed. I have only a vague memory of this episode and a google search has failed to yield any answers.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the Hell-Mouth from Buffy.
 
Yup, I remember that. In fact I remember reading about it in the Daily Mirror soon after it happened in the early 70s. I found references to it on t'internet a couple of years ago, possibly with an interview with the vicar. :D
 
Cornish couple seek help after dog falls in mine shaft

A Cornish couple have appealed for financial help to fence off a 70ft (21m) mine shaft after their dog fell down it.
Eighteen-month-old boxer Joshua was rescued by firefighters after the shaft at St Day opened up on 16 January.

Bridget and Frank Williams own the former Burrowland mine land and say there are six other sealed-up shafts.
The couple want to fence off all the shafts to prevent further accidents but cannot afford to do so.

Mrs Williams, who uses the land to house rescue animals, said she had "never seen a dog as frightened" in her life after Joshua fell down the shaft, which originally opened up to 20ft (6m).

After he was rescued her husband filled in the shaft using a digger.
"The next day, to our horror, the whole thing had dropped down over 70ft," Mrs Williams said.

Mark Kaczmarek, from the Camborne School of Mines, said the Burrowland shafts, which were used to mine copper, could be up to 500ft (152m) deep.
He said: "All of these shafts were probably blocked off about 100 years ago and just covered with timber and soil.
"Those timbers are now rotting, and extreme cold and wet weather has put a huge amount of weight on those timbers.
"All of a sudden you get a collapse."

Mrs Williams said she and her husband were checking the mine shafts every day to make sure no others had opened up.
She said they would like to fence them all off to protect their animals, which include a horse, goat, chickens, dogs and cats.
"The only ones who can take responsibility are us.
"We've seen the council, the Environment Agency, all sorts of people, but we are responsible and we have no money to do it."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-12332462

To cross-thread for a moment, the depth of mines used to be measured in fathoms!
So this mine could have been up to 83 fathoms deep... 8)
 
Wasn't that on Five a couple of years ago? I remember watching it and was pretty spooked by it then...
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
Nice find, liveinabin! :)
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Cheers, it's been doing the round on twitter. I think they should give him a job on BBC4.
 
Very interesting short about the planned expansion to the underground. I was brought up in Edgware, my parents and grandparents had lived in the area all their lives, and they knew a lot of this history and would point out the unfinished arches between Edgware and Elstree, but I never could get my head around exactly how it was laid out, so this has finally connected the bits of the jigsaw for me!
 
I remember those arches as well.

My Dad used to tell us about what had been planed & he would have loved the film.......

I saw a street map in the late 60's, showing the track of the line to Bushey. Obviouisly, trying to get a jump on developments & realising that the old London Transport bus garage on Elstree Hill South, just before suicide corner was built on the intended site of an underground station.
 
Hey, this thread has gone well off-track (er, maybe not the best metaphor).

This thread was about things underground - caves, cellars, tunnels, bunkers. Now we're talking about a planned part of the London Underground which was actually overground, and was never built!

(But fascinating stuff, I admit.)
 
Tunnel found in Forth Valley hospital grounds

An abandoned tunnel has been found in the grounds of a Falkirk hospital.
The brick-lined tunnel links a derelict mansion and ornamental loch which forms part of the estate of the new Forth Valley Royal Hospital.

Ranger Gordon Harper made the discovery while clearing rhododendron bushes on the loch's shore.
It is thought the tunnel would have allowed wealthy guests staying at Larbert House 200 years ago to avoid staff on the walk to the loch.

The hospital, opened in August 2010, is clearing the 70-acre estate to turn it into a "woodland oasis". A Forestry Commission Scotland ranger was appointed earlier this year to look after the grounds.

The tunnel was at first thought to be part of a boathouse, which is marked on a first edition Ordnance Survey map of the area.
Geoff Bailey, keeper of archaeology at Falkirk Council, said the "fantastic" tunnel - dating from about 1800 - was likely to have been built to preserve the privacy of the gentry.

Mr Harper said: "I have really enjoyed investigating the history of this site.
"I thought we would uncover hidden features when we cleared the rhododendron but didn't expect to find something so exciting as a tunnel."

Larbert House, a Category B listed building, was the residence of the Stirling-Chalmers family for many years.
It was designed by David Hamilton and built for Sir Gilbert Stirling in 1822. The house lay derelict for several years and was badly damaged by a fire in 2006.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-t ... l-12717639
 
'Underground town' of migrants found in Moscow
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13082606
By Sasha Semyonova
BBC News, Moscow

Immigration has been a simmering issue in Moscow for years Continue reading the main story

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Police in Moscow have discovered what they are calling an "underground town" housing illegal immigrants from Central Asia in a Soviet-era bomb shelter in the west of the city.

The discovery was made by police and agents from the FSB security agency and Federal Migration Service.

The underground area was guarded by a four-metre-high [13 feet] concrete wall and barbed wire, said Andrei Mishel of the Russia's ministry of the interior.

It housed 110 men and women.

"The living areas were fitted with bathrooms, bedrooms and even prayer rooms," Mr Mishal added.

Similar subterranean living quarters were also uncovered in February under an official delegation room in the capital's Kievsky railway station. The people found there were also described as illegal immigrants.

Sewing machine equipment

The shadowy nature of foreign migration to Moscow was underlined at the end of 2010 by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who said that around 250,000 work migrants were registered in the Russian capital, but that the real number was closer to "several million".

Last year around 10,000 illegal migrants were deported from Russia following court decisions against them.

According to official accounts, the migrants living in the underground town were working on producing blades and needles for sewing machines.

The entrance to the underground space was found within the grounds of a closed-off factory, added Mr Mishel, without naming it.

The area houses a company specialising in the production of blades, needles and safety pins, and there is also a military radio-technology factory producing S-300 and S-400 missile systems nearby.

It is thought most of the underground inhabitants are now facing deportation, and a further 16 of them will be investigated for alleged criminal activity.

The owner of the factory might also face criminal action.

A foreign worker in Russia in breach of the Migration Act can be fined up to 5,000 roubles ($177; £108) - and the employer can face a fine of 800,000 roubles for each worker.

Divisive issue

At the end of February Moscow police uncovered a number of illegal immigrants under Kievsky station.

It is reported that they were working for a company in charge of cleaning the station area, but the migrants had not been cleared to work. As a result, more than 30 cases of administrative violations were brought against the company.

In March, the city's Federal Migration Service unearthed an underground sausage factory, where more than 30 immigrants from Tajikistan and Moldova were found.

They were not officially registered in the city and therefore lived in the factory itself, sleeping on wooden beds.

The issue of illegal migrants in Moscow remains extremely divisive.

In March, Mayor Sobyanin announced that when hiring employees, Muscovite candidates should be treated preferentially, followed by Russians from outside the capital. Only then should foreigners be considered.

According to Moscow's Central Department of Internal Affairs, migrants are responsible for around 70% of crimes committed in the city.

But Moscow Federal Migration Service representative Mikhail Tyurkin said "according to official statistics foreigners in Russia are only only to blame for around 3.5% of crimes committed".

Recently Aleksandr Bastrykin, of Russia's Investigative Committee, said this criminality was attributable to the conditions the migrants live in.
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Explorers discover Applecross cave
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-h ... s-13592918

The cavers found the underground chamber via a water-filled passage (L-R: Ritchie Simpson, Toby Speight, Jane Stewart-Boland and David Morrison)

A 180m-long cave, with stalactites up to 2m long, has been discovered in the west coast of the Highlands.

The underground chamber in Applecross was found by members of the caving club, Grampian Speleological Group.

The cavers enlarged a small man-sized entrance they had found, to explore a water-filled passage that led to a series of underground chambers.

David Morrison said it was "possibly the most beautifully decorated passage anywhere in Scotland".

He added: "This is a significant discovery in the context of Scottish caves and I believe we have probably found the 'master-cave' of the area."

Mr Morrison found the cave along with fellow cavers Ritchie Simpson, Toby Speight and Jane Stewart-Boland.

'Underground heritage'
The Grampian Speleological Group, which has more than 150 members, was founded in 1961 by Alan Jeffreys.

Mr Jeffreys, a leading member of the club and the Scottish Cave Rescue Organisation, said the discovery was particularly fitting as it coincided with the club's 50th anniversary.

He said: "Over the past 50 years the GSG has played an active role in the exploration and scientific study of Scotland's natural and manmade underground heritage.

"From the discovery of remains of three bear skeletons at Rana Hole in Sutherland and the remains of bronze and iron age artefacts at High Pasture Cave in Skye, through to the exploration of more recent mines throughout Scotland, the club has played a valuable role in our understanding of what lies beneath our feet."

Club members are continuing exploration work in the Applecross cave and hope that the sound of running water, which can be heard at the end of the cave, promises further discoveries.
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Gone in SIX seconds: The moment a gaping pothole swallowed a lorry in China
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:10 AM on 30th May 2011

Staring into the huge hole in the road, this Chinese official probably cannot believe his eyes.
That's because a lorry has fallen down this massive fracture in the road which opened up as he drove over it.

The drama unfolded in the city of Changchun, which is the capital of north eastern China's Jilin province, earlier today.
The two men who were inside the cab at the time of the accident were both injured, but there were no reports of how badly.
Authorities are now investigating the accident but they suspect the truck, which was carrying steel pipes, was overweighted.

The accident is just one of hundreds that take place in China each year, with the country being one of the most dangerous places in the world to drive.
There are around 100,000 deaths a year caused as a result of traffic accidents, which is twice the number of the United States, despite the fact the U.S. has four times as many cars.
The roads are also notorious for poor building standards.
In February four lorry drivers were lucky to survive after a bridge collapsed as they drove over it in Shangyu, in east China's Zhejiang Province.
Their lorries plunged 25 feet before overturning as they all switched from one motorway to another.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1NqF1Ksxn

The pic seems to show a massive pillar in the space under the road, suggesting the road was actually bridging the space. (The space is proabably used for breeding Peking Duck...)

Edit to Add: Here's a photo of the "pothole" ...

Changchun-Hole-2011.jpg
​
 
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rynner2 said:
The pic seems to show a massive pillar in the space under the road, suggesting the road was actually bridging the space. (The space is proabably used for breeding Peking Duck...)
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You're right, there seems to some kind of structure down there, indicating a tunnel or underground building.
This isn't so much a pothole as a roof caving in.
 
Gunshot echoes used to map caves' interior
09 June 2011 by Ferris Jabr

BEFORE the US military killed Osama bin Laden last month, it had spent years pursuing him through the rocky landscape of eastern Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan. The Al-Qaida leader repeatedly slipped through the soldiers' grasp, thanks in no small part to the labyrinthine, cave-riddled terrain.

The decade-long search might have gone a little differently, though, if soldiers had access to a new system that can use sound waves from a gunshot to quickly map unknown caves and tunnels. The portable system, created by David Bowen of Acentech in Cambridge, Massachusetts, consists of two microphones placed at the entrance of a cave or tunnel, which are hooked up to a laptop loaded with software designed to decode acoustic signals.

A gun is fired four or five times, with about 5 seconds between each shot. Fifteen to 20 seconds later the map appears on the laptop's screen, with simple graphs that display the area of the cave at different distances, and written explanations of the data, such as "30 feet ahead is a large opening". A portable subwoofer can be used in place of a firearm as the source of the sound waves.

To infer a cave's geometry, the device listens for subtle changes in the way sound reverberates through the chamber's differently sized nooks and crannies. "Every time there is a sudden change in cross-sectional area, it changes the way sound is reflected," Bowen says.

For example, a roomy cave that suddenly narrows into a cramped channel will only permit high frequencies to pass, says Mike Roan of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg. Most of the low frequencies will rebound towards the cave's entrance and the waiting microphones: the more low frequencies bounce back, the tighter the passageway. The device can also determine whether the sound waves struck a dead end or found an exit at the end of a tunnel.

Bowen, who presented his work at last month's meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Seattle, explains that having two microphones in two different locations - like two ears - is better than one because they hear different aspects of the same sonic event. The microphone on the left side of the cave's entrance picks up details that the one on the right would miss.

So far Bowen and his team have tested the device at a railroad underpass, in a mock network of sewer pipes in Georgia - part of a military training facility - and in several outdoor tunnels and caves in and around Boston. The device has obvious military applications for soldiers, but it could also be helpful to miners, pipeline engineers and archaeologists. Bowen next plans to test a high-powered propane cannon as a sound source, to see if a louder noise will allow him to build more detailed maps.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... erior.html
 
That's a wake-up call: Giant sinkhole appears in woman's bedroom in the middle of the night
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:25 PM on 21st July 2011

When a loud boom was heard in the middle of the night the residents of a suburb in the north of Guatemala City thought a cooking gas canister had blown up.
But when morning came, they discovered instead that a deep sinkhole had appeared in the bedroom of one of their numbers.
The sinkhole that appeared was 40 feet deep and nearly three feet in diameter.

The hole is tiny compared to giant sinkhole that formed nearby in 2007 that was 100 meters (330 feet) deep and swallowed several homes and a truck, killing three people. Area residents were forced to evacuate for days.

A 2010 sinkhole also in the same area, measuring 60 feet and 30 meters deep, swallowed a three-storey building and a nearby house when it suddenly appeared.

'We thought a home had exploded, or there had been a crash on the street,' said Inocenta Hernandez, a 65 year-old widow.
'We rushed out to look and saw nothing. A gentleman told me that the noise came from my house, and we searched until we found it under my bed.'
'Thank God there are only material damages, because my grandchildren were running around the house, into that room and out to the patio,' she said.

Police, members of the country's natural disaster office and water utility company officials came to visit the site.
Guatemala City, built on volcanic deposits, is especially prone to sinkholes, often blamed on a leaky sewer system or on heavy rain.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1SpTiRL3f
 
if you ever go on a day trip to Dover Castle you can then pay extra for a guided tour of a fraction of the tunnels and underground system that was used in the 2ndWW for defence -rooms full of telephone systems and suchlike. Apparently there are three levels of these but they will only show you round a small part of the first level.
However all round the town of Dover and the countryside leading into Folkestone there are tunnel entrances and moats that were built when we fought the french in the napoleonic war, in case the french landed over here, they housed troops. Whether these also made use of tunnels that were already in existance i dont know but wouldnt be surprised. There were rumours that the council were going to clean them up effect repairs and open them but this was a few years ago and obviously nothing ever happened. The entrances aare all pretty well known to local who are that way inclined though and for all the council will keep bricking them up, another will be opened up usually within a week. Once in the tunnels provided you take a good light you can go for miles coming upon such delights as the underground hospital complete with equipment from the last war that opens up into a shed in somebody's back garden. Sometimes the going can be a bit dodgy with such an age and no maintainance, but its certainly worth the effort. Tales of these running all the way to Canterbury but i never got that far.. I can say that having spent overnight in a section of these, they are definately inhabited by the builders/previous occupants, also the usual tales of suicides/ black magic. You can also still find the tunnel entrance for the original channel tunnel started in early 19th C, not too sure of the date. Although the last time i looked it was locked, it was only by a common or garden padlock, and when i first found it you could actually heave the old metal door open and wander in should you wish. Must admit i chickened out of that one though-pitch black drippy tunnels where you can hear the sea crashing are about my limit. :(
 
Photo Gallery:

Vietnam caves: inside the giant jungle cavern of the Hang Son Doong

These breathtaking images capture the hidden depths of the world's biggest cave passage - so large the end is yet to be found. Hidden in the depths of the Vietnamese jungle lies The Hang Son Doong, part of a network of over 150 caves. Surrounded by jungle and used in the Vietnam war as a hideout from American bombardments, the cave passage is so large that it could hold a block of 40-storey skyscrapers. Its entrance was only rediscovered by British cavers in 2009.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthp ... Doong.html
 
Experts Baffled by Mysterious Underground Chambers
By Matthias Schulz
There are more than 700 curious tunnel networks in Bavaria, but their purpose remains a mystery. Were they built as graves for the souls of the dead, as ritual spaces or as hideaways from marauding bandits? Archeologists are now exploring the subterranean vaults to unravel their secrets.


http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,775348,00.html

sorry if it's been posted before
 
Priest tunnels for hiding priests?
 
rynner2 said:
Photo Gallery:

Vietnam caves: inside the giant jungle cavern of the Hang Son Doong

These breathtaking images capture the hidden depths of the world's biggest cave passage - so large the end is yet to be found. Hidden in the depths of the Vietnamese jungle lies The Hang Son Doong, part of a network of over 150 caves. Surrounded by jungle and used in the Vietnam war as a hideout from American bombardments, the cave passage is so large that it could hold a block of 40-storey skyscrapers. Its entrance was only rediscovered by British cavers in 2009.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthp ... Doong.html
Click to expand...

Blimey that is impressive. I like picture 10 of the guy just sticking up some shelves! :lol:
 
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