WEBVTT - Subways: HUH! What are they good for? 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.520 Welcome to Stuff you should Know from House stuff Works 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:13.560 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:20.040 There's Charles W. Chuck Bright. Uh, just sitting there normally right, Yeah, 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:22.799 I'm not doing anything unusual. I think we should have 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:25.680 started this with taking the A Train. I think we 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:29.600 should have changed up our music. Well, let's do that. Okay, 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:35.640 how about this? All right? Howe? How we are we 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:45.360 train to find the quickest way to get um? We 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:49.479 did okay, thanks thanks to the magic of post production, 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:51.520 we did and said that was taking the A Train. 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.560 Who made that song? Boy, I don't know who originally 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:57.440 composed it, to be honest, Well, I think I think 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:00.440 we should find out. Well who who just performed it? Well, 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.560 there's many versions. Well what's the one you selected, like 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:11.160 a week from now? Uh, I don't know. Did they 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:15.360 do a train? Now it's a jazz tune? Oh? John Coltrane? 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.160 Did he do it? Let's go with Coltrane? Man, maybe 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:23.080 I should just do it and that that that then? Oh? 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.280 Is that that song? Yeah? Thinking the A Train? That's 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.240 a good song. Is it instrumental? Because you know a 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:30.800 lot of those instrumentals actually have lyrics. What the old 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:36.400 jazz tunes. Yeah. Really they in the train. That's it 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:39.080 that You're right? Okay, let's go with Duke Ellington's version. 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.160 Duke Ellington did the a train at the beginning of 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:45.200 this episode. I hoped everyone liked it. The Duke. We 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:49.280 haven't heard it yet, that's right. Um So, Chuck, I 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:51.720 know that you know what the subway is because we've 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:55.760 been on the subway together. Yeah. Do you remember when 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.880 we were in New York. Um, I believe it was 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.880 for ABC Go, our first little opportunity there, and we 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.360 were going to meet you me yea, And I remember 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:08.520 I met you me Uh that was that where in 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:10.840 that bar? Afterwards? Well, I mean I worked with her, 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:11.960 but then I was like, that was the first time 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.799 you ever hung up? Yeah exactly. Um. So we were 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.320 we were going and that was my first time in 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.160 the New York subway, and I remember we were looking 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:25.400 at the subway and um, the the whole thing just 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.320 turned into like this series of confusing lines to me 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.639 and like suddenly I was blind and like holding your arm, 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.680 and like I had the mind of a child, and 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.400 not even like a really bright child either. It was 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.519 just kind of like what does it say, um, and 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.280 I can report after being back in New York with 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:45.320 you me several times that I do that to her still, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:49.720 that we're enabling you was what's going on? I think 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:51.800 it is. I think if you guys had thrown me 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.120 in and be like you figure it out, figure it out, 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.000 I could have, but I don't have to. Um and uh. 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.919 It's kind of nice because it's really infusing. So when 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:02.320 you go to New York, you just kind of like 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.520 just go with Yumi's wind wherever she blows kind of 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.160 but the wind is coming from her heavy size that 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:14.320 she's the one who has to like read the subway. Yeah. Um. 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.000 But now that I've read this article how subways work, 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:21.040 I don't understand the New York subway system any more 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.160 than I did before I read this article. But I 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.280 can tell you that the rails are made of thirty 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:29.799 five ft long pieces of carbon steel that are five 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.320 and a half inches tall and one and a half 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:36.680 inches wide, And you could run any train, any train 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.520 on the world, in the world on those rails, not 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.440 in the world, but at least in New York, because 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:46.200 I guess there's different cages, but there the New York 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.400 subway system was designed so that you could just kind 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:53.920 of if you wanted to, like go to Cleveland on 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.560 a subway train, you could. Yeah, that's I was designed. Yeah, 0:03:57.640 --> 0:03:59.560 they could put it on just a regular railway track, 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.000 then go to Cleveland and then you get to Cleveland. Ego, jeez, 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:06.160 I want to go back to New York. Cleveland's where 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:08.680 the first stoplight in the country was. Did you know that? Really? 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:12.920 I like Cleveland. I'm just kidding. That's where my home 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:17.200 away from home is now. Oh yeah, so it was. 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.440 Now they're an Acron, but yeah, it's a suburb of Cleveland. 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:22.599 I never realized that. And I'm from Ohio and I 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.159 didn't realize that it was a suburb. It's like half 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:31.880 hour or so. I always thought Acron was more towards Dayton. Yeah, alright, 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.280 so Dayton, let's talk about it all right, let's talk 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:41.480 about subways. The Metro and France. Five hundred forty seven 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.159 yards every five forty seven yards, you're gonna find a 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:49.880 subway station. Yeah, that's pretty good. No, no, not even there. 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:55.240 There's no building in Paris that's more than five botch 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.920 that one. No, but it really you helped build up 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.360 the drama okay, Um, the the Tube in London, mind 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.800 the gap everyone, Um, two hundred and seventy five stations, 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.520 and our dear beloved New York Subway system four hundred 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.400 sixty eight as of now, packed into like two hundred 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.680 and sixty square miles. Yeah, which is that's pretty impressive. 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:17.440 And that's why the New York subway system looks like 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.000 a play of spaghetti man. It's really tough to read. 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:21.760 It's not just me. It can't just be it's not. 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.440 You just have to zero in on your area and 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.479 then you're like, oh, just you gotta blur your eyes 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.680 and block out everything else. And then everyone behind you 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.480 was looking at you like tourists. Yeah, exactly what's got 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:36.960 his eyes crossed? And why? Why is does that guy 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.159 next to him look like Ronnie Millsap all of a 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:41.520 sudden because I saw him walk down here? Just fine. 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.600 The London Underground is the oldest, open in eighteen sixty three. 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:50.320 The Metro was next in hundred in New York not 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.080 far behind in nineteen o four. And Tracy, who wrote 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.120 a very thorough article this is a Tracy V. Wilson Joy. Yeah, 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.040 you know it's gonna be good. Um. She points out 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:01.960 that this they all kind of happened within pretty dense 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.360 space of time. Because the Industrial Revolution people were out 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.360 in farming and and they're like, screw this, I need 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:11.479 a decent egg roll. Yeah, I'm gonna move into the 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.320 city where I can get a job in a factory. 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.000 Well yeah, and before that there weren't jobs and factories 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.240 because there weren't factories. Part of the Industrial Revolution was 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:24.520 the rise of factories. Everybody threw down their agrarian tools 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.800 like scites, forget this hole, I'm out of here, right right, 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:32.960 clever word play, thank you, um, and they moved to 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:34.640 the cities. And when they moved to the cities, all 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:37.200 of a sudden there was a lot of people who 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:41.760 needed to move about and they didn't have cars, partially 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.479 because cars hadn't been invented yet, that was one reason, 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.320 but also even beyond that, like not everybody could afford 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.520 a horse, but they still need to get someplace. So 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.560 it's a good point. City fathers in these areas Paris London, 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:59.080 London first, and then Um because I think it was 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.320 the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and then and then 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:04.880 New York. Um said all right, we need to figure 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:07.000 out how to move a bunch of these people at once, 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:09.800 and what they came up with was mass transit, but 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:13.320 it was all above ground mass transit, and it involved horses. 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:19.040 Remember the Wing Cries Typhoid Merry episode. One horse produces 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:22.400 twenty pounds of poop per day, and New York had 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:26.000 like a hundred thousand horses or something like that walking around. Yeah, 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.360 you know how much poopa subway train produces zero. Yeah, 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.720 there's probably a couple of guys pooping on the trains, 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.080 but attribute that to the guy on the train. That's 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.160 not really the subway. That's true. It is not exhaust 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.280 as you as you would call horses spoop um, they 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.520 wouldn't call it, So you're right. They had horse drawn 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.720 carriages and these cool things called omnibusses, which were longer 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.920 horse drawn carriages. Now they're known by their slang term bus. 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.520 Oh yeah, that's what that's what a bus is. I'm 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.320 glad you brought that up. People in New York. Worst 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:01.960 in New York. If you're in New York, you got 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.480 it all figured out. But tourist in New York, I 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.520 would recommend that you occasionally take a bus trip. Don't 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.600 be afraid of the bus, like a regular bus or 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.080 a tourist bus, a double dunker bus. Don't take those, No, 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.520 a regular bus, you're you're a little metro card. You 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:19.120 might even know this if you've just been in New 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.400 York like once. It works on the buses so as 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.560 well as the subways. And a lot of times if 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.200 you're like uptown at the park, you're like, man, I 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.200 can't find a subway stop near me. I need to 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:31.840 get downtown. Just walk to the edge and chances are 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.000 you going to see a bus with its own little lane. 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.439 It's just going south and you get a nice views 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:41.480 of everything you're out out and about above ground. And 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:43.920 that's just my advice of tourist. Don't be afraid of 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:45.640 the busses in New York. It could be a great 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.679 way to get around. There's also cabs, you know. Yeah, 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:53.520 but you know those are expensive, man. Yeah yeah, I 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:57.520 mean not on Discovery channels. But when I'm there on 0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:59.080 my own dime, I take a lot of buses and 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.880 subway yeah sure, and it's subway yeah yeah, But I 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.280 didn't realize you took the bus. Yeah, buses are great. 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.200 I had no idea. So you take the bus and 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.520 you know where your local elector lives. That's right, that's 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:16.000 pretty impressive, chuck. So what happened with these buses though? 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:17.760 And with all the horsepoop? As they said, this is 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:21.120 getting out of hand. Um, we need to go underground 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.679 because there's no more room up here. Yeah. We we'd 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.720 love to build trains, but we can't because there's too 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:31.360 many people, so too many bagel shops. So London did 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.880 it first, right, eighteen sixty three is when it opened. Yeah, 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.240 god knows when they started construction. Look at someone knows 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:44.960 God besides God. Um, and uh, then within forty years, 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.640 I guess Paris open. There's because it was such a 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.800 huge success. And I mean it was just brilliant. The 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:56.120 problem is it was also like planning wise, it was 0:09:56.160 --> 0:10:00.760 a brilliant move, but um, construction wise, it makes almost 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.640 no sense whatsoever. It's like, Hey, where's the hardest place 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:09.120 we can put this mass transit system. I've got it. Yeah, 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:13.680 through a river like under bedrock, um, and basically through 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:19.080 every obstacle that we can create that we've already created. Yeah, 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.839 that's a good point. Talk about this. These days, they 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.120 have this really cool machine called the tunnel boring machine. Yeah, 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:27.920 did you see these? Yeah, it looks awesome. It's basically 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:31.360 like a tremor worm, Yeah, but a mechanized one that 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:35.520 won't turn on you. Um and I hope people caught 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:40.600 that little reference. Which one. So this TVM tunnel boring 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:46.040 machine um has disc and scrapers, crushes rock into into 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:48.680 pebbles and sand. It has like a conveyor belt that 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.680 comes out the back, so it is kind of likeating 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.440 and then dudes get rid of that stuff. And uh, 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.559 it actually supports the tunnel as it digs and does 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.960 a really really great job. But um, we all love 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.160 the TV. They're fairly new though. They didn't have these 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.200 back in the day. Um So back in the day 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:11.199 they had to do it by hand and picks, shovels, 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:17.640 dynamite yeah or TNT, depending on where your preferences lie. Um. Yeah. 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.440 So this was kind of a problem in that you 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:22.760 didn't have a conveyor belt. You had to use pick. 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:26.200 You frequently ran into rock and sometimes you had to 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:29.360 dig into the bedrock, which you know, bedrock that's just 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.160 like that's the actual Earth's surface. Everything else like yeah, 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:36.640 mudd and dirt that's just like runoff. Did you realize that. Yeah, 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:39.640 I just recently realized that I've done that for years. 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:44.240 But that bedrock it's kind of tough to get through. Yeah, 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.000 New York City alone, UM had eight thousand laborers to 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:51.520 work on this project, about sixty of which died. And 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:54.320 I don't even know if they have account on the 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:58.560 injury sustained. I'm sure it was like sixty a day injured. 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:01.880 Do you think I don't know thousands of injuries? Let's 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.640 just say that, UM, did you look up the New 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.760 Austrian tunneling method? I did. I want to know about this. 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:10.840 I didn't have a chance to. I don't. I can't 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.560 tell you. Please tell me it is. It had like 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.520 eight different tenants, so it's not so much a method 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.480 of digging as it is a, as Tracy points out, 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.360 a collection of techniques for digging and finding out where 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.560 to dig. Yeah, where to dig and how to dig? Um? 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:32.760 So like, what are they like? No? No, they're not 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:35.080 random like that. But you know, we should do an 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.320 article on tunneling period because it's pretty amazing. And the 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.200 reason they called it the New Austrian method was to 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:45.439 distinguish it from the old Austrian methods. I guess that 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.120 they must be the king tunnel ers like Charles Bunsen. 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.040 Is he Austrian? Uh no, but he was the tunneler 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:59.120 in Great Escape? But didn't he was the tunnel expert. Um, 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.720 so that that's that from Reservoir Dogs. That was a 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:05.240 line at one point someone says, he's like Charles Bronson 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:09.720 in Great Escape he was digging tunnels. How did they 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:12.520 miss that line? I don't know. Well, so you just 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:17.400 referenced the reference of a movie. The method that they 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:19.840 use for a long time, um was the cut and 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:24.200 cover method, which this is crazy. They like literally rip 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.360 up a street, put a subway there, and then build 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:29.880 the street back on top. It makes uttering complete sense 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:32.560 for a couple of routes. Number one, subways are meant 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.600 to serve like areas streets, right, It's basically like a 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.240 street that happens to be underground that moves a bunch 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:42.080 of people at once. Yeah. Okay, so following a street 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:46.000 makes a lot of sense, especially if you're a planner. Um. 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:50.200 The problem is you are completely ripping up a street 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:54.520 temporarily because you're what you're doing is you're digging a 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.480 trench and then rebuilding the earth above it. But the 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:00.360 good thing is is you can rebuild of the earth 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.040 above it even stronger. It's like Steve Austin or something 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.199 like that, right, Yeah, Like you dig a trench as 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.200 far down as you want your subway to be, and 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:13.560 you put in pilings, you drive them down, preferably into 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.640 bedrock if you can, and then you put like tresses 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.760 and beams over those nice buttress every now and then. Yeah, 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.280 and then you can rebuild the ground in the road 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.840 up above it. You can also reroute any um sewer lines, 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:32.000 any power lines, any anything through these tresses and being frankly, 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.800 I'm a cut and cover method guy. Yeah, Well, it 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.120 also makes sense because the streets are probably not gonna 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.760 You're probably not gonna run into as many obstacles, Um, 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.360 like a basement of a major building. Yeah, exactly, because 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:46.840 there wouldn't be a major building in the middle of 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:48.960 the street. There was a cool part in The Devil 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:51.840 in the White City. Did you ever read that man 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:54.920 that's on the list? You like it a lot um 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:59.120 where they're talking about how Chicago built the first skyscrapers. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.440 Oh yeah, yeah, and um, basically they figured out how 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:08.880 to float the foundations of the building above the bedrock, 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:10.960 because the bedrock was really far down and there was 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:15.360 like the sandy shifting soil. I can't remember it specifically, 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.520 but it's like, Wow, I'm I'm riveted by this description 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:22.600 of an architectural technique, a building technique that they figured 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.160 out so you didn't even need the murders. I found 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:32.200 them superfluous. Really, it was a good book, and I'm 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.000 not one for like popular fiction like that is popular 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:40.600 semi fiction, historical fiction. Yeah, it's good. I like it. Um, 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.240 So we're talking about obstacles, and that is a big 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.920 problem when you're when you're digging tunnels, especially under a 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:50.760 city that's already has an infrastructure in place. Um, you're 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.280 going to run into things that you can move. Sometimes, 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.000 you're gonna run into things that you can't move sometimes 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.840 that you have to move around. So, like you ever 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.800 in in a subway, especially New York that really slows 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.040 down and takes one of those hard turns, It maybe 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.080 because you know that's the direction you need to start 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:12.480 going now, but more than likely it's because they had 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:16.320 to reroute it, especially if it's an old section of 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:18.800 the subway. Yeah, very true, because now you can just 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.280 put the TVM on that thing, and it's like, whatever 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.960 you need, guys, all go get it. Well, yeah, but 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.720 I'm talking more along the lines of man made obstructions 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:31.240 like gas lines, thematic lines. But with with those like 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.040 water lines are probably very tough, but all of those 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:38.480 can be rerouted. You can basically reroute the line rather 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.040 than reroute the subway line. It probably depends on which 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:42.680 one is more cost effective, is what they go with. 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.280 You know. Um you can also, like I said, if 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.480 you're doing a cut and cover method, you can, Um, 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.560 you can basically hang those same lines from these You 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.440 can use the beams and tresses as support for those 0:16:55.440 --> 0:17:27.280 same lines. It's that makes sense. Uh. Sometimes, as Tracy 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:31.040 pointed out, you see lines that aren't on any blueprints. 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:33.200 You're like, wait a minute, what's this big pipe doing here? 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.560 It doesn't show up on any registry that we have 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.040 for the city. Uh, we gotta find out what this 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:42.400 is to see if we can move it. Yeah. Maybe 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.160 it's old and unused and you can throw it away. 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:49.320 That'd be great. Maybe it's full of dangerous gases which 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.080 is not great, or full of water, or maybe you 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:54.440 hit an aquifer. Yeah, water is a big one. Yeah, 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:56.480 if you hit an aquifer, well you know what that is. 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.280 That's just a bunch of water pooled on top of 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:03.399 the bedrock, which is really the surface of the earth. Um. 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:07.040 You you can hit an aquifer, you might have to 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:10.080 say across the river, like the East River. Um. And 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.080 when you do that, you have to generally tunnel under it, 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.960 which is extremely dangerous because then not only you don't 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:19.040 just have a street that can collapse on top of you, 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.040 you have a river that can collapse on top of you. 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.800 And rivers tend to weigh more than streets. Yeah, and 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.359 you can drown and a river you can't drown in 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.919 a street, right, that's it's full of water. UM. I 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.560 thought this was pretty clever. How they how was it 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.160 Paris in the sin before We're drowning? So they basically 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:41.280 put down like pods and then sent compressed air into 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.000 the pod and blew all the water out. And then 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:47.359 men went into these pods and worked. And they use 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.760 the same thing or a similar technique in um building 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:55.000 the Brooklyn Bridge pylons. But the problem was like people 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:59.040 would come up and get the bends from working beneath 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.640 the water surface, but in a dry like area, compressed 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.320 air because they were down so far and they just 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:08.400 come up without thinking about it and get the bends. Well, 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:10.560 the good news is if you're working under the water 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:12.640 like that, you're probably gonna get a little pay bump, 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.199 like hazard pay as they call it. UM. And the 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.119 other cool thing they did in Paris too, was they 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:22.680 they found that um, some of this mud and like 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.359 wet dirt, which is mine, was too hard to deal with, 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.680 so they froze it with calcium chloride and all of 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:32.320 a sudden they removed it like it was a big 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:35.119 chunk of clay. Yeah, pretty neat. It was very clever. 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.159 And that was old timing construction too. I was that 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.840 back in the day, I believe, so I didn't realize 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:44.160 that they were that clever back then. It's pretty smart. Um. 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:48.000 You can also basically use the cut and cover method 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.440 in Uh your pick on that, and I love that. 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.120 I'm gonna make you a T shirt. This is cut 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.320 and cover, but I wouldn't wear that. It just makes 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.680 sense to me, Yeah, it does. Um. You can use 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.480 the cut and cover method across the river. That's what 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:06.480 they did in the San Francisco Bay. Um. They basically 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:11.040 just cut the tunnel they wanted and prefabricated the um 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.280 sections of the subway tunnel and put it in the 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.720 trench and then just cover it back up and I 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:20.640 guess like waiting for the water to leak out. Over 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:25.080 the course of several decades UM. In the very old 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.080 cities like Paris, they have also uncovered some pretty interesting things. 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:35.359 Um like catacombs full of human bones. Yeah, there's a 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:40.600 whole documentary on that. Cannonballs, quarries, very deep quarries. This 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:42.200 is kind of cool. I thought this was very cool. 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.399 Some of the quarries in Paris were so deep that 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.359 they had to actually build bridges, underground bridges for the 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.600 subway to get across. It's an elevated train underground. Yeah, 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:59.040 and nuts across ancient Roman quarries. Man, I mean that's crazy. Yeah. Um, 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.359 there's a lot of cool stuff like that, um like 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:06.080 abandoned subway stations if you're into that kind of thing, 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:07.840 and I know a lot of people who listen to 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.880 us are. There's a website called um NYC subway dot 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:17.200 org and they have like little reports on like stations 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.600 when they were built, when they were decommissioned, why photos 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:23.280 taken of them after they were abandoned. And there's actually 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:27.399 a little trick, chuck um where if you were on 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:30.320 the six train and now you're talking about do you 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:33.399 I think so the City Hall stop. Yeah. So if 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.080 you're on the six train and you're headed towards the 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:40.760 Brooklyn Bridge stop and you stay on right, the train 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.199 will actually go around a loop to turn around and 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.240 go the other way. That loop goes through an old 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:52.360 abandoned um Metro stop or mt A stop, And um, 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:58.000 it's this incredible stained glass architecture, like preserved turn of 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:01.520 the century subway station that's just like frozen in time. 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:03.680 It was in operation from like nineteen o four, and 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:07.240 they used to make everybody get off at Brooklyn Bridge, 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.080 but now they'll let people stay on. And do they 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:12.640 Because I couldn't find recent information, I saw an article 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:14.720 today that said they did that for a while, another 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:17.480 or not, and then I saw another one that said 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:21.280 no you can. Um. I wonder if it's just arbitrary, 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:23.840 like depending on who's I know that they cleaned it 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:26.000 up in two thousand four and made it like kind 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:27.760 of I don't think they like put tons of money 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:30.399 towards restoration, but they cleaned it up really nice and 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:33.320 allowed like light to come through the stained glass, and 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:35.120 for a little while they let people stop and get 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:37.479 off and kind of tour it. But I know they 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:39.760 shut that down, Yeah, because the whole reason, well one 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:41.680 of the big reasons they showed it done because there's 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:45.280 such a tight curve that the um, the modern subway 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:48.560 cars can't sit flush up against the platform, so there's 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:50.760 a pretty big gap that people would have to jump 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:53.120 over to get off. So I can imagine you can't 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:54.879 get off. But from what I saw it was a 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:58.800 two thousand article it said you can stay on. Now. Well, 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:00.840