WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: Subways: HUH! What are they good for? 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:04.720 Happy Friday afternoon, everybody. This is Chuck here with this 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:12.399 week's Stuff you Should Know selects, Select Sean. It's called subways, Colin, Huh, 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.680 what are they good for? I can't remember if I 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.640 came up with that silly fun name or if Josh did. Uh. 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:21.920 I think it was me, But at any rate, this 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:26.560 is from septem two thousand twelve, and this is just 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:30.320 a great episode. It's just a classic stuff you should know. Um. 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.640 I'm fascinated by subways and we kind of hit on 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.280 all cylinders on this one, from the creation, invention, and 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:40.440 history of subways to how they're built today. They're just 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.880 really a pretty remarkable form of transportation and you should 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:48.839 know more about it. So enjoy subways. Huh what are 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:57.200 they good for? Right now, welcome to Stuff you Should 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:06.240 Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:10.680 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bright. Uh, 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:16.240 just sitting there normally right. Yeah, I'm not doing anything unusually. 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:19.000 I think we should have started this with taking the 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.680 A train. I think we should have changed up our music. 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.040 Well let's do that. Okay, how about this all right? 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:35.160 How we how we are we? Train to find the 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:41.399 quickest way to get long. Um we did, okay, thanks 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.520 thanks to the magic of post production, we did and 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.880 said that was taking the A Train. Who made that song? Boy, 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.960 I don't know who originally composed it, to be honest, Well, 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:53.240 I think I think we should find out. Well who 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.520 who just performed it? Well, there's many versions. Well what's 0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:03.120 the one you selected, like a week from now? Uh, 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:06.680 I don't know. Did they do A train? Now it's 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.440 a jazz tune? Oh? John Coltrane? Did he do it? 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:13.160 Let's go with Coltrane? Man, maybe I should just do 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:18.600 it and that that that then? Oh? Is that that song? Yeah? 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.040 Thinking the A Train. That's a good song. Is it 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.040 instrumental because you know a lot of those instrumentals actually 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.680 have lyrics? What the old jazz tunes? Yeah? Really they 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:32.320 in the train? That's it? That? You're right? Okay, let's 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.320 go with Duke Ellington's version. Duke Ellington did the A 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.280 Train at the beginning of this episode. I hoped everyone 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.919 liked it. The Duke. We haven't heard it yet, that's right. Um, 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.440 So Chuck, I know that you know what a subway 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:49.040 is because we've been on the subway together. Yeah. Do 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.240 you remember when we were in New York. Um. I 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:56.960 believe it was for ABC Go, our first little opportunity there, 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.000 and we were going to meet you me. Oh yeah, 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.560 and I remember I met you me. Uh that was 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.680 that where in that bar? Afterwards? Well, I mean I 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:05.959 worked with her, but then I was like, that was 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.440 the first time you ever hung up? Yeah? Exactly. Um. 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:10.520 So we were we were going and that was my 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.880 first time in the New York subway and I remember 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:18.880 we were looking at the subway and um, the the 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:21.960 whole thing just turned into like this series of confusing 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.920 lines to me and like suddenly I was blind and 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.800 like holding your arm and I turned. I had the 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.040 mind of a child, and not even like a really 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:32.640 bright child either. It was just kind of like what 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:36.760 does it say? Um? And I can report after being 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:38.640 back in New York with you me several times that 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.800 I do that to her still, that we're enabling you 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:44.760 was what's going on? I think it is. I think 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:46.960 if you guys had thrown me in and be like 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.280 you figured it out, figure it out, I could have, 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.880 but I don't have to. Um, and uh, it's kind 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.480 of nice because it's really confusing. So when you go 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:57.680 to New York, you just kind of like just go 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:01.480 with Umi's wind wherever she blows kind of but the 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.040 wind is coming from her heavy size. That she's the 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:08.760 one who has to like read the subway map. Yeah. Um, 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.400 But now that I've read this article how subways work, 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.440 I don't understand the New York subway system any more 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:18.560 than I did before I read this article. But I 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.680 can tell you that the rails are made of thirty 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.200 five ft long pieces of carbon steel that are five 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:26.719 and a half inches tall and one and a half 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:31.080 inches wide, And you could run any train, any train 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:33.919 on the world, in the world on those rails, not 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.839 in the world, but at least in New York, because 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.320 I guess there's different cages, but there is. The New 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.479 York subway system was designed so that you could just 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.200 kind of if you wanted to, like go to Cleveland 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:52.000 on a subway train, you could, Yeah, that's I was designed. Yeah, 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:53.960 they could put it on just a regular railway track 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:56.720 and go to Cleveland. And then you get to Cleveland 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:58.880 and go, jeez, I want to go back to New York. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.280 Cleveland's where the first stoplight in the country was. Did 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.520 you know that really I like Cleveland. I'm just kidding. 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:10.799 It's where my home away from home is now. Oh yeah, 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.880 so it was. Now they're an acron, but it's a 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.200 suburb of Cleveland. I never realized that. And I'm from 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:18.800 Ohio and I didn't realize that it was a suburb. 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:20.839 It's like half hour or so. I always thought Acro 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:28.279 was more towards Dayton. Yeah, alright, so Dayton, let's talk 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.920 about it, all right, let's talk about subways. The Metro 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:38.520 and France. Five hundred forty seven yards every five forty 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.600 seven yards, you're gonna find a subway station that's pretty good. No, 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:47.040 not even there. There's no building in Paris that's more 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:51.440 than five A botch that one. No, but it really 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.000 you helped build up the drama. Okay, Um, the Tube 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.160 in London, mind the gap everyone, Um, two hundred and 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:02.440 seventy five stations and our dear beloved New York subway 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.839 system four D and sixty eight as of now packed 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.120 into like two hundred and sixty square miles, which is 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:11.200 that's pretty impressive. And that's why the New York subway 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.839 system looks like a play of spaghetti. Man. It's really 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:15.479 tough to read it's not just me. It can't just 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.080 be it's not. You just have to zero in on 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:21.800 your area. And then you're like, oh, just you gotta 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.040 blur your eyes and block out everything else. And then 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.520 everyone behind you was looking at you like tourists. Yeah, exactly, 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.000 he's got his eyes crossed. And why why is does 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.360 that guy next to him look like Ronnie millsap all 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:35.400 of a sudden because I saw him walk down here. 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:40.400 Just the London Underground is the oldest open in eighteen 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:44.040 sixty three, The Metro was next in nine hundred, and 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.080 New York not far behind in nineteen o four. And Tracy, 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:49.360 who wrote a very thorough article this is a Tracy V. 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.720 Wilson Joy. Yeah, you know it's gonna be good. Um. 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.120 She points out that this they all kind of happened 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:59.120 within pretty dense space of time. Because the Industrial Revolution, 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:03.080 people are outing farming and and they're like, screw this, 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:05.560 I need a decent egg roll. Ye, I'm gonna move 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:07.720 into the city where I can get a job in 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.800 a factory. Well yeah, and before that there weren't jobs 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.920 and factories because there weren't factories. Part of the Industrial 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.440 Revolution was the rise of factories, everybody threw down their 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.600 grarian tools like scithes, forget this, how I'm out of 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:26.440 here right right? Clever word play, thank you. Um. And 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:28.560 they moved to the cities. And when they moved to 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.040 the cities, all of a sudden there was a lot 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.520 of people who needed to move about and they didn't 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:38.240 have cars, partially because cars hadn't been invented yet, that 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.840 was one reason, but also even beyond that, like not 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.400 everybody could afford a horse, but they still need to 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:47.040 get someplace. So it's a good point. City fathers in 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:53.040 these areas Paris London, London first and then Um because 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:55.560 I think it was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.720 and then and then New York. Um said all right, 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:00.240 we need to figure out how to move up bunch 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:02.840 of these people at once. And what they came up 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.400 with was mass transit, but it was all above ground 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.040 mass transit, and it involved horses. Remember the wing Cries 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:14.760 Typhoid Merry episode. One horse produces twenty pounds of poop 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:18.120 per day, and New York had like a hundred thousand 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.560 horses or something like that walking around. Yeah, you know 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:24.680 how much poopa subway train produces zero there's probably a 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:27.760 couple of guys pooping on the train, but that attribute 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:29.960 that to the guy on the train. That's not really 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.599 the subway. That's true. It is not exhaust as you 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.320 as you would call horses poop um, I wouldn't call it. 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:40.600 So you're right. They had horse drawn carriages and these 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:44.280 cool things called omnibusses, which were longer horse drawn carriages. 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:50.360 Now they're known by their slang term bus. Oh yeah, 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:52.480 that's what that's what a bus. I'm glad you brought 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.280 that up people in New York. Tourists in New York. 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:57.120 If you're in New York, you got it all figured out. 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.960 But tourist in New York, I would recommend that you 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:03.480 occasionally take a bus trip. Don't be afraid of the 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.360 bus like a regular bus or a tourist bus double. 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.679 Don't take those. No, a regular bus, you're you're a 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:13.000 little metro card. You might even know this if you've 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:14.760 just been in New York like once. It works on 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.240 the buses so as well as the subways. And a 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:20.280 lot of times if you're like uptown at the park, 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.160 you're like, man, I can't find a subway stop near me. 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:25.640 I need to get downtown, just walk to the edge 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:27.480 and chances are you going to see a bus with 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.720 its own little lane. It's just going south and you 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.760 get a nice views of everything you're out out and 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.720 about up above ground. And that's just my advice of tours. 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:39.480 Don't be afraid of the busses in New York. It 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:41.920 could be a great way to get around. There's also cabs, 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:47.800 you know. Yeah, but you know those are expensive, man. Yeah, yeah, 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.920 I mean not one Discovery Channel. When I'm there on 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:53.480 my own dime, I take a lot of buses and 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:57.280 subway yeah sure, and it's subway yeah yeah, But I 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.680 didn't realize you took the bus. Yeah, buses are great. 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:03.320 I I had no idea. So you take the bus 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.719 and you know where your local elector lives. That's right, 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.400 that's pretty impressive, Chuck. So what happened with these buses though? 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:12.040 And with all the horse poop? As they said, this 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:14.840 is getting out of hand. Um, we need to go 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.920 underground because there's no more room up here. Yeah. We 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.000 we'd love to build trains, but we can't because there's 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:25.560 too many people, so too many bagel shops. So London 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:30.280 did it first, right eighteen sixty three is when it opened. Yeah, 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.640 god knows when they started construction. Look at someone knows 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:39.360 God besides God. Um and uh, then within forty years, 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:41.800 I guess paris open. There is because it was such 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.880 a huge success, and I mean it was just brilliant. 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:50.400 The problem is it was also like planning wise, it 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:54.480 was a brilliant move, but um, construction wise, it like 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:58.280 makes almost no sense whatsoever. It's like, Hey, where's the 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:02.280 hardest place we can put this mass transit system. I've 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:07.000 got it. Yeah, through a river like under bedrock, right, um, 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.520 and basically through every obstacle that we can create that 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:15.080 we've already created. Yeah, that's a good point. Talk about this. 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:18.280 These days, they have this really cool machine called the 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:20.599 tunnel boring machine. Yeah did you see these? Yeah, it 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.679 looks awesome. It's basically like a tremor worm, Yeah, but 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:29.080 a mechanized one that won't turn on you. Um. And 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:33.520 I hope people caught that little reference. Which one. So 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:37.040 this TVM tunnel boring machine um, has discs and scrapers, 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:42.200 crushes rock into into pebbles and sand. It has like 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:44.240 a conveyor belt that comes out the back. So it 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.600 is kind of likes it and then dudes get rid 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.640 of that stuff and it actually supports the tunnel as 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.719 it digs and does a really really great job. But um, 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:57.080 we all love the TV. They're fairly new though. They 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.680 didn't have these back in the day. Um So back 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:01.960 in the A they had to do it by hand 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:09.240 and picks, shovel dynamite yeah or TNT, depending on where 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:14.000 your preferences lie. Um. Yeah, So this was kind of 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.000 a problem in that you didn't have a conveyor belt. 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.160 You had to use pick. You frequently ran into rock, 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.520 and sometimes you had to dig into the bedrock, which 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.600 you know, bedrock that's just like that's the actual Earth's surface. 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.520 Everything else like mudd and dirt that's just like runoff. 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:32.760 Did you realize that? Yeah, I just recently realized that 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.880 I've done that for years. But that bedrock, it's kind 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.000 of tough to get through. Yeah. New York City alone, 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.400 um had eight thousand laborers to work on this project, 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.800 about sixty of which died and I don't even know 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.280 if they have account on the injury sustained. Yeah, I'm 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:54.280 sure it was like sixty a day injured. Do you 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:58.760 think I don't know, thousands of injuries. Let's just say that, Um, 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.920 did you look up the New Austrian tunneling method? Did 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:03.679 I want to know about this? I didn't have a 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.480 chance to. I don't. I can't tell you. Please tell 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:10.640 me it is. It had like eight different tenants. So 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:12.840 it's not so much a method of digging as it 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.000 is a, as Tracy points out, a collection of techniques 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.200 for digging and finding out where to dig. Yeah, where 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:21.640 to dig and how to dig? Um? So like what 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:28.000 are they like? No, they're not random like that. But 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:30.560 you know, we should do an article on tunneling period, 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.480 because it's pretty amazing. And the reason they called it 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.600 the New Austrian method was to distinguish it from the 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:41.160 old Austrian I guess that they must be the king 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:46.280 tunnel ers like Charles Bunsen. Is he Austrian? Uh no, 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:48.480 but he was the tunnel or in the Great Escape, 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:54.120 but he was the tunnel expert. Um. So that that's 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.439 that was from a reservoir dogs. That was a line. 0:13:57.360 --> 0:13:59.720 At one point someone says, he's like Charles Bronson and 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:04.440 Great Escape, he was digging tunnels. How did they miss 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.480 that line? I don't know. Well, so you just referenced 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:12.040 the reference of a movie. The method that they use 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:14.920 for a long time, um was the cut and cover method, 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:19.320 which this is crazy. They like literally rip up a street, 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.360 put a subway there, and then build the street back 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:24.880 on top. It makes uttering complete sense for a couple 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.000 of routes. Number one, subways are meant to serve like 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:32.360 areas streets, right, It's basically like a street that happens 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.320 to be underground that moves a bunch of people at once. Yeah, okay, 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:38.240 so following a street makes a lot of sense, especially 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:42.880 if you're a planner. Um. The problem is you are 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:47.280 completely ripping up a street temporarily because you're what you're 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:51.280 doing is you're digging a trench and then rebuilding the 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:53.800 earth above it. But the good thing is is you 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.280 can rebuild the earth above it even stronger. It's like 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.120 Steve Austin or something like that. Right, Yeah, Like you 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:01.600 dig a trench as far down as you want your 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:06.120 subway to be, and you put him pilings, you drive 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.600 them down preferably into bedrock if you can, and then 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.000 you put like tresses and beams over those nice buttress 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.800 every now and then, yeah, and then you can rebuild 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.040 the ground in the road up above it. You can 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:23.640 also reroute any um sewer lines, any power lines, any 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:27.440 anything through these tresses and beings. Frankly, I'm a cut 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.960 and cover method guy. Yeah. Well, it also makes sense 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.280 because the streets are probably not gonna You're probably not 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:38.000 gonna run into as many obstacles. Um, like a basement 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.320 of a major building. Yeah, exactly, because there wouldn't be 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:42.080 a major building in the middle of the street. There 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.600 was a cool part in The Devil in the White City. 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:47.600 Did you ever read that man that's on the list? 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.160 Do you like it a lot um where they're talking 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:56.000 about how Chicago built the first skyscrapers. Yeah, yeah, and um, 0:15:56.040 --> 0:16:01.480 basically they figured out how to float the foundations of 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.440 the building above the bedrock because the bedrock was really 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.560 far down and there was like the sandy shifting soil. 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:10.880 And I can't remember it specifically, but it's like, Wow, 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.880 I'm I'm riveted by this description of an architectural technique, 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.840 a building technique that they figured out so you didn't 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:24.280 even need the murders. I found them superfluous. It was 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.760 a good book, and I'm not one for like popular 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:33.600 fiction like that popular semi fiction, historical fiction. Yeah, it's good. 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.840 I like it. Um. So we're talking about obstacles, and 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.480 that is a big problem when you're when you're digging tunnels, 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:44.840 especially under a city that's already has an infrastructure in place. Um, 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:48.680 you're going to run into things that you can move. Sometimes, 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.400 you're gonna run into things that you can't move sometimes 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.040 that you have to move around. So like, have you 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.840 ever been in a subway, especially New York that really 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:00.920 slows down and takes one of those hard turns. It 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.280 maybe because you know that's the direction you need to 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:06.760 start going now, but more than likely it's because they 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.119 had to reroute it. Um, especially if it's an old 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:13.040 section of the subway. Very true, because now you can 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:15.200 just put the TVM on that thing and it's like 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:18.280 whatever you need, guys all go get it. Well, yeah, 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:21.160 but I'm talking more along lines of man made obstructions 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:25.639 like gas lines, thematic lines. But with with those like 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.480 water lines are probably very tough, but all of those 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:32.880 can be rerouted. You can basically reroute the line rather 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.400 than reroute the subway line. It probably depends on which 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.160 one is more cost effective, is what they go with. UM. 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.080 You can also Like I said, if you're doing a 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:44.040 cut and cover method, you can, um, you can basically 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:47.439 hang those same lines from these you can use the 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.879 beams and tresses as support for those same lines. That's true, 0:17:51.040 --> 0:18:23.040 that makes sense. Uh. Sometimes, as Tracy pointed out, you 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:25.880 see lines that aren't on any blueprints. You're like, wait 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:28.520 a minute, what's this big pipe doing here? It doesn't 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:32.919 show up on any registry that we have for the city. Uh, 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:35.080 we gotta find out what this is to see if 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:38.040 we can move it. Yeah, maybe it's old and unused 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.000 and you can throw it away, that'd be great. Maybe 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:44.720 it's full of dangerous gases, which is not great, or 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.640 full of water, or maybe you hit an aquifer. Yeah, 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:49.879 water is a big one. Yeah. If you hit an aquifer, 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.200 well you know what that is. That's just a bunch 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:54.960 of water pooled on top of the bedrock, right, which 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:59.520 is really the surface of the earth. Um, you can 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.360 hit it, quefer. You might have to say across the river, 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.240 like the East River. Um. And when you do that, 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.160 you have to generally tunnel under it, which is extremely 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:11.760 dangerous because then not only you don't just have a 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:13.679 street that can collapse on top of you, you have 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:15.560 a river that can collapse on top of you, and 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.359 rivers tend to weigh more than streets. Yeah, and you 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.600 can drown and a river you can't drown in a street. Right, 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:24.800 that's it's full of water. Um. I thought this was 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.800 pretty clever. How they how was it Paris in the 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:31.439 Seine before we're drowning? So they basically put down like 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:36.159 pods and then sent compressed air into the pod and 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.440 blew all the water out. And then men went into 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.480 these pods and worked. And they use the same thing 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:47.760 or a similar technique in Um building the Brooklyn Bridge pylons. 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:50.240 But the problem was like people would come up and 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:54.520 get the bends from working beneath the water surface but 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:58.280 in a dry like area compressed air because they were 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:00.720 down so far and they just come up without thinking 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.280 about it and get the bends. Well, the good news 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:05.680 is if you're working under the water like that, you're 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.440 probably gonna get a little pay bump like hazard pay 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:11.119 as they call it. UM. And the other cool thing 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:14.399 they did in Paris too was they found that um, 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:20.520 some of this mud and like wet dirt which is mine, 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:23.080 was too hard to deal with, so they froze it 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.000 with calcium chloride, and all of a sudden they removed 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:28.000 it like it was a big chunk of clay. Yeah, 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:30.440 pretty neat. It was very clever. And that was old 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.200 timing construction too. I was that back in the day, 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.760 I believe, so I didn't realize that they were that 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.280 clever back then. It's pretty smart. Um. You can also 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:44.359 basically use the cut and cover method and uh, your 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.439 pick on that. And I love that. I'm gonna make 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:49.240 your t shirt this is cut and cover. I wouldn't 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:53.240 wear that. It just makes sense to me, Yeah, it does. Um. 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.400 You can use the cut and cover method across the river. 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.560 That's what they did in the San Francisco Bay. Um. 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.399 They basically just cut the tunnel they wanted and prefabricated 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.320 the um sections of the subway tunnel and put it 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.080 in the trench and then just cover it back up 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:13.800 and I guess like waiting for the water to leak 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:19.000 out over the course of several decades. UM. In the 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:21.320 very old cities like Paris, they have also uncovered some 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:29.320 pretty interesting things, um, like catacombs full of human bones. Yeah, 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:34.359 there's a whole documentary on that. Yeah, cans quarries very 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:36.000 deep quarries. This is kind of cool. I thought this 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:38.240 was very cool. Some of the quarries in Paris were 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.879 so deep that they had to actually build bridges, underground 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:45.680 bridges for the subway to get across. It's an elevated 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:50.119 train underground. Yeah, and nuts across ancient Roman quarries. Man, 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.280 I mean that's crazy. Yeah. Um, there's a lot of 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:59.160 like cool stuff like that, um, like abandoned subway stations. Yeah, 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:00.919 if you're into that kind of thing, and I know 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:02.840 a lot of people who listen to us are. There's 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:07.480 a website called um NYC subway dot org and they 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:12.440 have like little reports on like stations when they were built, 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:15.920 when they were decommissioned, why, photos taken of them after 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:19.879 they were abandoned. And there's actually a little trick, chuck 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:23.440 um where if you were on the six train and 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:25.600 now you're talking about do you I think so the 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:28.560 City Hall stop. Yeah. So if you're on the six 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:31.679 train and you're headed towards the Brooklyn Bridge stop and 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:36.280 you stay on right, the train will actually go around 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:38.440 a loop to turn around and go the other way. 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:42.879 That loop goes through an old abandoned um metro stop 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:48.840 or m T a stop, and um, it's this incredible 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:53.560 stained glass architecture, like preserved turn of the century subway 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.520 station that's just like frozen in time. It was in 0:22:56.680 --> 0:23:00.440 operation from like nineteen and they used to make everybody 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:03.000 get off at Brooklyn Bridge, but now they'll let people 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:05.600 stay on and do they y Because I couldn't find 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:08.200 recent information. I saw an article today that said they 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:10.480 did that for a while. A Noo, they're not, and 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:14.200 then I saw another one that said, no, you can. Um, 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:17.320 I wonder if it's just arbitrary, like depending on I 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:19.440 know that they cleaned it up in two thousand four 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:21.280 and made it like kind of I don't think they 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:23.879