Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 52: 1996 Channel Tunnel Fire

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

Six hellish months have passed away On the cold Kamchatka Sea, But now we're bound from the Arctic ground Rolling down to Old Maui patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wtyppod merch: https://www.solidaritysuperstore.com/wtypp slides: https://youtu.be/jBEEUPjqu-s

On the pushing the bigger button pushing a bigger button button go click button goes click. All right Swap presenter and slideshow view, okay, I think we're good. I think we're going are we going? Yeah, we're going okay Well, wow, this is a prompt entrance to the podcast for once Yeah, we're getting better at this. I know she said lying. Yeah, it's also 50 52 episodes in finally we aren't Showing the smallest trickle of improvement every other episode actually sucked just sucked terribly. This will be the first Yeah, this is the first good one. Thanks for the money Well, they'll be giving us like three times as much money after this one Wow

Yeah, because it'll be good. Yeah, we can get a submarine will be bigger than Red Scare Oh Praxis yes, I saw us All right, what welcome to well, there's your problem. We also didn't get banned from Twitter unlike some people Well, we're all dead. Oh, yeah, but that was before Welcome to well, there's your problem. It's a podcast about engineering disasters. It has slides. I'm Justin Rosnick the person who is talking right now My pronouns are he and him. Okay I am Alice called. Well, Kelly. I am the person who is speaking now my pronouns are she and her

Whoo. Hi, I'm Liam Anderson. My pronouns are he and him Yeah, right through the opening massive is about to say we'll be done in 30 minutes We won't know what to do. We'll have to just fill dead air after that. Have you heard of safety fourth? I Mean fifth sixth, maybe seventh So what do you see on the screen in front of you is a train in a tunnel But it's warped. Oh, is it supposed to be like that? Been a while since we've had that. Oh, no, it's not it's not supposed to be like that

Okay, thank you Tunnel should probably also have less exposed rebar No, let's just be aesthetic less debris on the walkway here It's distressed, you know people pay extra for that sort of thing You notice how there's a crushed truck trailer on on here Yeah Today we're gonna talk about the 1996 channel tunnel fire The channel

Yeah, I hate that name for it. I I Yeah, it sounds like some sort of gross archaic section Everywhere yeah, well the French call it the tunel sur la manche. So, you know, that's that's poetic Yeah, just literally call it the tunnel under the channel does what it says on the Ted I suppose Yeah, it goes it goes under the channel. That's what it does No, also really it goes through it. I mean, I guess it does technically go under it, but Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, I imagine we'll get into that. Yes

Yeah, we'll get into some fun French terms later. Oh, no We have to do the goddamn news Why did you put a picture of Bernie Sanders with that bird that landed on One percent of the Cubans own 99% Production I'm Fidel Castro and I also wanted to play baseball like Bernie Sanders did Yeah, imagining left Ben Garrison during Bernie and Fidel playing baseball together in heaven Shit that's gonna happen 100% so

What happened was this as the State Department's running at the clock They've declared Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism The Houthis too, they've just been like Right, yeah, yeah, they're just going to town. We're just all the way out We're gonna be state sponsors of terrorism by by the 20th We advocate bureaucracy based terrorism Oh, yeah, you just have to you just send an FBI agent reading your tweet That's like I'm going to make the ELF look like fucking Greenpeace and being like, what did you mean by this?

Play the first play the first play the fifth yes the first amendment. I Need to alter my steam settings so people don't show up in the corner Yeah, I noticed that What I was I was watching Because sometimes I do watch our podcast to see how I can improve if me alone. Oh, you're watching the tapes Yeah, I'm watching a game film I'm in a dark Dark Eagles room somewhere in the link like people people are for janitors are banging on the door players

Don't know how they can't get into the weight room. I just got like my laptop and like some TV. I stole Yeah, my my It's on the car. Yes, my podcast film was like intermittent with like how the right guard didn't block that week We need a podcast coach to go over the podcast with us. Oh, yeah, people do offer They're just like, hey, can I edit it? I'm just like I have a rose for that. Yeah, no, I do the editing. It's me But yeah, so here's your relations Cuba Mm-hmm. Well, they made it again for the what third time third time third time. Yeah, I mean They've gone all the way from it's fine

Pete all the way from lifting the embargo to state sponsor a terrorism in only four years Not a question is hell terrorism. Did they sponsor in those four years? I? assume Fidel personally held the capital hostage That makes sense. It's probably you know, they're infiltrating countries with their doctors Yeah, oh plus they had the thing with it like they were shooting CIA agents with the beam that makes your brain not work Yeah, the placebo gun mm-hmm. It doesn't actually exist. It's not real. It's just people Tricking themselves into believing it's real. I could believe it was real I just don't care until the time when like the Russians or whoever

Shoot the wrong guy and like give me worse depression with it because they're aiming at a CIA guy and miss. I don't Yeah This is why I post on Twitter as a Russian was like sighting up a CIA guy I'm like got his hand jogged slightly and hit me with a beam that makes you normal shit oh No, it has the opposite it has the opposite effect if you're trans Oh forced feminization All right, so Fidel Castro's forced feminization Ray is the reason why he is

From beyond the grave a state's sponsor of terrorism. It's unfortunate But yeah, the real question is will Biden have the balls to undo this Absolutely not nope. No no way in hell in Other news We're fact-checking the fact check I'm gonna fact check Quote an Alabama man who was in attendance during the January 6th 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol suffered a fatal heart attack after accidentally tasing himself in the testicles

They say this is false. This is wrong. That man died after tasing himself in the balls Yeah, a fatal disticular tasing Their fact check was they they called his wife his grieving wife Which in itself is very funny to like call a recent widow to be like yo, did your husband tase himself in the balls? Have to answer that phone call She said no, he would never do that not enough information Now that's not the kind of investigative quality that we need to make a determination on whether or not this man died Because he tased himself in the balls which he did I don't understand how she could be a reliable witness here. Was she there?

No Yeah, exactly. So I'm pretty sure he tased himself in the balls Absolutely, and if nothing else like it's our duty to make sure that this is how it goes down in history whether it's true or not This is this like our grandchildren are gonna be studying this event And it's already gonna be deeply stupid because they're gonna have to learn about the the shaman guy and stuff But I want them to learn as a fun little trivia fact that one of the people who died tased himself in the balls You imagine Having to do a push and like you're a high school senior and just

Waiting through all the bullshit they teach you and then you finally get to the whatever lesson plan about that time A guy tased himself in the balls You're just required to write whatever a 1500 word essay on how that represents the decay of American Empire That's right. Say I you get a multiple choice question on the on the on the exam You got to fill in the scantron like an Alabama man Tased himself in the wear at the US capital January 6th What is himself in the balls?

a the dick B the taint see the asshole D the balls America is stupid. Yes And that's the goddamn news I Thought this was a third news item. I'm like we're very current the value tapestry. Well, I'm catching up with recent events Catching up with recent events. Well, there is your problem Why the battle of haystakes as Rosas furiously tried to load load a long bow So

Okay, I thought we'd start with some history of the channel tunnel, right? Hmm, right. So I figured a good place to start is 1066 The first channel son. Yes. Oh so in 1066 William Duke of Normandy Normandy Normandy is in France, right? France France claimed England after Edward the Confessor died without an heir, right? And he took his army across the channel to make damn well sure of it, right? And and he killed the other conceder for the throne Harold Godwinson at the battle of haystings

Thus securing his claim to the throne and as a result the English have been suspicious of the French ever since also Possible that Harold is the guy with the getting the arrow in the face here Possible also that he's the guy getting hacked down by the horsemen does not specify in the tapestry which one he is the idea that Harold is the guy who gets shot in the eye with an arrow is largely a folk like a folk confection. We don't know I'm I assume because it's starting says Harold. Oh elder Yeah

But like nobody nobody actually knows for certain whether it's like under the Harold or whether the under the Interfectus Harold Harold Godwinson geteth owned Harold Godwinson taseth himself in the balls. Ah shit all duty war zone best moments funny I Get rent so bad in war zone man. I'm just leave me with black ops. I'm I've actually fairly decent war zone Notably, I've never shot myself in the eye with an arrow. Well, every time I have a crossbow loadout

I'm just like pointing at the sky like just hoping for the best Basically like a one-man trebuchet like man, I hope this works and click hail Mary That's what I do every time just a case just a case. It's like how I get my kid baptized Little chance. I'm wrong and if I am you know Yeah, the old Pascal's wager right there. Yeah, that's Liam baby. Listen It's all fun and games until Mike whatever unbaptized child is I don't know sitting in a field with Socrates for all eternity That'd be painful I wouldn't like that

so After 1066 the British and the French did a whole bunch of wars against each other over a long period of time If you want to know more read a history book Yeah, try picking up a book of English. Yes, they say. Yes, exactly until Liam you got a little bit of echo. I do. Sorry. Yes, hang on You always got a little bit of echo. You got to get some like a big encapsulating headphones Yeah, like get the like f1 pit crew headphones. I have some very nice Sony

No, it's canceling once I'm actually gonna switch to these are open back and I've been sort of trying to make it work for Quite a bit, but I've got Sony XM4s. So By the next recording I will hopefully not have an echo anymore. Oh, yeah so there were some Proposals very early on for a fixed crossing of the English Channel, right? There's a lot of advantages to a fixed crossing of the channel because it's a very busy shipping lane Right and in addition to the world now. Yeah, in addition to that

There's lots of ferry traffic, right? Which is a great way for boats to run into each other and crash and everyone dies right You know, so if you can Reduce some of that ferry traffic. That's a good thing So You know, why not run a train underneath the channel the first guy to think about well Maybe we can build a channel tunnel was a mining engineer Albert Matthew Pavia, right? Okay. Yeah, they ought it. Yeah, I I know how to pronounce things

Bet you but you know, that's fine he Proposed an oil lamp illuminated tunnel with an artificial island in the middle of the channel and Because they didn't really have trains yet. He's decided this is gonna be for stagecoaches, right? Howly ass Jules Verne ass tunnel. Yeah, so the The horses that you'd have a little pasture for the horses on the island, right? And they'd change the horses on the island. I Mean this sounds very funny and it is but this is also this is currently a thing in the Netherlands like some of the big

Like damned polders. They will just have an island that's in the middle of them like that This seems like a great way to turn horses into viscera. Well, that's who The horses just are overcome by oil fumes in this 14 mile tunnel Horses, horses is a pasture just but just block hating the rest of the tunnel for the rest of the horses because horses are the dumbest animals alive People throw it off the island into the channel they get run over by a steamship You know Creates a massive fire I've managed to crash my horse into a boat

I Unveiling my undersea horse furnace So much wizard longer will we have to hunt whales for oil? You're shoveling horses into the the firebox or the boiler that like powers the steam-powered tunneling machine, I don't know So After this there were some you know the idea kind of dies out for a while There were some surveys and geological studies performed in the 1850s and 1860s. They don't really get anywhere

What's pictured here is? Tom de gammon's Tom de gammon Tom de gammon love Britain eight friends love tunnels simple as don't like it is a tunnel This is an 1856 plan for a cross-channel link That would have a air shaft in the middle of the channel to let the steam and the smoke from the steam locomotives get out right cool How far across is the channel because that's a good like that's a good way is in 11 miles of

Smoke just collecting smoke and steam and oil. That's why we have a vent shaft Alice We've cut that long 24 mile stretch of unventilated tunnel down to a mere 11 miles. I Kind of like the idea though. You know those those scenic overlooks Where you can put in a quarter and you get to use the whatever the view finder yeah, yeah Use it as a periscope that'd be pretty sick in the vent shaft. Ah, ah get at me around 1881 This this idea was starting to look more feasible right a

Railway entrepreneur named sir Edward Watkin and Alexander we know about him Sir Edmond sir Edward Watkin chairman of the Metropolitan Railway Try trying to build a three times the size version of the Eiffel Tower in the southeast London He only built the first here It was called Watkins folly and it just for it's just like this giant wrought iron frame like a One-third of the Eiffel Tower. It's huge so the guy the guy from the Met and

Alexander lavoli It was a contractor on the Suez Canal Began exploratory work to build their own channel tunnel right They started construction on a seven foot diameter pilot tunnel right and from each side of the channel The tunnel boring machines made it more than a mile right Until this wonderful institution completely unimpeachable never done anything wrong the great British press Started claiming that the French were going to use this tunnel to invade, right? I mean

900 years ago Still sore about the Harold Godwin something So one of the interesting things is that like at this point there were actually some anti-invasion Provisions being put in the tunnel designs I should I didn't write any notes about this, but I did see it while I was researching What at least one of the designs of this era had a one-mile? Section that was deliberately well below the grade of the rest of it and the idea was it was a waterlock, right? You could just flood that section if someone tried to invade through the tunnel

Uh Can I read you a side note about Watkins folly because this is some of the funniest shit I've ever read. Oh, yeah They're fully a dude's rock guy Watkin invited Gustav Eiffel himself to design the tower But he declined listen This is just one paragraph, but an architectural design competition was held in 1890 and a total of 68 designs were submitted Some of the more exotic proposals included a one million pound tower in 1890 money It's by by the Leaning Tower of Pisa a structure with a quote a captive parachute to hold four persons close With a tower with a spiral railway Climans exterior also one-twelfth model the great pyramid of Giza

A colony of aerial vegetarians who would grow their own food in hanging gardens. Sure. Fuck it. Why not? My great-granddad used to design parachute draps That would that is falling to my death in southeast London out of a captive parachute is not Nothing fun ever gets me between this in the palace of the Soviets. I'm just like and Tatlens tower I'm just like build the fun stuff dream anymore. Mm-hmm. We don't make stuff in this country anymore You'd follow your death from the parachute drop tower at the at Coney Island instead I will only ever love you Comet

All right, so they after investors started to pull out they were forced to abandon the project, right? In the 1920s and 30s this idea was still alive Winston Churchill art it started, you know writing articles in favor of it and he started, you know Trying to argue for it in political circles He you also thought it would probably be kind of impractical for an army to invade using the tunnel Although when did that ever stop Churchill? But like it is very funny to me how much of like leave and Brexit stuff invokes Churchill When he was a huge believer in European federalism, you should check out incidentally that the brief

The brief proposition before France collapsed in the early early parts of World War two For an Anglo-French Union just to start a country I just be one thing and it's like it was genuinely taken seriously by some people and like positions of power Yeah, we do a reversed reverse battle of Hastings Yeah, and we're friends now and we're holding hands and we're friends now Everybody got a buddy it's a partner against the oncoming fascist onslaught, okay Oops, we did our own fascism Oh

So Now by the 1950s This uh, this idea that they would use the tunnel to invade was well and truly put to bed because people realized Oh, we have airplanes now Oh Yeah, so that the security concerns were almost irrelevant in 1964 the english and the french Agree to build the damn tunnel, right? I'm sure it was done promptly Well by 1975 the studies were completed the plans were drawn up the tunnel boring machines were put in place and ready to roll

And the labor government canceled their end of the project like right before they were going to start digging At a huge expense Because they thought it was too expensive the country was not in great financial shape And some bullshit about the european economic community The labor council this would have been what a fucking Callahan's prime minister just some peak decision-making years for the labor party Yeah, no the french guy really mad about it. Um Well, that's the that was the benefit of doing it. I suppose I guess so. Yeah

Uh, we wasted your time Oh What if what if an english guy was french? He's the english ambassador to france and he's trying to speak french. So that's why he sounds like that That's my story. That was william the conqueror Yeah, yeah, yeah an english guy who was french. Yes So all right, but

Then the government changes over right to margaret thatcher Right Thatcher came to power in 79 the channel tunnel seemed like a dead idea, but thatcher had other ideas She thought it'd be a good idea. We have some privately financed road crossing of some kind Very specific about it being a road or motorway crossing didn't want any of these socialist trains, right? What? I never knew this fuck

So god, okay. The way this deal was supposed to work was uh, france swan miterrand's government would pay for their half of the crossing And thatcher was going to get private financing for the english half Right. Yeah, of course Because the government can't do stuff. That's you know, why we elected thatcher is not to do stuff So there were three wildly impractical motorway schemes proposed by a series of private investors, right? um, a couple of which Like three general sort of schemes, right? So, you know, some of them were like huge suspension bridges Like uh, 22 mile

This is series of miles Yeah, there there's there's um There was an idea for a bridge tunnel making use of islands and spiral Still with horses somehow And at least one which is not on this image, which is the only one I could find Was just a massive single bore motorway tunnel in order to sort of get around ventilation requirements Which would still require massive amounts of ventilation Right

And then there was another company the channel tunnel group which just submitted the plans from the 1975 rail tunnel Change it up a bit so nobody knows Yeah, just uh, just just changed some of the numbers around. Yeah I like the look of like I'm looking at the the thing on the right here Uh, the the two of the bridge proposals the construction time is listed as a hyphen A euro route just because it looks like a little a little uh waterslide. Yeah Yeah, just The norwegians have built a couple tunnels like that there with their sort of just absurd

Tunneling schemes they have all over the country now. Those people are nuts. Yeah, no norwegians norwegians love a bizarro world tunnel Yes, I I say this is somebody who's taken the bay bridge Well, this is the thing times but like Disappearing it's sorry. I was disappearing into the horizon and just being like, oh, I'm going to die now Here outside Norfolk, Virginia. What a way to go Well, that makes for some very good euro truck simulated dlc and that's all there is to it. That's the driving consideration I would not want to do euro truck simulator on on the whatever waterslide of death down here

It's like, ah, it's just a casual 23 mile tunnel under a half a mile deep fjord, you know, we build like three of these a week Don't even really need it. Just doing it. Just doing it. We're trying to figure out what to do with all these extra petro dollars So Thatcher and midterrand looked over these plans right and thatcher Or midterrand had no particular preference and thatcher was like, let's go with that road tunnel. That's a good idea, right? So then they had some uh, they had some engineers look over and I I'm not entirely certain of what the story was here And they realized, you know, this is a wildly infeasible and unsafe idea

right, okay so Someone eventually managed to coach thatcher down From the road tunnel, right? Those have been a fly on that wall. They convinced her To go with the rail tunnel But they just they were going to call the trains shuttles instead of trains

right and The private consortium that was going to build the tunnel Would have to start work on a road tunnel by 1990 Or they would lose the exclusive right to build the road tunnel Which I'm sure was an attractive investment that everyone wanted to build So All right at this point, you know, you're a tunnel gets the contract they start building the channel tunnel. Let's build to this this

three tunnel design, right? um because So you have you had the pilot tunnel that later became the service tunnel, right? They dug this thing underneath the channel first to figure out what the geological conditions were right because they couldn't do too much geotechnical engineering uh

From the surface. This was one of the ways to be sure that you know, the tunnel was feasible, right? Hmm And thatcher finally got her road tunnel in that you can drive two little golf cards down it. You can technically drive a golf card. Yes It sounds fun. I want to do that some people have biked through it as well ooh That sounds a hell of a lot more fun to me than like, um swimming the channel which people do Half of biking through that would be fun So

The pilot tunnel was finished october 30th 1990 the actual rail tunnels were finished in june of 1994, right? So you have these very large diameter rail tunnels, right? Larger than they need to be and that's because of something of less shuttle, which we'll get to the design of in a bit um So the service tunnel becomes sort of an evacuation space you have these cross galleries every 1,250 feet, I believe

and then above that you have these linking galleries up here and this is What's the word for it? um Crap I forget the word for it. It's the remote at piston meant Apparently a piston remote I don't know The idea in a big tunnel in a rail tunnel you have something called the piston effect, right?

Which is that the train travels along the tunnel and it pushes the air forward in front of it, right? That's why there's a whole bunch of wind when you go into the subway or something like that, you know Because the train is just pushing the air through the tunnel um, and the idea here is to reduce Uh air resistance in the tunnel you would have these crossover galleries, which would vent the piston air into the other tunnel, right? Hmm and then There were also two large crossover galleries in the middle of the tunnel

So trains could switch tracks if you had to take part of one tunnel out of service right And it was dug in this sort of undulating profile to stay within this layer of of choc moral Right underneath the channel because it was the most stable Uh rack layer they could find right Go on Hmm. All right, so

You know in in 1994 they put this in service. They get some special trains to run in it, right? Um, so number one special about these trains Uh, you'll see in a second. Please tell me they ran a steam train through this fucking thing. We told you we could do it Think you get to the end and people are just like dying. They're just asphyxiating Hey, you want to ride coach you take you take a chance as a coach up here You have at least a 30 chance of survival. What do you make it to the end? The steam train makes it be you got to spend 10 weeks waiting for the tunnels event It was very when I was researching this I saw a picture of a steam train in one of the channel tunnel portals

Wow, and I have no idea what what the what the reason for that was I I thought it's just a prank bro. It must have been a publicity shot or something I I do not believe they would have I don't I don't think you could get that whole thing through the channel tunnel Maybe you got one of those big southern pacific cab forward locomotives. You'd have a shot, but You know, that'd be cool But uh, so the trains that go through this tunnel, um, this is all built to european loading gauge As opposed to british loading gauge, which is smaller Um, so you got conventional freight trains today. Those are operated by db schenker

schenker. Yep. Schenker. Deutsche Bahn. The germans just bought everything. Oh, so at the end they won anyway Yeah, that's right. They really did use it to invade sort of yeah, but they bought they bought it from ews Which was a division of wisconsin central What? Yeah Jesus The anglo-american special It's a personal relationship One small detail here if you look immediately to the left of the db schenker logo, you can kind of see

three tiny but like increasing in size Um, like circles on the locomotive. Yes all all of those classes. Uh, I think they're like a class 92 Class 92. Yeah Yeah, all of them have that and in some of them They're actually metal but like hubcaps bolted on to the side But those were because of the channel tunnel But they're like in in dedication to the fact that they're meant to like haul freight through it. Oh, nice

Personally, I think it looks ugly as hell, but like it does but that's okay. It's an electric locomotive. What are you gonna do? So the class 92 is designed for conventional freight trains through the channel tunnel Then there was something called the Euro tunnel class 9. That's this guy and this guy, right? And what this is is an extremely souped up version of a small narrow gauge locomotive that runs in new zealand Uh, what the fuck? I know, right? Is a strange wheel arrangement. It is a bow bow bow Right, so there's three sets of four wheel trucks The middle one has some lateral play in it

So this is just a project car that they turned into a trade. That's what I'm hearing Yes, okay And so it operates two shuttle services from folkstone to calais, right? Um, what is the car shuttle and the car shuttle? It's a car shuttle. It's also a bus shuttle It's also a motorhome shuttle and it uses some of the largest railroad cars in the world Hmm, you notice how this is comically large compared to the locomotive So In addition to that, it also runs the heavy goods vehicle shuttle. That's this guy over here, right?

Another fun bit of euro trucks in me like to uh, Call it calling a truck a heavy goods vehicle instead of a semi. Yeah Mm-hmm Or a tractor trailer or an 18 wheeler or other things the adults call it. It's an hgv And we're gonna keep doing the like cab over engine design too Just absolutely no aerodynamics Uh brick just pushing all the air out of the way. I'm just gonna keep doing that. Yes I do it

So the the hgv shuttle, right? This is how the vast majority of freight crosses the channel in the channel tunnel um The hgv shuttle basically you drive your truck onto the train You get out of the truck then you go into the club car here It's also called an amenities card, but I heard it was also called the club car, which I like better Um And then the train pulls all the trucks

Through the tunnel comes out the other end And then you get in your truck and you drive away Yeah, it's very elegant apart from the whole massive, uh lorry park at each end. Oh, yeah. Yeah, those those terminals look ugly Um, definitely not a great piece of railway architecture Um, should should have put like some fucking romanesque Uh shit around them. Maybe big giant train shed Yeah, yeah, yeah So I think something like 13 million tons of cargo goes through the tunnel on the hgv shuttles

Compared to one and a half million on actual freight trains um Do we know how much that compares to ferries? I have no idea Um, and then the other service of course is the euro star, right? Yes, the good one. Yeah, exactly big fan You can go from london to paris or london to amsterdam or london to Some other destinations brussels Yeah, yeah

I mean technically you can just get these like euro tickets and I guess change in paris and go pretty much anywhere from there but um, yeah, no euro star rocks And I fucking once covet is over i want to go to go to paris I always wanted to take euro star um Then there were two there were two non starters Which were canceled because almost immediately after the channel tunnel was finished british rail was privatized One of them was the night star

It's supposed to be like a conventional locomotive hauled night train They would go from london to various destinations in europe, right? Yeah, all of those you could have just taken A whole ass night train from london and woken up in i don't know fucking brattislava or some shit And this is what they took from us Yeah, but your loss was canada's gain um Because now all those cars run on uh via rail. Oh, they go via rail definitely, um Has reliable and speedy service. Oh, yeah

I definitely want to take a 22 hour train from montreal to halifax. Oh my god. Actually, I kind of do want to do that No, we both want to do that Um, and the other thing they canceled was something called euro star regional Right where they had special shorter euro star trains And the idea was once you got to london It wouldn't end there. It would then continue north to like Manchester and birmingham and glasgow and edinboro and shit like that, right? The northern powerhouse before the name and like it's funny because euro star

Like still had to share british track Which means that like when I was a kid and I commuted I got the train into school from a shortland station to west ellige And that that shared track with the euro star So you'd just be waiting for your nice slow networker commuter and then all of a sudden this Thing would come past and just like knock everybody off of the platform Wash wash wash wash wash wash wash. Yeah. Yeah, that's always fun um And they got as far as building the depot in manchester for the the euro star regional trains

Slap a big euro star logo on the side and say manchester home of euro star never got used It's really sad because like euro star to me genuinely like me telling that story is not for nothing like it's always been kind of like You know how when you're a kid you like might look at planes going overhead and be like, huh? I wish I was on that that was like euro stuff me. I was like, yeah I could just fucking be in paris right now instead of this bullshit I also thought that the original euro star is very good-looking trains. Oh, yeah, absolutely

um, I think gner wound up Using a lot of those special train sets because they for whatever reason they didn't really use them In channel tunnel service It was just like, okay. Well, we're gonna run them on the east coast main line now because that's the fast one Um So and possibly soon, there'll be other high speed train services in the channel tunnel I know a few years ago. They ran a test

uh, deutcha bond ice 3 train to uh I think I I I guess it would have been st pancreas international um So I supposedly they're gonna try and start selling off slots to other operators, but who knows That'd be nice. Just be able to go to I Where does it? Where does an icy go like fucking frankfurt or something like that berlin? uh berlin, uh

Warsaw uh, moscow Uh, not quite moscow actually God, thank you. Give me my euro. Give me my euro. Why did you give me my europe wide fast train network that I can just take please Please give us any high-speed service in the united states outside Maybe I want to go to cincinati. You don't know. Yeah That'd be nice. I don't see the Warsaw of I wouldn't wouldn't uh, the pitts burgers, uh invade cincinati

Yeah, yeah waiting for it That when pennsylvania finally annex is ohio No, thanks. Y'all can keep it. We know they don't want to be ohio anymore Would you like to be pennsylvania too bad? You are now pennsylvania. Yes So, um, anyway, all right, because this is a very very long tunnel There are many safety features in the tunnel right because tunnel fires are very dangerous Shakespeare cliff jake spear cliff. It's uh, right where's the cliff? It's a big cliff, uh, right near the tunnel portal. Oh, I thought this is right. This is just going to be some poetic death

This is not like a name for it. Yeah, it's named it's named after Shakespeare Oh, I don't know who that is. We call this method the shakespeare cliff. Yeah, who's who's shakespeare? He's the guy he wrote. He wrote, um Uh, pirates of pensance, I think Oh, yeah Allegedly, it might have been the earl of oxford. He wrote good pirates of pensance. Thank you. Yes So thank you for thank you for your told to me with that awful joke I think I think he may have also done, uh, lord of the rings

So that was having way Oh, shit, right. Yeah I was getting them confused. I I rookie mistake for a mistake so Tunnel fires are very dangerous as we talked about in previous episodes. You got high heat You got confined spaces that leads to higher heat which leads to more fire which leads to more heat You know sun and so forth a lot of dead goats. Yeah Yes, you can find spaces mean gases from paralysis build up and flashovers real easy

So it's a good idea to not have fire in a tunnel Which is why car tunnels are a stupid idea because people crash into each other in cars Not a nylon must universe, dude No, plus we plus this fucking Swiss French Germans Italians are all gonna keep Tunnelling under the Alps to fucking get more car routes through them. So that's gonna be fine, baby Yeah, I think there's there's a new big base tunnel opening like next year. Oh, wow Yeah, I think you're right. The base tunnels are all rail tunnels though Oh, well, there's definitely a road one that's coming. Yeah, yeah

Could be wrong. Oh Tell me in the comments if I'm right. Don't put cars in tunnels. Don't do it. It's a bad idea. You'll make Ross mad Yes, exactly. And a Elon Musk's main Main innovation is that now computers will be crashing the cars instead of humans It'll be like burnout It's a great game though. It'd be like a burnout tool assisted speed run I was wrong. It is a railway tunnel. Although, uh, the swiss are currently the swiss are once again voting on adding a second gottard road link

Oh my god, hell, yeah, fucking morons Well, I'm sure when they they they'll work it out in the town square and also deny women the right to vote. Um, that's right So anyway Fire threats can additionally been mitigated through ventilation in areas for people in the tunnel to evacuate, right? Ideally you evacuate out of the tunnel but Because the channel tunnel is very long and it's underwater

You can't evacuate outside of the tunnel, right? There can't put a put a submarine airlock in there. I get out my diamond pickaxe and start going. Yeah Yeah and um So anyone in the tunnel is basically stuck in the tunnel. So that's why they have the service tunnel, right? And the crossover gal and the the the service gallery is here. So, you know, there's A passage into the service tunnel every 1,250 feet Uh, the service tunnel through high powered ventilation is kept at a slight overpressure

So smoke can't get in, right? um There were some safety precautions for trains in the tunnel, right? So At first all trains required two locomotives Both of which are supposed to be able to haul the train out of the tunnel on its own if one locomotive fails, right? uh Trains are supposed to be able to separate in the middle If one end became compromised so the other end could get itself out of the tunnel, right?

Trains had to be of a certain length To ensure that at least two crossover passages were accessible to passengers One of the reasons why the euro stars were such long trains Um, they also installed extremely large ventilation plants at each end of the tunnel For the purpose of blowing smoke out of the tunnel and away from passengers if a mid-tunnel evacuation had to take place right um, but the major strategy

For dealing with a fire in the tunnel was something called the drive-out strategy, right? Oh come on Is that as cool as it sounds? If the train never fucking is if the train caught fire in the tunnel Mm-hmm. What you were supposed to do. Oh boy was drive out of the tunnel. It is as cool as it sounds Yeah, it's the sr 71's missile evasion protocol fly faster. Yeah, just floor it and yeah, just floor it just floor it Don't worry about who you hit or who you kill you don't get it out of there When you get out of the tunnel the train would be redirected into an emergency Firefight exciting where firefighters would be waiting to fight the fire, right? Oh, that's so tight

Yeah, like a plane, you know you get it out of the air, I guess and then the you have the fire and rescue right there It's cool. Well, I mean that's better than the other option Which is trying to fight the fire in the air and like doing several low passes on for the runway Shoot Yes, you've heard of it in-flight refueling now get In-flight refueling but the probe just fucking sends in So as a last resort the other procedure was if you had to come to a stop in the tunnel What you would do is uncouple the cars that were on fire

And then drive out Hi guys So some of these procedures have been changed because now high-speed trains are electric multiple units Right another but some of the procedures were also changed due to incidents Incidents incidents incidents today. We're going to play a date aren't you we're going to discuss one such incident Which was on 18th and november 1996 Okay

All right in which I assume nothing bad happened, right tell me nothing bad happened Well, no one died. So hey That's refreshing. Yeah, there goes this guy jokes off That's not the only thing I'm getting off. So Trains coming to this. Yes, exactly. It's to fight the fires. Alice. Don't you know the cannon at all? Oh At 942 p.m. Train 75 39 An hgv heavy goods vehicle shuttle left the Calais terminal on route to folkstone

And after a 32 second stop at a signal Proceeded into the tunnel right because they run these trains at really high frequencies. It's something like I think Four kilometers between trains. So maybe three and a half minutes Um, damn. Yeah. Yeah, it's like subway style frequencies through this tunnel because you know, they run so many shuttles um As the train passed by his two security guards notice that one of the trucks on the train was on fire Oh, good. Yeah. Well noticed. Yeah, that's that's usually not a good thing

um It's supposed to do zeds Hey, this is oh No, this is oh sandi Yeah, so they stopped the light of cigarette and then they notify the uh terminal Plus eight. Yeah 45 minute union break So at 949 p.m. As the trains heading into the tunnel the fire detection equipment inside the tunnel

Detected a fire as it's supposed to onboard the train Oh, because these were these were smoke detectors and not fire detectors, which I understand is a separate piece of equipment They had these were something you're a tunnel staff called Unconfirmed alarms, right? Oh no. Yeah So rail control was not immediately notified, right? Oh boy that there was that this train may be on fire, right? Um, at this point the train's two and a half kilometers into the tunnel is gaining speed, right? um Now this is interesting because I haven't been able to figure out the the precise

Hierarchy of command here because there's a rail control Center and then there's a tunnel control center and then apparently there's a separate fire control center And I can't figure out how these Centers just loves having a command center and that's fine. I respect that we should have a command center. It's a good idea. Yeah It should be a manned by three people who are similar to us, but who aren't us Anytime they notice that like we're getting a bit like Like the the cop tweets should have been stopped in their tracks by someone like me who was in the command center that governs what I do That's that's even spongebob. What's its name? What's his name? Oh my god, we threw out his name

So The control center which had which had gotten word from the security guards Notified the train driver that your train may be on fire um And simultaneously the train itself which had some fire detection equipment on it Also notified the driver that it might be on fire, right? Hey, so I'm not sure just just alarm goes off and it's like are you in the right headspace to receive information That could possibly hurt you

Almost never but All right, so it's like I might be on fire just a really like passive aggressive or like a really nervous tray It's like well, I'm not saying I'm on fire, but I might might be a little bit on fire looking great Yeah, I'll say that Situation uncertain try again later All right, so the drive-out strategy was initiated keep in mind again, this is uh I mean a lot of the measurements I got were in metrics. So it's two and a half kilometers into a 50 kilometer tunnel Uh, flora flora really flora though

So They they tell a guy they tell a driver. All right, we're gonna divert you into an emergency siding at folk stone We're gonna fight the fire there in the meantime keep going right the train's going 140 kilometers an hour about 86 miles an hour It would make it through the tunnel in about 20 minutes, right? And hey, how bad's the fire gonna get in 20 minutes? Oh, we'll find out I've got I guess Just comes out of the other end of that tunnel like ghost rider All right

So 952 rail control receives word that the train was actually on fire not maybe on fire And they dispatch a single locomotive with the driver to tail the burning train to ascertain conditions Yeah, we're gonna need you to do something extremely cool. Yeah You guys know that movie unstoppable, right? Yeah Has not come out yet We just we we gave you a chase car. That's so fucking cool So

All right 9 53 p.m. Okay. So in america Trains have something called a conductor, right? In england they call that same position the trains guard, right? Mm-hmm the french call it something else The chef to train What a fun language yes Yes, oh

so The chef to train was that is uh at his little uh desk in the club car. I guess his kitchen Um and an alarm went off, right? Because the souffle was done. No The alarm went off indicating the train was on fire. I guess he burned the souffle So train was now about 10 kilometers into the tunnel and finally, okay Everyone at this point on the crew knew something was happening, right? um

One of the control centers I didn't write down which ordered all the trains to slow down to 100 kilometers an hour And they shut all the piston relief ducts. That's the word I was looking for Earlier to prevent the smoke from traveling from one tube to the other tube Oh, boy But they also decided to let the next car shuttle train in the tunnel behind the on fire train And the light locomotive Why

You were gonna make those time that timetable is sacred else. Yeah We're we're gonna be on time These these apparently they don't have a sufficiently french union culture there Yeah, it's just enough the worst aspects of british and french culture Yeah, we're not gonna we're not gonna dispatch the trains on time But we're also not going to uh do things in a safe fashion either That's right so

Around 955 the circuit breaker trips in the rear locomotive of the on fire hgv shuttle It shuts down. It was about one kilometer past the french crossover at this point, right? um at this same time Another heavy goods vehicle shuttle was going the opposite direction also through the french crossover And the driver reported that he was immediately engulfed in thick smoke which entered the driver's cab and the uh The club car Well, that's not ideal. Yeah, just reduced visibility to zero, right?

And at 957 The stop lamp illuminates in the driver's cabin of the train, right? Several lights indicated faults in various mechanical components and safety critical systems In at the chef's uh little desk, right? And so they have to Stop the train, right? so The driver came into a halt at the next emergency crossover he could

And as the train stopped The piston effect meant all the smoke was sucked forward, right? Oh boy So he couldn't figure out what emergency passage he had stopped at Oh good Yeah, shouldn't that be what you want to know in a tunnel for them to tell that Well, there's a big illuminated sign as a matter of fact, but I don't like that

One of the various control centers, right? Oh should be able to know where they are Yeah in the tunnel. Yeah, apparently there wasn't Oh, okay All right, so at this point drive out with the whole train, right is is is not practical So you think okay, I guess we uncouple The uh the club car which is not on fire, right? And we drive out with that, right? Well, okay

As soon as they they stopped four seconds later Catenary power went out So it's the overhead line that powers the train, right? So now they got no power. They can't move Get out and push Oh god I told you coach at your own risk. You don't ask the fires back there. You got to get out and pull Like a bunch of a bunch of Egyptians pulling a huge slab of stone up the pyramid

Yeah, but it's old french truck drivers Oh Now they just stopped for a cigarette break sort of light it off the mass of train fire All right, apparently this is a thing that you can do on a fire ground Did you just hold a cigarette up and the ambient heat will light it for you? Sainly cool. Oh, that's cool So all right, so the shuttle stopped The light locomotive has stopped two kilometers behind it. He that the the driver that was like, um, okay

I got up right at a red signal. I got to stop Um, the whole train is a red signal man. He noticed uh, he noticed. Hmm. There's a lot of smoke starting to show up He actually evacuated into the service tunnel like almost immediately um Then there was a full up car shuttle two kilometers behind that, right? um So so driveout strategy was out, right? Um, and at this point thick smoke was enveloping the train um, now the driver and the chef

Both attempted to locate the emergency passages to the service tunnel Neither of them could see anything, right? Oh, the driver couldn't even get out of his cab because of the really thick smoke Even when he used the respirator that was provided, right? Um, now to get it's nightmarish. Yeah to get a better view of the tunnel the chef opened one of the doors to the club car No, no, no, no, no. Why don't do that He did it because he wanted to get a better view of where to evacuate to

And what instead happened is all the smoke that was outside went inside the club car. Yeah Received a worse view. Yes, we'll do that So Then at 10 o 2 the telephone line between the uk and french control control centers failed And the radios were completely overloaded with chatter, right? Just a french guy sitting on a bed like dangling his legs in the air like so what you do? Dying what are you doing? So if you sort of look at these diagrams here, you can see positions of trains at different points in time

right, so Our training question is 75 39 right See this is the heavy good shuttle that passed earlier See this is another train that's going to pass through the crossover also go through a huge cloud of smoke This is this 48 99 here is the light locomotive behind that is the car shuttle Right, and then there's a couple trains up here which are hightailing it out of there And then there's 65 18 up here Which will become relevant in a moment

mm-hmm so Again the radios are overloaded with chatter through the crosstalk They managed to get the car shuttle to reverse out of the tunnel or tell the Tell the driver to reverse out of the tunnel go to the rear locomotive and get out of there right and they told And the driver of 75 39 here Told french control that they were stopped somewhere

They couldn't figure out where a word And they couldn't move Jesus So at this point the control center finally starts working under the assumption that ah, okay We're actually gonna have to fight this fire underground shit. Fuck shit. This is exactly what we didn't want to happen. Yes So the first thing they do is they try and close the doors on the crossover should prevent smoke from getting into the other tunnel, right And what happens is the doors don't move Oops. Yeah, they just they just don't work

Okay, so suddenly I would ensure that they worked. Yeah, I'm different I would think they would I don't understand why they have them open to begin with Sorry about it. Yeah, I guess so So a couple more trains screamed through the giant thick cloud of black smoke They find out from the driver of the car shuttle back here 63 52 They find out he's walked to the back of his train. He turned on that locomotive. He put the panograph up Oh, guess what no power So he's also stuck right

um and the driver of 48 99 the light locomotive he's evacuated the service tunnel and the Other trains still on fire So at this point, french control is basically frantically pulling levers to figure out what works and what doesn't Oh good. Yeah, that's exactly the state that you want a control center a command center to be in right? Yes Uh, this is the center of the panic, you know I'm overwhelmed by the ennui I have to stop citing the file because I have to go and take a nap, but um, what do you see point?

It's a fire masher. He is he's merely a metaphor for ourselves Oh, you can see what I'm doing with my shoulders when I say it Oh All right, so at 10 13 they put on what's called the supplementary ventilation system, right? Backup vents. Yes What they do There's a big fan on the uk side, right? Mm-hmm, and they turn it on and that creates like

You know just massive wind through the tunnel all the way to the french side So they turn on this massive fan this gigantic fucking fan And they forget to pitch the blades Oh, no So so it didn't it didn't do anything it just spun around really fast Looks cool as hell. Yeah, not not doing anything They also tell train 65 18 back here. That's another car shuttle um

To stop adjacent to the location of 75 39 which to my knowledge, they don't know where it is I don't I don't I didn't quite understand this part of the report Um to receive the evacuated passengers Although those passengers hadn't evacuated yet because the smoke was too thick to see through Jesus Christ, right so seven minutes later the controllers realized they forgot to pitch the fan blades So Gary you finished the fan Oh, shit I figure if i'm doing the french like this I have to do the english as badly

Gary gary it's on fire So All right, they pitched the air fan blades and the air starts flowing down the tunnel towards the train, right? and This creates a temporary like bubble at the front of the train where there's no smoke um So the chef is managed to spot the arrow pointing towards the door to the service tunnel And he's able to bring the passengers to safety. Although at this point several of them are suffering from

Nasty smoke inhalation, right? It sounds like it happened like in like with seconds to spare, right? Yeah Yeah, and the thing is this supplementary ventilation system has two effects The first is that it cleared the smoke The second is that it supplied the fire with a whole lot more oxygen. Oh good. Oh, yeah, so the fire got much bigger very quickly um This is good. That's good, right? That's what we want. Uh, uh, yeah I mean at this point 10 28 the emergency responders arrive in the service tunnel, right?

They they little golf carts. Yeah. Hey, they essentially shut up. Please tell me Please tell me there is a firefighting golf cart with like a blue light on it and like it's painted red Like it's got an american flag on there You have to do that Do that for 11 miles. Yeah. Yeah, the top speed is 11 miles an hour So the emergency responders show up in the shop service tunnel They figure out where the train is because that's where there's a bunch of people milling around in the tunnel. Oh thanks guys. Yeah

So they what they do is they go back in the tunnel they get the driver out of the cab who so far hadn't been able to evacuate I'm not exactly sure why but He was the only one who had to be like rescue rescued. He didn't feel like I am not getting paid to evacuate so they will have to send someone in after me So they they treat some of the passengers who got the worst smoke inhalation with supplemental oxygen And then they go back in the tunnel try to ascertain the condition of the train, right? Um, I think at this point they managed to figure out Where to stop 65 18?

so That train pulls alongside on the other tunnel they evacuate into that train right and then And then they wait 10 minutes And then they close the doors and then they wait 10 more minutes and the french controlled center says I oh, yeah, you can you can go you can go now What happened to all of the haste that was happening earlier now, it's just like Literally that actually is basically what happened

This train goes through the thickest smoke At the crossover right? Um, and this was so thick, you know, I got in the driver's cabin visibility was zero um There was supposed to be Or there was a button The driver was supposed to hit which would close all the vents on the train to prevent smoke from getting in right

And he pushed that button and some of the vents closed Yeah, partial success partial success. Yes The first two cars on the train they did not close So a shitload of smoke just went in the first two cars of the train where there's like, I don't know a bunch of a bunch of families in minivans right And then the uh, they they have to evacuate the first two cars of the train I think they evacuated the first three cars of the train shove everyone further back So we we don't get more smoke in the inhalation from this. This is fire. Yes. This is fine. Literally that this is fine, ma'am. Yes

Yeah He's not on fire. He's just uh smoke. He's like a cigarette What are you a pussy? So anyway, the uh The train arrived safely in Calais at 11 23 right so

Here's just an idea of these giant crossover doors Right. Look how fucking big that is. Jesus. Yeah That's cool. Yeah, except when they don't work Except when they don't work. Yes Just Send a guy in there to like push it. You know, I could I could do that probably pull my door closed What's a french name? Like like fucking

Hugo Yeah Hey, you go you have to go in and you have to close the doors Family poor one more. Uh, your name is you go you go I Make I make the pun bilingual because I speak english very well to get this job I never used to want to be in the very the railway, you know, I went to the Sorbonne, but uh Our desires in life who goes they are so ephemeral

Spend spend your life, uh uh doing existential poetry instead of uh Responding to emergencies Why did they keep the french side the french control center side supplied with like madaline's when they ate them Caused them to go into a reverie about their past youth. Why did why do they have so many canvases and oil paints? All right, so one of them is like doing mime in the corner All right, so the passengers were out of the tunnel this left the relatively trivial problem of extinguishing a gigantic flame and a 21 Or it 11 miles into a tunnel, right?

15 miles into a tunnel Excuse me Oh, it's I do love there. Yeah, I love the bilingual signage of just being like no open path in it So the uh, they were screaming simple as as a towering inferno So don't like it as a crossover tool So French and english firefighters are on the scene by 10 o'clock, but there was some confusion initially as the actual location of the train The french found them first

Of course the dead But the firefighters rule Like they took time off from fist fighting the cops to like go do this Ah, we're here. We're here. Why are you crying? One of them just has a gendarme and a headlock that he's just like bringing with him Come on. Come on So the the british first response team performed reconnaissance to determine the extent of the fire They went through one of these big these are the big service tunnel doors, right?

And they they managed to through the heavy smoke determine at least five Of these heavy goods vehicle cars was on fire, right? completely enveloped in flame Uh, they later determined that the source of this fire Or the main fuel of it was uh, two heavy goods vehicles carrying clothing and frozen fat Respectively, uh, excuse me. You're not a man Yeah, britain britain. We we we're here fat natin natin either fat simple as yeah, it's uh, shipping of high quality french lard It's stupid english they will buy evens the fat off of our cows

It dies off of a pig off of our pigs yes Perhaps it is a who else the pigs, huh? Jean-Denis is like, please just let me go I don't want to talk about this with you anymore Lard is good. Lard is good. It's a good cooking fat. It's no less healthy than any other cooking fat or oil right, I am against

this lardophobia which has Which has um, like a phobia just yeah, that is like a phobia right there This like a phobia that pervades cooking right now lard is if a great if I don't eat lard because it's haram is that oinkophobia No, that's religious reasons. Yeah, I get an exemption And queue up space shuttle tweet So

Now you know in a theme which is continuous from our previous episode Firefighters hooked up their hoses to the tunnel standpipe and got just a trickle of water Right. Oh This never happens Just nervous So a water main had burst from the heat farther down the tunnel, you know, that's just fucking great, right? um so over the

over the course of the evening additional firefighters arrived a whole bunch from the uh The kent fired brigade What did you just call me? A kent Thank you They were they were very Seriously delayed because you know, they were they were sitting there at the end of the tunnel waiting for the uh, the train on fire to come out and then the train didn't come out on fire

And then eventually they had to go drive down the tunnel 11 miles to get to where the fire was I think there were a bunch of dispatching problems right then because again communication is completely fucked Right. Hmm They they arrived at something like I think 10 50 So this fire is just growing with just like a trickle of water being being sprayed on it, right? Just just putting a watering can on it. Yeah

On this on this truck of burning lard. Yes Eventually an engineer from ura tunnel arrived to reconfigure the valves upstream of the leak and water pressure was restored, right? At this point, let's do one of those little bio shock hacking puzzles with the water pipes They installed shock too They have about eight lines running off of this main Uh to fight the fire, right and because of the intense heat in the tunnel. They have to work in shifts right um

You have to go out for a little bit come back in Uh to the service tunnel where it's cooler, right? Which thank god has positive pressure the heat would be going in there Um and they start having to deal with debris falling from the ceiling of the tunnel, right? Sort of limits their working area, which is already pretty limited because all they have is this uh three foot wide side passage way, right? And they heard a bunch of explosions while they were working It's not they're not sure if that was from concrete spalls or from uh heavy goods vehicles Like they're fuel tanks going up or something

And it was not until five a.m. In the morning when they put the middle of the fire out Um and they were working throughout the next day until three a.m. The next morning To put the entire fire out a two day fire. It's a two day fire. Yeah They're not worried that the tunnel is going to collapse at this point like at some point At some point they brought a civil engineer in to take a look and he was like, um, that doesn't look good I don't think it's going to collapse though So yeah, it's fine. Yeah So I mean that that the the stability of the chalk moral was probably

Not going to be easily compromised by the uh By the fire. I mean the worst you could have is probably a localized cave in even that seems unlikely to me um Or Or either that of the whole channel pours in the tunnel You know in which case well, you're gonna put the fire out Yeah, so good news good news. We don't have that one problem anymore, but All right, so aftermath of this right

um The tunnel was in shambles by the end of it, right? The 40 centimeter concrete lining spalled to a depth of between 35 and 20 centimeters Including a some areas with only 17 centimeters of lining remaining over a distance of 480 meters, right? What's spalling? Obviously, I know what spalling is but just in case the audience don't know what spalling is Unlike me who knows what spalling is spalling is when the concrete kind of expands and then falls off, right? So it cracks and it falls off the

um The rest of the concrete right and this can happen for a variety of reasons You know from fire to just age to incorrectly applied pressures on and so forth, right? Um, you know, you can see sort of here are the concrete panels on the tunnel, right? And you can see the middle has spalled off exposing the reinforcing bar behind Um, which is generally not a good thing Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah. Like I was like I was saying I did I didn't I didn't know So pretty much all the mechanical and electrical systems within the tunnel were destroyed in the area of the fire

Temperatures is up to 1300 degrees Celsius started buckling like things like copper pipe. It really screwed stuff up, right? um The rear half of the train suffered serious damage including 10 heavy goods vehicle wagons that were totally written off, right? They just had to scrap them I don't think they were even able to pull solid on from the tunnel, right? well, um, the rear locomotive also had to be scrapped and Yeah, the heavy goods vehicles were basically reduced to ashes Had to throw those out too

Um, we we we found your truck. He says he brings you like a garbage bag and a shovel They present they present your truck to you in an urn But the urn itself looks like a truck so you can think of all the good times you have Yeah, I'm ceremonially scattering my truck's ashes. I spread it's ashes at IOA 80 So, um You know after that, you know, they had to fix the tunnel, right? And that that took several months service was impacted because they had a single track through the tunnel, right? And

You know, no one was seriously hurt in this incident. There was a hell of a lot of property damage though Yeah, and a lot of close calls A lot of close calls, yeah Fairly nightmare situation where you can easily imagine everybody just dying. Yes Some safety procedures were reviewed after the incident, right? Uh, including, you know, the sort of practice of considering smoke detectors as Unconfirmed fire warnings was dropped, right? They take everything seriously now Um, they were supposed to equip the heavy goods vehicle wagons with automatic sprinkler systems

I'm not sure if they did that or not Um, because I've heard I've heard some sources that say they didn't do it and then others said, oh, yeah, they did that, right? um But mostly The inquiry found that you're a tunnel a private corporation was unsurprisingly horrifically understaffed to handle an emergency No, their emergency training was inadequate at best. I don't believe it There were because there were all these serious delays in summoning emergency personnel

Going to a complete breakdown of communications and lack of training, right? So what you're telling me is this is thatch's fault? Yes Yeah, called it. Yeah, that you're doing. Yeah, it's not a grave so Anyway, the uh, luckily She doesn't have a grave. She was cremated like a truck. Don't care They spread her ashes at Iowa 80 Yeah

But you know Premated like a truck is a sentence that's going to live in my brain now It's like the trump thing of like fired like a dog like a dog Like a dog Now luckily improvements to safety procedures were implemented one of the other things they also did was a visual inspection of every heavy goods train A heavy goods vehicles trains as it goes Into the tunnel, right? And there was never a there was never a fire in the tunnel again Except in 2006 2008 2012 and 2015

Oh, you know, that's what five over 20 years Every four years, you know, it's like so far so far the big like it has been blank days since our last fire We're up to five years now six years. That's pretty good. Oh, yeah, there's a common now, baby That's not their best uh record, but you know, it's pretty good Um, these fires have all been on heavy goods vehicle shuttles. Jesus christ. Yeah Which is why I I feel like the conclusion I would come to here is Maybe

Maybe you should just ship the cargo by train No, can't do it. Instead of instead of shoving a truck onto the train Listen, right. There are no problems involved with doing intermodal like with with doing Truck shipping across the channel and that's why operation stack Is like something that has never been activated Uh during I was gonna mention that I forgot about that Yeah, yeah, yeah, so like basically because we've

Systematically destroyed so much of our freight rail infrastructure in the southeast of england This is like whether it comes by train or by ferry it ends up on an hgv in the southeast of england And there are so many of them that when something breaks down such as a fire or such as brexit happens or whatever These just back up to the point that they like clog every single major and minor roads in kent So, yeah, not great That's what they had that those pictures like that airfield, right? You know, they they just yeah, yeah, they used a former raf airfield as a parking lot for trucks

um, and they're like Local seek good wars had to like bring food to truckers because they were just there overnight Oh my god in the middle of winter, right? So Yeah, it's it's it's all going tremendously well. It's a hugely resilient part of our national infrastructure And nothing bad will ever happen again there. I'll think out Yeah Go brexit Take back control, baby. I have to pee. I'll be right back. God damn it

somebody speculated on um The comments the last one that justin was doing that on purpose Yeah, so that we would so as an intermission so that we could just interrupt That basically we're just so we get it out of our systems. Yeah, apparently which uh, no, we never do Uh, it's true. Ross is pretty much my favorite pastime. I do it quite a bit. It's so satisfying It is it is it's real fun to do it to him in real life too because you just watch his cheeks get like redder and redder You're like all muddy Yeah, antagonizing ross top three ways. I spent my time honestly

And that's why our podcast is so successful Yeah, because of because of us because of the uh, the unwashed masses, which is just me and alice Complaining at the guy who knows stuff. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm I do, uh, ross on road trips is is funny because he'll just be like Oh, I like he'll he'll just like never tell you when he has to pee and you'll pass like arrest stop I don't think I have to pay and you're just like I'm going to murder you I'm sorry. This is for the good of the color Merging across three lanes of traffic to the last I'll just do that normally to be fair

Last second to get on the off-ramp. So I guess I was uh, I was driving up, uh, highway near philly Uh, the other day in my in my beautiful gti And uh, there was no one on the road and I was just like, ah, it's just like newfoundland And I watched that speedometer climb and I was like, ah, it's just like newfoundland Oh, I don't have rods complaining that there's no bathers with 300 miles. Mm-hmm. Oh Hey, buddy I have returned Just talking shit about you. Oh, I figured

Lovingly. Yes. We do. We love you so much. Thanks for making us all this money. Uh, no problem Um, anyway, uh, what was it? I was gonna say something. I forgot what it was. Oh boy. Yeah I Remember what it was We have a section on this podcast called Safety third Wow Damn, I liked that. Oh, very nice. Yeah, sounds a dramatic dude. So

Today's safety third came in this very morning Came in this afternoon, but who's counting? I To the world, there's your problem command center. Yes, which is just We check out a secure undisclosed location. We check our inbox david leave us alone Somewhere in somewhere in nevada near groom lake Yeah, that's that's right. Just not just us checking the evils not not that no Actually part of the lockheed skunkworks Actually the skunkworks are like out in the open like you can just drive by on a public highway

Yeah, once you try the second time. Yeah, yeah, you just get picked off with that with a berry 50 cal. Don't worry. That's right So today today's safety third was uh, the subject line was I gave tours at the philly constitution center DC and new york city. We were just talking about the philly constitution center. I'm sure this will be delightful. Mm-hmm I was a tour guide for a company that ships rich teenagers from italy The ramapo college new jersey. Oh Why Then buses them around the eastern seaboard Oh

Hey children, you see america. You see how it is a terrible life. You go to mawa count. You go to mawa bergen county Next we go to a megatronics Really dive it into the lore here god damn Well, most students were 16 to 18 I was only 19 at the time and was in charge of 30 to 60 high schoolers who barely spoke english With only the help of a verbally abusive italian chaperone And another any other kind another american college student

A typical day involves shuffling this massive people through such calm environments as times square The philly constitution center downtown baltimore And the national mall in washington dc Yeah, no, I make a phone call and I have to have total silence for the next 18 hours. I could not do this job Here is a list of disasters that occurred during my six week employment pick whichever you like I'm just going to do all of them. Fuck it Um Number one safety first safety second safety third safety fourth

We were not ever allowed to sleep on the bus If we fell asleep Chaperones were allowed to photograph us and send the picture to our managers What the fuck Again, some of these trips were eight to ten hours and we were responsible for the safety of 50 some odd kids The buses were also extremely hot because italians hate air conditioning All bathrooms were usually broken or clogged Hey, I clogged the toilet

A minute one of an eight hour trip and some italian kid is like yeah, I've done a massive shit And it's broken the toilet like You're gonna have to pull the entire bathroom and replace it to be honest I fill out the toilet with my ass meatball After a long bus ride to the philly constitution center On very little sleep another tour guide and I were in charge of touring them up that empty field in 100 degree fahrenheit weather The other tour guide was exhausted and hadn't been drinking water since the bus bathroom was broken Oh boy, she told me she felt dizzy. So I took the lead on the tour

20 minutes later. We're passing the ruins of the first white house and she collapses Oh boy. Yeah I call a manager who rushes over revives the tour guide tour guide gives her some water and 10 minutes later She's told to just keep giving the tour. We'll break for lunch early. Don't worry Cool. Yeah Number two Chaperones were the company's gateway into schools Therefore they were our actual clients not the students

As such chaperones could be as horrific and abusive to tour guides as they pleased This got really bad because italians are very racist Really? And most of the tour guides were black Oh, no And I was like It's gonna go down like a uve to soccer bachelors Or is that tell you I I swear like every every europe your basic european person

Is two-thirds as racist as a clansman Yeah, at least they just have fewer opportunities to express their racism Yeah, and like way more uninhibited about it Yes, that I've noticed like americans americans. You might be very racist But usually when americans are very racist you have some like sense of restraints about when to be very racist Whereas yes, and uh european they will just drop that shit on you whenever we are ready to pop off with a slur at Literally any time. Yes I I people who romanticize europe is like a bastion of progressivism

Have you used your eyeballs or your ear holes? I I mean, I I don't know would you rather have people angry that football man doesn't stand up Or people throwing bananas on the on the football pitch So anyway Two of the tour guides were dating one of them was black and they were on a bus with a particularly horrible chaperone This bus was heading from jersey to philly to baltimore to dc 10 hours of driving and stopping all told And this chaperone verbally abused that poor man every second of the way

I would not be responsible for my actions. No jury would convict me. I was about to say, yeah So they would say oh I specifically request an italian jury so that they like sentence me to a month of house arrest and then let me out on appeal immediately You kill at the chaperone, but we understand So Yeah, she called him an ugly piece of shit directly then started saying it to the bus driver then the students then do his girlfriend This guy wasn't some softies But he was understandably in tears by the end of the day

The same chaperone later requested to not have another black tour guide and the company obliged Never offering anything to the tour guide. She abused for 10 hours Worse yet, the students decided to mimic the racist behavior of their chaperones And just started yelling racist shit and straight up calling people the n word Loudly look white europeans Love saying the n word With a hard R too like I I've experienced germans do it. I've seen italians do it I've seen spaniards do it and like sometimes with malice sometimes just with the like

peculiar european brain worms that you don't ever internalize that you shouldn't say that See a a i think a european woman who is not especially tall Bump into a black man In philly call him the n word and he whipped around so fat like in one fluid motion He just laid her out in front of the convention center and then just kept walking nice nothing after that nothing before that just Just turned around rocked her jaw so hard. I thought she died Which is pretty fucking tight And uh, he just like it was just like kept going along bad things happen in philadelphia

It's like oh shit and like her her whatever like her son is like rushing and like Trying to scream at this guy and i'm like, oh, please rush him. Please rush him like i want to see this man go too for tail Like please i'm begging you I'm getting my warzone killstreaks up, but it's just like racist europeans Pro tip for europeans do not say the n word Yeah for anyone really but especially europeans you will get your shit rocks They may not know this is philly. We fight each other for fun So they were saying the n word loudly in the middle of philly baldemore dc and new york

God we we decided to reenact our favorite to film a diehard three We tour guides were in charge of telling them to stop While their teachers undermined us at every turn, you know, check this out tour guido I wholly expected I wholly expected some kid to say something horrific to the wrong person and get his shit rocked Though that never happened. That's a shame. I know it should have happened Sometimes you just had to teach kids some manners. You remember what I told you about how everyone deserves Everyone needs to get punched in the face at least once in their life. Yes. Yeah

You can tell someone who never has been you absolutely can Our management structure. This is number three consistent of consisted of one guy in charge of our location named bob And six sub managers beneath them They all hated us and they all hated each other Okay We were given a confusing diagram on day one concerning which manager to talk about which problem i.e. You go to one guy to talk about buses, but you go to a different guy to talk about scheduling Which is maybe it's just the genius

I think buses and scheduling kind of go together, you know, maybe maybe it's just the image But that is like we have organized this like the mob. You know, it's all poorly debuts This is the fundamental problem i'm noticing from the beginning of this this safety third is the idea that you're going to see Philadelphia Baltimore and dc in one day Uh Is not why is ludicrous. Yes I you're just you're just getting off the bus to look at the Liberty Bell and then get back on the bus

American history any percent speedrun. What are they seeing in baldemore like the shot tower for mcKenry for oh, okay Hey, is he so whether i feel i'm dead the why yeah, huh? I think i'm gonna bring him down to the b&o railroad museum. They get 35 seconds in there Back on the bus back on the bus. Yeah, I don't know you go to Which one's for mcKenry is that's not that's not the one in the harbor. Is it That's the one that overlooks the harbor. Oh, okay. I was thinking that there's one in the harbor that robert e lee designed Hmm. Yeah No, this was before that because this is the this is the war of 1812. Ah, that makes sense. Yes

Okay, but yeah, okay. They're just bringing these kids around. It's like hey look at the landmark. Okay get back in the bus You get like probably 10 seconds at everything Um, I don't know like like spend some time when you're going to visit a place says Actually don't spend some time don't fucking come actually. Yeah, I mean if you're gonna come you're gonna come You're gonna come into my country and start throwing around the n-word. Maybe you should just leave Also, you're welcome for saving your idiot country again. Yes So one time square tour my bus and three others arrived at the hard rock cafe cast which one

The one at time square I wanted Philly because that's right where I saw that lady get her shit rocked We filed in sat down and then I see my manager racing across the dining area towards another manager They're gathered together and seem panic One walks over to me and says have you heard from the other tour guide or seen anyone from her bus? How about the other tour guide in his bus? I hadn't and asked what was going on and she wouldn't say she just moved on to someone else Oh, hell yeah managers were getting increasingly frazzled and we realized they just lost track of over 80 Italian kids

We have a broken arrow situation over we have italians loose on the east We have a we have a broken baguette situation. What's that? What's an italian bread? Excuse me? Chia Bata Broken chibata situation We we have all units all units We we have dropped the cappuccino repeat the gelato is on the floor A guy just comes in Breathless holding a prince house like this just came in off the wire and it's like a series of photos of an italian kid calling a guy the n word and get him laid out

My god On the bright side at least the blood looks like spaghetti in the black and white Pasta sauce whatever fuck them Fuck your dumb country We were held up for around two hours as they called and radioed everyone they could trying to track down these two buses As it turns out there's a miscommunication between the bus drivers and whoever handled scheduling And they were all still in new jersey taking a completely different tour than the one they were supposed to Italian's coming to new jersey and roaming around not a good idea whenever it's happened

Rather than let them finish that tour manager bob didn't want to waste the hard rock reservation So I made these kids come all the way into the city just to eat at this awful fucking restaurant And made all of us wait there until they arrived A final note At the end of the job the chief operating officer for all of north america visited our branch Uh two other employees and I approached him with our complaints about the workplace, which are far more numerous than I could list here he Open quotes listened to us closed quotes and then said when these are his exact words. I will never forget this

I know you're upset But I want you to know the main office at this company doesn't see it this way You moved over 1 000 students through here over the course of the season That's more than any other branch ever. I want you to know that we're proud of all the work that you've done You can be proud when I have the nine mil in your mouth. Yeah Yeah, fuck you pay me. I fuck you got mine It was this job that made me a communist That's fucking right

I Congratulations to shitty italian teenagers and their chaperones Yeah lord, I I don't know I I highly recommend um Like I don't don't come to america and start saying the n-word just don't do that Yeah, just don't come to america at all. Actually, yeah, that sounds very anti-immigrant come to america all you want Just uh, yeah, don't say the n-word won't say the n-word in america. Don't do it Just don't say the n-word in general. Don't do it in your own country either. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, just in general like you probably shouldn't also like don't be an asshole

This is like, I don't know a real relatively basic. Um, not for Like to to like the scales of justice on the one hand proud italian legacy of anti-fascism on the other hand The n-word in outside the hard rock cafe. Yeah, and it's like I mean I could like almost say like okay, they're dipshit teenagers But then the chaperones and the teachers are encouraging the behavior. I mean exactly when I was a dipshit teenager I didn't call anybody a racial slaughter. Yeah I was not not a big fan of using the n-word

Uh, personally when I was a teenager um Just seizing that moral high ground and entrenching on it. Just like no, it feels good up here. Yeah I was a lot of shitty things as a teenager But I was not one that thought it was okay to like drop slurs The other hand like the the idea of seeing an italian teenager just getting punched across the street Saying the n-word is extremely attractive to me So that is true. Yes

So anyway Next episode is the tocoma nero's bridge disaster That's right And the next bonus episode is the nfl and I have got to write the slides for that Yes, especially since now you've scheduled when we were going to record Yeah, I should probably get on that. Yes Um, when will shirts be international shipping?

Uh, I will dm union p right after this. Thank you. All right Do you have any any commercials before we go? Yeah, if you want a pennsylvania secret service card still dm me tell me what name photo address And I will print it for you That's it. That's all I got Well, um Under two hours under two hours. Yeah, just barely All right

Like I said, it's the episode um Moral of story Ship by train Um, don't say the n-word Especially combine those two. Yeah, do not like Say the n-word as you're shipping something by train. Yes All right, I have emailed union p

Thank you. Okay. Good. Now we have a verbal record of it. Yeah People can stop complaining. We are on no, they're never gonna stop on the situation The situation is being addressed From our command center, which is just my house. Yes. Yeah, that's right I mean an undisclosed location. That's not in north philly Right somewhere else South philly Yeah, I don't get a south philly. It's in

It's actually in glaster county. Speaking of italians. I'd love to say the n-word south philly Oh my god, all right, and on that note. Yes. Thank you once again. Yeah. Bye. Bye everyone um All right end of slideshow click to exit and Stop recording