Old Elbe Tunnel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbe_Tunnel_(1911)

by Tomte • 4 years ago

147 51 4 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

Was interesting to go through, the tiling is old school, and they've preserved the old car lifts, they're positively Steam Age looking steel girder contraptions.

graderjs2• 4 years ago

I've been there. It's very f*** cool. It's sort of like the old underground metro subway stations in Sydney australia. You know the old circular key line with Martin place museum Hyde Park these type of stations on them? I can't remember all the names now but they have that old tiling and the long pedestrian tunnels and I mean just a fantastic kind of vibe to go into them and this tunnel is like that but it goes under the water.

I think there might be a similar tunnel in Antwerp, Belgium (great city, awesome Jewish bakeries) I seem to recall having transited such a place in that region too.

tchvil• 4 years ago

This is the tunnel you may have seen: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2019/03/13/the-scheldt-tu...

The wooden escalator is impressive still working after so many years.

graderjs2• 4 years ago

Yes, that's the one!!!! :)

AndyMcConachie• 4 years ago

Reminds me of the Maas Tunnel in Rotterdam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastunnel

padraigcoogan• 4 years ago

The remaining Sydney subway stations with original tiling and fittings are two beneath Hyde Park: St James, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HauHHw7zkoM, and Museum, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80MDwect8Y4

rippercushions• 4 years ago

My favorite feature is that they also have vintage ads.

https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/sydneytrains/advertise-sydn...

neuronic2• 4 years ago

Glad you enjoyed it this much. I live in Hamburg and haven't gone there as often as one probably should. It's a really fascinating place.

johnsea• 4 years ago

In Hamburg one has to go to the Wunderland* (everything else is secondary;))

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-AvGfN4bJ0

bradhe• 4 years ago

Funny, I just walked through this tunnel last week.

Elte• 4 years ago

Biked through the tunnel, then ran over the Köhlbrandbrücke the one time a year they let you do that. The fun one can have pointlessly crossing a river (:.

rongopo4• 4 years ago

There is no pointless crossing of a river. It might be a subconsciously relevant event.

Stamp01• 4 years ago

I love the boot and rats wall ornament. They deserve love and recognition, too.

Calavar• 4 years ago

Many of the older subway stations in the upper part of Manhattan were built in the same time period and have a very similar architectural style, down to the tiled walls and the ornate molding, but they look absolutely decrepit. The tile is stained with dirt and grime. The molding is broken in places.

For most people who pass through one of these stations (which are pretty busy), their general impression is that the stations look cheap and dirty. You wouldn't really notice how lavish the decorations in these stations must have been at opening unless you were paying particular attention to your surroundings. It's sad how little the US has invested in maintaining its public transit infrastructure compared to other countries.

lispm• 4 years ago

The renovation of the Elbtunnel is still ongoing until ca. 2026 and will then in sum have cost around 114 million Euro.

xhrpost• 4 years ago

It's sad how little the US has invested in maintaining its public transit infrastructure compared to other countries.

I'm on the fence about this, on average across the US, I'd agree. But where we do have decent transit, we seem to spend a lot. The NY MTA will spend $18B[1] in total in 2022, more than 6x the amount the state spends on all state roads in NY for 2018[2]. Despite this amount of money being spent, we have the general problems that you mention above, plus the fact that any expansion is prohibitively expensive. I just have to wonder, even if a lot more money were spent, would we actually see proportional improvements?

[1] https://www.osc.state.ny.us/files/reports/osdc/pdf/report-10...

[2] https://cbcny.org/research/building-sound-fiscal-future-new-...

crote• 4 years ago

I do not live in NYC, so please correct me if I am wrong, but both can be true at the same time.

Looking specifically at the NYC subway, they are both over-spending and under-spending at the same time. In a nice example of the Boots Theory[0], they are spending money by the boatloads to keep the dating infrastructure working. A lot of it dates back to the 1930s, and it is impossible to get replacement parts. A newer system would be far easier and cheaper to maintain - but in the short term replacing it would be an enormous cost.

This is made even worse by it running 24/7. Without a maintenance window, doing proper preventative maintenance is pretty much impossible.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

mbiondi2• 4 years ago

A lot of the MTA's budget is spent on interest on their debt (about $4 Billion / year). Page 23 of your report shows they currently have about $45 Billion in outstanding bonds. A cursory view seems to show about $6 Billion is to cover capital projects, which makes one wonder what the other 39 Billion was issued for.

edavison1• 4 years ago

It's tempting to see it that way, but I read your comment and see an unfair comparison between a small city and the largest in the United States. The MTA is ugly (I love it) but let's not kid ourselves, they spend a shitload of money maintaining nearly 500 stations, probably the yearly cost of that tunnel per day.

andrewshadura• 4 years ago

Hamburg? A small city? Seriously?

Arrath3• 4 years ago

The (at least the older original) stations of the Moscow metro are likewise individual works of art. The pure plain utilitarianism of modern stations in NYC or the London Underground are sterile and boring in comparison.

jguimont• 4 years ago

Montreal has different architecture and design for each metro stop https://www.mtlblog.com/montreal/montreal-metro-architecture...

NeoTar• 4 years ago

Whilst I wouldn't call Berlin's UBahn stations works of art, they are often distinct and make travelling the network its own pleasure.

lmm2• 4 years ago

I don't think "pure plain utilitarianism" is a fair description of the London underground as a whole. Even the Victoria Line made a point of doing a unique mosaic for each station; the Jubilee Line extension has a distinctive artistic style (which a lot of people hate, but you can't say they didn't try). Crossrail has put an even stronger emphasis on design.

JonathonW• 4 years ago

Tom Scott did a video there a while back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXuTz-5N1Aw

microtonal• 4 years ago

Of German tunnels I've always found the Zugspitzbahn impressive. The last section is a tunnel through the highest mountain of Germany and ends 300 meters below the summit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_Zugspitze_Railway

lexicality• 4 years ago

I'm amazed they let cars in, it seems like the exhaust fumes would be unpleasant and make the tunnel dirty.

rongopo4• 4 years ago

Is the elevator for cars free? Why?

neuronic2• 4 years ago

While it has low capacity and was "replaced" with other ways to cross the Elbe, it still helps ease traffic across the river, other roads and bridges are often very packed or even blocked (often WW2 bomb defusals). I have lived both in NYC and in Hamburg and while the scale in Hamburg is way smaller, the type of traffic is kinda similar. Btw, isn't the Holland tunnel from NJ to Manhattan also free?

Also, we generally don't have tolls anywhere in Germany. If we do I have a hard time thinking of examples. Our taxes are (too) heavily invested in road infrastructure anyways and the tunnel isn't privately owned.

frosted-flakes• 4 years ago

The Holland Tunnel has a toll when entering New Jersey.

LargoLasskhyfv3• 4 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warnow_Tunnel in Rostock would be the first example.

narrowtux• 4 years ago

Right now the "Alte Elbtunnel" is undergoing maintenance in one of the two tunnels. Since as long as I've lived here, it hasn't been open to cars, but the large elevators previously used for cars are still serving bicyclists and pedestrians during the daytime. They get quite full during rush hour.

I use the tunnel 3-4 times per week!

rongopo4• 4 years ago

As someone that worked in Hamburg's unique Chilehaus, and used a few "paternoster elevators", I can say this city is full of small surprises.

valenterry• 4 years ago

I've also used one of one's that are still allowed to run. A bit scary but awesome :)

schlowmo• 4 years ago

What the english version of this wikipedia article doesn't mention (the german version does) is that the usage of this tunnel shifted a lot in recent years.

Today it's a very important bike route for people living south of the river Elbe (especially in the districts Wilhelmsburg and Veddel, both experienced heavy gentrification in the last two decades).

While the english version only states yearly usage numbers for 2008 (300k cars, 63k bikes, 700k pedestrians) the german also has numbers for 2018 (52k cars, 300k bikes, > 1 million pedestrians).

In my own experience the pedestrians are mostly tourists and the cars people working at the shipyards south of the river Elbe.

I witnessed a lot of conflicts between pedestrians for which crossing the tunnel is some kind of special experience getting in the way of cyclist which just want to get from one side of the river to the other as quickly as possible. There are sidewalks on both sides of each tube but tourists don't care much.

But I guess this is kind of inevitable if such a curiosity is part of the daily used traffic infrastructure.

ncmncm• 4 years ago

Wondering if it was used for wartime production, for protection from bombings.

German aircraft production increased each month right up until substantial homeland territory was lost, apparently unaffected by massive bombing. Given its military futility, most of the bombing should probably be considered war crime. Air crews' lives were squandered.

LargoLasskhyfv3• 4 years ago

Unlikely. Parts of it are above the river bed, and stick out into the water. It's all rather fragile patchwork, not some massive reinforced concrete thing.

This sticking out is also the reason all the terminals for larger ships are downstream of it, because their keels would crunch it, even at high tide.

derda• 4 years ago

I dont know about the use as a shelter, but you might be interested in the fact that one of the largest german shipyards Blohm & Voss is right at the south side of the tunnel.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blohm%2BVoss

contingencies2• 4 years ago

If we're talking turn of the century civil engineering, London's Greenwich Foot Tunnel is older. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_foot_tunnel

However, for true balls, you have to look at the French who completed the incredible Haiphong to Kunming railway, mainly to extract tin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunming%E2%80%93Haiphong_railw... Incidentally, I just purchased some bulk solder which is still being produced from Yunnanese tin today. The town was mined so heavily the center collapsed and turned in to a craterous water feature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gejiu There's a mining company museum which features an early computer imported from the US (I have photos somewhere), possibly off the back of US-China anti-Japan collaboration during WWII, which was significant in the area. How times change!

The English of course wouldn't have it and tried to beat the frogs by bringing a line in from Myanmar with the support of the US but failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yunnan%E2%80%93Burma_railway You can read the minutes of them pompously pontificating in London. It would make a great film, IMHO. China has recently rebuilt the French line as a high speed line to the border, from which travelers may appreciate the relative infrastructure fail that is north Vietnam.

contingencies2• 4 years ago

For still earlier tunnels under the Thames see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tunnel and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Subway

fritztastic• 4 years ago

There's something about underground infrastructure that really intrigues me, despite how claustrophobic it can feel if I start thinking about what lies above.

I find it really interesting in this tunnel there are lifts for cars, because the entrance/exit points are vertical drops to the tunnel.

Old Elbe Tunnel

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