Bridges, Arches, Columns, Tunnels and Walls

Durham Castle and Cathedral, North-East England

Carlisle Castle, Cumbria, UK

Part of London's Victorian sewer network.

Autobahn (motorway) A17 bridge and tunnel entrance at "Plauenscher Grund" near Dresden/Germany

Germany has great public transportation and good roads. Even while on cruises in Germany last year, I've often seen trains running along the rivers.

Here in California, we have difficulty building public transportation systems, so most must own cars or take the bus. Even the rapid transit train system from San Francisco to Los Angeles has been having difficulty with the planning and construction - because there's political infighting about the cost and usage.

Around 1846/1848 they started to build the main railway line in our region - and some (private) investors wanted a tunnel through the hilly region.
When more than 500 workers had finished nearly half of it - it collapsed, due to water and mainly financial difficulties.

One of the former tunnel entrances is now both a listed monument as well as a natural monument


The layout of the railway was changed, a viaduct was built instead. The structure was inaugurated in 1853 and has a length of 482m and a width of 35m. [The scaffold cost 89,000 talers, the entire structure 529,000 talers, which occasioned King Friedrich Wilhelm IV to say at the inauguration: "And I thought I would find a golden bridge here, given these costs..."]

The "Schienenzeppelin" (= rail zeppelin) on that viaduct in 1931



During WWII, the viaduct has been bombed four times, the last attack 22.02.45destroyed it (nearly) completely (after it had been repaired just weeks before)


Reconstruction was fully finished then in 1951.

An Arch with a difference.

The Laburnum Arch at Bodnant Gardens, North Wales.

Genius, that Bazalgette!

Lots of photo of London sewers >here<

Vienna

Hallandsåsen in south Sweden there is a lovely trainride around the hill. There is planned a tunnel which will shorten the trip with 8-10 minutes.
The planned length is 8.7 km (5.4 mi) (8,722 metres (28,615 ft) in one bore, 8,710 metres (28,576 ft) in the other).
The project was started in 1975 and is still not finished and there were a
scandal when dangerous sealant materials were used causing workers to become ill and killing local fish and cattle. As the hill is not compact stone but enourmous stones it can any time collapse. The water from the wells was running thru the stones down into the tunnel
The cost 2 billion USD as calculated in 2008, before the project is finished. Don´t want to know the costs now.
Here they drill

Priory tunnel under the Clyde to Bothwell Castle, UK

The tunnel under Buda Castle, Budapest

Escalator tunnel at Southgate Station (London Underground). My favourite art deco station on the Tube.




Southgate Station exterior....

Stockholm subway has 100 stations. More than 90 are decorated by more than 150 artists

You got good weed over there, by the looks.

Very nice!