Mysterious object block Seattle tunnel progress

They found Jimmy Hoffa.

reply to post by Q33323


From the article in your OP:

The $80 million machine is designed to break up boulders, so what it hit is a mystery. It may be a huge boulder left by the last ice age. Others think it could be a buried rail car from pioneer days when the area was filled in.

There's precedent for the latter guess, according to this site, which describes the brief existence of a "pneumatic" subway prototype.

In 1869, Alfred Eli Beach built a short demonstration subway tunnel under Manhattan's Broadway, across from City Hall. The piston shaped rail car was propelled through the cylindrical tunnel alternately by compressed air and vacuum forces.

When the idea didn't catch on, the demo tunnel & train car were abandoned, to be dug up & rediscovered later:

In 1912, Beach's tunnel was rediscovered and found intact, complete with a passenger car, and the hydraulically powered "shield" used to construct the tunnel.

Big Bertha might be able to handle a brick-lined tunnel like this one, but I wonder if it could successfully chew its way through a metal train of some type?

reply to post by BuzzCory


Tube travel via compressed air in a vacuum sealed environment?

Hyperloop on wikipedia

ChaoticOrder
reply to post by winofiend

 

Well I'm in Australia too. It must have something to do with that... bloody Aus haters I tell you!!!

User scripts to the rescue!

link

Other suggestions I've seen are Seattle's (hopefully) Hall of Fame Offensive Lineman Walter Jones, Gandalf, Dragons (both movie variety and video game variety), and War of the Worlds aliens. All fantastic guesses, I really liked the Lineman and the Gandalf.

There can only be one answer.... Richard Sherman

en.m.wikipedia.org...(American_football)

So they are gonna drill down 60ft and try and pull it out with a crane?
Watch the video.
Gawker

It would be bad ass if it was a Monolith.


Out of curiosity, why would the area need to be pressurized before people "got eyes" on it?

Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
Given the area being tunneled, my money is on a long abandoned piece of underground Seattle. Hell, just walking along the waterfront, you still see pieces of walls and the sticking out from the embankments. That whole part of the city has a lot of half buried buildings in it.

I would doubt the boulder, though. Given that 100 plus years ago, that part of Seattle was inhabited pretty close to the depths it has been found, a boulder would have surely been mentioned or noticed.

I love that idea. Hope it's what it is. I absolutely love the old cities under the modern ones, ruins of old times forgotten but still relatively intact, just underneath the every day walk ways of today.

Agree with the second part too, but still it is interesting to find out.

ChaoticOrder
reply to post by winofiend

 

Well I'm in Australia too. It must have something to do with that... bloody Aus haters I tell you!!!

Ahha Oh right.. The entire website wont even load. I was on my tab before trying to keep cool out the back, but .. in the house now and it's still an error, but the entire place just refuses to load.

Shh though, don't give this mob any more funny ideas.

ChaoticOrder

ChaoticOrder
reply to post by winofiend

 

Well I'm in Australia too. It must have something to do with that... bloody Aus haters I tell you!!!

User scripts to the rescue!

link

edit on 11/12/2013 by ChaoticOrder because: (no reason given)

oO

Bloody nora, they blocked us? Hahaha..

ok cheers for that As they don't want us there, I want to be there more now!

Q33323
reply to post by BuzzCory

 

Tube travel via compressed air in a vacuum sealed environment?

Hyperloop on wikipedia

edit on 11-12-2013 by Q33323 because: (no reason given)

edit on 11-12-2013 by Q33323 because: Add. Info

Interesting, it looks like the idea is coming around again. Something similar appears to be what drove Mr Beach's train. From the Wikipedia article on Beach:

Al Capone's Vault? If Geraldo shows up then we'll know for sure.

That's weird and piques the curiosity. I hope they find out what it is. Who doesn't love a good mystery?

Rainbows
Jane

an iron / nickel meteorite above 75cm diameter would stop a TBM in its tracks - but that's too rational

reply to post by Thorneblood


LOL some of the comments on that sight are hilarious!

This is very interesting. I wonder how much longer before they can determine what it is?

it's the secret Starbucks headquarters, or maybe they hit the outside shell of the BOEING secret UFO base

reply to post by NowanKenubi


Whoa... you re right...
what in the hell could stop THAT monster ??

Considering what tunnel boring machines are designed to tear through, if it IS an old streetcar or that pneumatic subway car, then they truly DON'T build them like they used to.

Cool story and I'm curious as to the culprit.

MmmPie
Other suggestions I've seen are Seattle's (hopefully) Hall of Fame Offensive Lineman Walter Jones, Gandalf, Dragons (both movie variety and video game variety), and War of the Worlds aliens. All fantastic guesses, I really liked the Lineman and the Gandalf.

Far more likely a Balrog than Gandalf.

Ehm... they call that thing Big Bertha?
As a German I was somehow surprised, because Big Bertha is this:
en.wikipedia.org...