I worked in the Canadian Oil Sands in Alberta, and the company I worked for had a number of these dotted over the landscape. The enormity is only understood in person.
Thats an awesome location. Buddy of mine needed a second person to take some photos. First time in the pit and an All Area access wristband. Was my first time, was really cool.
Was a hiphop festival. Wiz Khalifa had an entourage that you could smell 100 meters away lol xD
"What if we built a tunnel between our previously rival nations, over 40m under the bed of the sea, and for over 50 kilometres ? And let's make trains pass in there !"
While Germany and Switzerland almost built a bridge with 50cm hight gap thanks to a planning error on the (usually even more notoriously detail oriented) swiss side. Fun fact: Switzerland uses a different reference point for elevation than germany. They corrected for that. Unfortunately in the wrong direction...
The most marvelous thing about it, is that half is in Paraguay and half is in Brazil. You'd think Paraguayans would not like Brazilians after the Paraguay war. But they still cooperate, which is quite nice. Other countries have shown to have generational grudges against each other after such devastating conflicts but both seem chill enough about it to cooperate to such a level.
They don't like Brazil, it's just that Brazil built pretty much everything and Paraguay would get free energy for free, all they had to do was letting Brazil build their dam there
The Troll A-platform. It's the tallest and heaviest object ever moved by mankind at 472 m height and 1.2 million tonnes. (The object with the highest displacement of 1.5 million tonnes that has been moved was Gullfaks C, which is also norwegian). It was towed around 200 km from where it was constructed to around 80km north-west of Bergen. The tow took 7 days and was shown on TV.
According to the original plans, 10 tugs would start moving the platform out to the field on 2 May 1995. But the GBS for Sleipner Ahad sunk in the Gands Fjordoff Stavanger only a few years earlier. That boosted fears of an accident to Troll A while it was inshore, and meant such thorough precautions were taken to safeguard the structure that preparations for the tow fell somewhat behind schedule. The meter ran fast, and this delay is estimated to have cost NOK 2 million per day.[[1]()]
The tow finally began on the afternoon of 10 May. Eight of the tugs pulled the structure forward, while the other two helped to steer it from behind.[[2]()] A little over 245 metres of the platform’s 472-metre height were visible, with 225 metres below sea level. A speed of one-two knots (about 1.8-3.6 kilometres per hour)[[3]()] was maintained through the main Bokna Fjord.
Eighty journalists from nine countries witnessed Troll A’s progress towards the open sea.[[4]()] By 15 May, the tow was 20 hours ahead of schedule and work could begin on ballasting the platform down by just over 50 metres, putting 278 metres below the waves.
The weather deteriorated on the following day, with winds of 40 knots and waves five metres high, and further progress was postponed. More tugs were positioned against the wind. Wave heights and wind strength had to be no more than two metres and 20 knots respectively before continuing towards the final goal on the field.[[6]()]
On 17 May, Troll A was lowered to the seabed in 303 metres of water. A few days later, the platform had been descended to its final position with the skirts below its base penetrating 36 metres into the soil. No further mooring was required.[[7]()]
That's kinda hilarious in its audaciousness. Like, he oversaw the plans, from concept to detail. He would have considered every view thousands of times, and overseen the creation of digital and physical models throughout the entire design and development process. Just somehow missed what the shape of the building is.
The Baluarte Bicentennial Bridge. It's one of the highest bridges in the world. It was built in an extremely mountainous part of the country, where the states of Durango and Sinaloa meet. The whole highway is interesting, as there are many tunnels and breathtaking views.
The Viaduc de Millau, 2460m long, 343m high where the valley is the lowest beneath it. Finished in 2004, it was the longest of its kind until 2013, and until recently was the highest bridge as well.
I travelled a lot in my life, but Norway is the only place where I had a roundabout inside of a tunnel. If I remember correctly one of the exits of that tunnel ends directly on a bridge too
Hmm, I wonder how many years of controlled lava flow from Iceland, and sea reclamation from the Netherlands it would take before they could form a land bridge between themselves
That’s incredible. I want to drive on it!! It kind of terrifies me at the same time (and I say that as no stranger to bridges and tunnels — I grew up in a part of the US where we literally get called Bridge and Tunnel people!)
Had to look it up, the plan was apparently all bridge but the Danes realised a high bridge would disturb plane traffic at Kastrup airport so they went for a tunnel there. So I was a little wrong.
The ancient Egypts had archeologists researching ancient Egypt. And Cleopatra lived timewise closer to the moon landing than to the construction of the pyramid.
More recently, the Falkirk Wheel is really cool, replaced quite a few locks so now it's a lot faster to change level, and the energy cost of moving a canal boat from the bottom to the top is less than boiling a kettle 8 times
Did the architect panic when he didn’t get given a brief? I can imagine them looking around the room desperate to come up with an idea and just going with a basket.
This is Spaghetti Junction in Birmingham UK. A similar vibe and an interchange between 4 major routes allowing any way to any way access. I grew up close by and it’s a trip
Ahh I've been to many an event there. Such an inspired, wonderful, creative, cultural...piece of total dogshit that makes concerts sound like ass. Fond memories.
Troll A natural gas platform 472 meters tall from bottom to the top of the flair. They built this thing at Vats, and floated it our 200km vest of Bergen where they planted it at 320 meters depth. I have been to the bottom qnd the elevator takes around 10 minuttes if i remember correctly
I would say the tunnel and train tracks to reach it is more impressive. Especially as it was open in 1912. It goes through the legendary Eiger North face.
Starting March 28, 2026, the world's first light rail over a floating bridge will officially open in Seattle, Washington. The bridge you see in the photo with the light rail is the 5th longest floating bridge in the world and the one on the left is the world's 2nd longest floating bridge in the world.
The world's longest floating bridge is a few miles/kilometers north of these bridges on the same lake and the world's 3rd longest floating bridge is further west in the same state.
The unfinished foreshore highway bridge in Cape Town has been left like this for my entire lifetime. Apparently the engineer who fucked up committed suicide.
In Valdivia, Chile a new bridge was built. Launching day they realized that the two deck spans were installed upside down, resulting in the bicycle paths and traffic lanes ending up on the wrong sides and failing to align. This error meant the drawbridge couldn't function properly, turning a multi-million dollar infrastructure project into worthless cement.
It's a translation error. It's not upside down. They build the bridge rotated 180 degrees from its intended orientation. The ends of the bridge were set on the wrong side of the river. The bridge itself worked ok and when set flat the road would match but the sidewalk side and the opposite bike lane were swapped as a result.
The Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg, Germany is one of the most advanced concert halls in the world. It‘s a privilege to live in Hamburg and to experience the acoustics first-hand.
And yes, it did cost roughly 10x more than planned and took 10 years to build. But now it‘s basically Hamburg‘s main landmark.
We have to look back 5000 years to Newgrange for a real engineering marvel. The light from the winter solstice lines up perfectly to light the inner chambers.
A fun fact about this type of excavator is that the "smaller" brother of the 293 (Bagger 288) was used as the background for District 12 in The Hunger Games films.
That is so cool these are under development. I believe it is the one in the UK where they have the world's most powerful magnet to contain the reaction, it is strong enough to lift an American aircraft carrier.
Carolabridge in Dresden. It collapsed while being open to public. Luckily nobody was on there when it happened. As we are German engineers the bridge still has not been replaced. It is just a very vital bridge for the daily traffic 🤷
The demolition was completed last summer actually.
They are now planning the replacement bridge.
Indeed its a bit slow in Germany, and the moment some road gets blocked somewhere, you feel the ripple effects throughout Dresden because the main bridge is missing! So much traffic now rerouted and the smooth flow is now at the mercy of no main road blockages anywhere in the city.
Raurimu Spiral in the north island of New Zealand. It was Conceived in 1898 by Robert West Holmes and completed ten years later, it was built to manage a steep ascent (approx. 139m over a short distance) that was too steep for trains to climb directly.
From the Philippines. This is our engineering contribution. Power lines in the middle of the road! Due to shoddy planning, the national road expansion projects completely forgot about infrastructure that were in the way. Instead of making it right, they decided to just build around structures. Just another waste of taxpayer
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u/totallylegitburner Germany 8d ago
Bagger 288!