17 June 2022 - THE WORLD'S LARGEST UNDERGROUND BUSINESS COMPLEX - MISSOURI

 

THE WORLD'S LARGEST 

UNDERGROUND BUSINESS 

COMPLEX in MISSOURI

G'day folks,

Welcome to the "World's Largest Underground Business Complex," a 55,000,000-square-foot city underneath Missouri. 

There are a number of advantages to keeping things underground. The temperature remains near constant, energy costs are lowered, and—in the massive, 55,000,000-square-foot space known as Subtropolis—there is a whole city of workers who can keep your goods safe.

Subtropolis stores everything from a USPS collection of millions of postal stamps and the original film reels of Gone With the Wind, to a series of artificially lighted, manmade habitats used by Earth Works to demonstrate science to students.

 

Mining in SubTropolis began in the 1940s, and the empty space grew under the limestone bluffs on the Missouri River. By 1960, the owners realized that they had an enormous area they could rent out for business operations. The dubbed their underground city “SubTropolis” and called it “the World’s Largest Underground Business Complex,” a phrase that Hunt Midwest has trademarked. SubTropolis sports nearly seven miles of illuminated paved roads, and semi-trucks drive throughout the underground.

“We load and unload our trucks in perfect weather conditions,” said Joe Paris, co-founder and principal of Paris Brothers, a national specialty foods company headquartered in SubTropolis. “It’s truly a green environment. We’re probably using about 75 percent less electricity underground than we would in an above-ground facility. Whether it’s electronics or whether it’s food, you don’t have temperature and humidity fluctuations and so you don’t have any condensation, moisture building up in anything. From that standpoint, in my opinion you can’t beat it.”

 

13 January 2022 - STUNNING PHA NANG KHOI CAVE - THAILAND

 

 STUNNING 

PHA NANG KHOI CAVE 

- THAILAND -

G'day folks,

The long underground cave's curiously shaped stalagmites have inspired many legends. 

The Pha Nang Khoi Cave, located in the Phrae province of Thailand, is about a mile long with many twists and turns that lead around uniquely shaped stalactites and stalagmites that have been the source of much folklore. 

At the end of the cavern lies a stalagmite that resembles a woman holding a child. In front of that is a stalactite shaped like a heart. A legend says a woman once stood here waiting for her lover to return, and when he he did, she turned to stone. Some say the woman is Princess Aranyani who fled with her child to protect her lover, who was a commoner. 

 

There are also two colorful Buddha shrines in the cave, which was formed millions of years ago from the limestone in that region. Today the walls are illuminated by multicolored lights which bathe the limestone in bright colors.

Clancy's comment: Amazing nature, eh? Grateful thanks to Marco Capriz for photography.

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4 March 2021 - LONDON'S FORGOTTEN MAIL TRAIN

 

LONDON'S FORGOTTEN 

MAIL TRAIN  

 

G'day folks,

The Royal Mail’s underground ‘mini’ railway was used to take letters (and possibly workers) along the tracks to different station/sorting offices stretching from Paddington to Whitechapel. In 2002, it had become an uneconomical service, losing an estimated £1.2M a day, and quietly shut down.

For almost a decade, the abandoned stations and tracks have stood in silence; only empty mail trolleys creaking from the drafts, outdated telephones sitting on abandoned control desks, trains mid-track and frozen in time.

 

Clancy's comment: Wow, we just never know what is happening beneath our major cities.

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22 November 2019 - UNIQUE CAVES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

 UNIQUE CAVES FROM

 AROUND THE WORLD

G'day folks,

I'm certainly not interested in being in confined spaces but you may be.

If you want to really stray off the beaten tourist path, it is a terrific idea to go underground and discover the enigmatic world of caves, tunnels, mines and caverns.

 

As you will be able to see from this collection of amazing underground tourist destinations, you can find so much more than bats and a few stalactites underground: a hidden history and nature lies beneath the ground, waiting to be discovered by the brave travelers who dare visit.

Clancy's comment: There ya go. Interesting the way nature produces these enchanting places. Oh, by the way, this is how I always remembered the difference between stalactites and stalagmites. 

StalaCtite: C for ceiling.

StalaGmite: G for ground.

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17 February 2018 - NAZI BUNKER IN PARIS

NAZI BUNKER IN PARIS

G'day folks,

Yes, here is another discovery beneath Paris. Unbeknown to the thousands of passengers that pass through the station each day, right under their feet, between platforms 2 and 3 at the Gare de l’Est lies an old concrete World War II bomb shelter. 

One of the busiest stations in the heart of Paris, the 19th century terminal is hiding a 120m² wartime bunker that was half-built by the French as an air raid shelter and taken over by the Germans during the four-year Nazi occupation, evidenced by inscriptions on the walls.

We’re lucky enough to see these photos thanks to a (bad ass) French urban explorer and photographer known as Diane of Neverends.net. How Diane gained permission to access the underground bunker, ‘only seen by a few’ and privately owned by SNCF (the French national rail company), shall remain her secret, but I suppose that’s all part of the mysterious charm of urban explorers.

The old bunker is very much intact and has obviously been quite well-maintained by the SNCF, even though they have never decided to share it with the general public. The space that could inhabit up to 70 people in an emergency, is made up of a machinery room, a telephone control station and even the old furniture and objects still remain, including a folding bed and oxygen cylinders in case of a gas attack.

In a dimly-lit office with wiring and fuse boxes decorating the walls, on the desks Diane found old sheets of paper with graphs of the rail network. “One can almost imagine that traffic control officers are going to burst into the office at any moment to ensure the trains are running properly,” says Diane on her French urban exploration website.

Is it a shame the SNCF has to keep this secret time capsule under lock and key– or does the challenge of finding a way in make it more exciting? Diane isn’t giving out any maps so it’s up to you to embark on this subterranean adventure on your own, under the Gare de l’Est, right in the heart of Paris. Sounds more enticing than climbing up the Eiffel Tower with thousands of tourists.

Clancy's comment: Amazing, and certainly built to last.

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