Mont Blanc Tunnel: The Engineering Marvel You've Never Heard Of
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- Опубліковано 20 бер 2024
- For centuries, mountain ranges have served as one of the most formidable obstacles for mankind. They are a transportation nightmare for anyone in the business of moving goods or people: you either had to wind your way through them, which was a slow, time consuming, and dangerous process, or else go around them, which could take you hundreds or even thousands of miles out of your way.
Modern technology has solved the problem of mountain ranges, however, in the form of road tunnels: rather than go over or around the mountain, you simply blow a hole right through it and build your road there. Road tunnels are a vital piece of transportation infrastructure, saving travelers countless hours and allowing for the passage of heavy commercial traffic which would otherwise have been unable to traverse the mountains. However, we as commuters tend to overlook tunnels, with few people truly appreciating the immense amount of effort and resources needed to carve out these shortcuts through the mountains, such as the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
When it opened to traffic in 1965, the Mont Blanc was both the longest and the deepest road tunnel ever built. Stretching over 11.5 kilometers under Europe’s highest mountain, the tunnel has served as a vital link between France and Italy, at one point carrying as much as one third of Italy’s commercial traffic to the rest of the continent. Unfortunately, it also showcased how dangerous tunnels like this can be, when a disaster in 1999 claimed more than three dozen lives.
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the english chunnel diggers were buried, the french dismanteled theirs and removed them, one is still on display on the french side
Been through the Blanc many times as a former Continental Truck driver. It’s a long one but the scenery in the Aosta valley is worth it
I'd be totally claustrophobic inside it. I'm not afraid of enclosed spaces normally either, but something about driving through a tunnel with the entire weight of a mountain sitting on top of me makes my subconscious go crazy.
@@geographicstravel lol! It was more the length of it. They’re really strict on lorries maintaining the correct distance apart by using blue lights on the side of the tunnel walls and speed limits too
Great video, Karl. Enjoyed the tangents and those little factoids that you are well aware of. Get well soon!!
6:53 Pfft, I don't have to wait for the Mad Max-like post-apocalyptic world to start worshipping the mechanical tunneling worm, thank you very much.
Great work as ever, Karl. Glad you got to treat a (mostly) positive subject.
' if Hannibal had the option he'd have taken his elephants through the tunnel instead of over the Alps ' .... yeah Karl that would be some sight .. lol
oh and get well soon Karl
Karl goes full on brainblaze in the intro
Nice, new video!
And as much as I like Simon, it's really refreshing to have some channels with more hosts, while grtting the same quality thanks to your guys great writing team
Thanks For this karl! Love your content 🔥🔥🔥
That Keeps stuff really helped Simon, huh?
😂
I don’t completely understand why the truck driver was fined if the cause of the fire was someone else throwing a cigarette butt out the window. Was it because he stopped in the tunnel? How would he have known that stopping to get his extinguisher would make things worse?
I had the same question so did some digging.
Can't find anything he did wrong. Looks to me like it was such a disaster that it became political and they needed to make it look like some people had paid for it. I wonder if the driver got convicted just because he had survived where others had died. Not much he could have done. Only got a 4 month suspended sentence though
To add to @threems172, it seems that everyone except Volvo (manufacturer) was found guilty of something. Depending on the source, some say he "fled" after getting out of the truck and seeing it was on fire.
If that is true (or it was perceived that way) he might have been charged for failing to assist or warn or something like that.
Not saying that is right, but it is the only thing I can come up with without reading the court transcripts, and I am not going to do that :D
I hope you feel better, soon ,Karl 🫶 I also hope you become one of the permanent hosts of this channel. I love your episodes.
Things had to go wrong perfectly, to make things go so perfectly wrong.
Im confident a large number of people will have heard of this tunnel.
😂
on Top Gear, Jezza took the Veyron through the tunnel with a truffle as the cargo
I loved Mont Blanc as Joey in the Friends TV show
Looks like Karl is drinking Mountain Dew
The best medicine obviously
lol , as he's Bittish i guess it's green tea ( possibly with Honey )
@@888johnmac Most likely, but the idea of Mountain Dew is humorous
@@888johnmacthat's the greenest green tea I've ever seen. There's no way that's not an artificial color.
It's likely a product like "airborne" immune booster.
It's that or a Theraflu type medicine product.
Daylight - great movie. good reporting, thanks ks.
margarine is 1 molecule away from plastic - even bugs won't eat it.
Shout out to Chuggy. Buried, but never forgotten 😅
Not to be confused with the Mel Blanc Tunnel, which is just painted onto the side of a cliff.
🤣 splat
Thank you.
I have driven through it because my uncles live in the opposite sides of Mont Blanc (France and Italy) sometimes you forget you are in a tunnel until you see light
Clearly entertaining! Hope you get well soon, from across the pond. Austin,TX
Sore throat advice: skip the noxious dayglo liquid and just have some brandy. A few sips will fix anything wrong in there.
Drove through this last month in an Audi q8 which threw the brakes on hard as we crossed the Italian border in the middle of the tunnel along with the message that predictive cruise control is not available in Italy. I can probably understand why... You can't predict Italian driving! Still... Thankful for the 150m gap enforcement
I'm one of the few that didn't know about this tunnel, so I enjoyed learning about its history. I'm not surprised the fire in '99 reached the level it did in a tunnel that long, but that there were supposed to be safety measures in place to prevent a disaster like that from happening and they weren't working like they were supposed to enrages me. The loss of life breaks my heart. I don't see how the truck driver was at fault for what happened, but, as another commenter said, the officials probably wanted/needed a scapegoat to focus the public outrage on.
One key aspect of more modern surveying accuracy is the application of lasers. Either as electro-mechanical and/or visual reference guides.
I'm curious how that works. Do you know?
2:35 - Chapter 1 - Conquering the alps
4:55 - Chapter 2 - Drill, baby, drill !
9:15 - Chapter 3 - An indispensable artery
11:40 - Chapter 4 - Disaster
16:40 - Chapter 5 - Aftermath
19:30 - Chapter 6 - Keep on truckin'
23:05 - Conclusion
It's kinda hard to not know about this when in Italy there's a documentary that talks about the tragedy, plus when the anniversary occurs they remember Spadino : the man who saved 10 people before ultimately dying in one of the fire shelters with another trucker
The man's a hero, but I'm sure he'd say he was just doing his job. I have so much respect for firefighters.
@@hoppytoad79 He wasn't a firefighter, he was a supervisor if I'm correct - the actual (French) firefighters basically went to their death sadly, there were problems at the department back then if i remember correctly
@@Anniiee_s They're all heros.
Good luck if you're trying to hold your breath when traveling through this particular tunnel
Just a small detail: "Midi" in French means midday, but it also has an older and rarer meaning where it translates as "South". In that case, "Aiguille du Midi" translates as "Need of the South" ;)
Heard about. Went through it on a motorbike. Got the tee-shirt.
Why would you think most would not have heard of it?
Something like the Spiral Tunnels is also an engineering marvel, but Canadian based videos tend to not do well on any of the whistler channels.
Pretty much everyone in Europe (at the very least, western and central Europe) will have heard of the Mont Blanc Tunnel! ;)
Where did Simon go? Coming back to the channel after a few months and now it's this guy?
Whenabouts you are in the world also.
I'll be honest I first heard about the fire when Jeremy Clarkson mentioned it during a Top Gear race
11:59 Hey, we had that video too, before I saw any of the Rocky or Rambo movies. I probably didn't watch it as much as you, though.
I watch a documentary about the tunnel fire, I remember its called Zero Hour.
This guy belongs in 28 days later
You didnt mention Nolan. How cpuld you forget him?
Wow the views really went down when simom left
Heard of it ? Used it . And the much longer Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland
Margarine main ingredient is vegetable oil, oil burns.
Dude, you cant say that we probely havent heard of this tunnel. The fire was all over the news in europa.
No disrespect to Simon, but it is nice to have a different host and you are acing it! I actually prefer watching videos with you as host
Woo more Karl!!!
Just a matter of time.. A fatalistic lot are we not..
Especially in the U.S., where infrastructure is complete shite these days. XP
Can we give Karl a fricken sick dat ffs. The man looks like hes staring in 28 Years Later
You should do a video on another engineering marvel that no will have heard off ... it's a big railway bridge in Scotland, I think it's called the Forth Bridge 🤣
0:54
Antifreeze heals anything 🤔
I would prefer greater emphasis on the planning and engineering of the tunnel, the political concessions, etc. It felt like so much of the video was banter and discussing the accident instead of the creation\achievement .
nice wiglett
what happened to fact boy?
He's busy AF, he's creating a network like a good fact boy should.
Oh. My. God. Every. Video. 😂😂😂
He's legit been gone for MONTHS. 😂
Jokes on you, i'm french.
Paid over 400 euro to tow a boat on the back of a jeep through there few years ago. Will take the long way next time
Who tf is this dude and why is simon whistler not doing any of these anymore?
Simon parted ways with this channel Biographics and Top10z about a year ago or so. Time to come into the present.
Didn't you notice no simon whisler on the previous videos?
"a tunnel you likely never heard of"........... 🤦
You're not Simon!
Wow, I didn't notice! Good eye!
Thanks for a video containing sh1t about the tunnel, all about you! Gen z: Me, Me, only MEEE
This would be a good watch if your intination wasn't so annoying.
1st
No, it's not the tallest mountain in Europe. It's not even in the top five
another morning, another simon video where I see some kid who isn't simon and click away asap
Oh, get over it. Simon ain't ever coming back. He's got other things to do. Besides, Karl tangents a lot more than Simon did on this channel and Biographics. Counting Top10z too. Move on.
Imagine going on a channel not owned by Simon and being angry that Simon isn't there.
Grow up.
@@resileaf9501 Well said. Well said indeed. Cheers
If you check his previous comments all he does is complain about the new host. Just a small man who feels better complaining about someone else
@@bradlevantis913 Ahhh! A troll. Gotcha. Cheers
it's sad that the Union hasn't happened. You have no sick pay and are getting coffee for Simon. You can tell how cheap he is by the clothes he wears. Same suit jacket for a few years now. At least he's stopped belching on screen.
I am sorry your parents didn't love you enough to give you a better name
Imagine paying over $50 to use a tunnel. Do Euro-peons really?? 😂😂
Karl has all the charisma of a fart in a lift. I'm not watching.
Good. Don't let the door hit you in the ass when you leave.
@@Hillbilly001 simp
So don't. No one cares.
Lame version of the channel
Just wanted to mention:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierlucio_Tinazzi
Valle d'Aosta 🖤🖤🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🟥◼️
Note. Everyone on the planet knows of it... Especially as Simon has already covered it on this channel.