Abandoned Engineering (2016–…): Season 2, Episode 6 - America's Jungle City - full transcript

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Tom ward (narrates): A
symbol of the American dream

left to rust in the
Amazon jungle...

Is this some kind of movie set?

What the heck
is this doing here?

Concrete monoliths scattered
across a forest in Europe.

Who needed to build
something so well protected?

A fortified corridor of death
stretching for miles across Germany.

To keep their country existing,

they had to turn the
entire country into a prison.

And a bold
gravity-defying contraption.

Think engineers come
from all round the world



to see this mobile
sluice gate in action.

Once they were some of
the most advanced structures

and facilities on the planet,

at the cutting edge of
design and construction.

Today, they stand abandoned,
contaminated, and sometimes deadly.

But who built them and how?

And why were they abandoned?

(Theme music)

On the edge of the
Amazon rainforest,

down the tapajos river in Brazil,
is a utopian dream frozen in time.

2.5 million acres of
this hilly and rocky land

was once its own sovereign
state run by a foreign corporation.

Imagine rowing
down a Brazilian river

and you come to this site



and you see these
abandoned buildings.

And all of a sudden you come
across a purely American fire hydrant.

You would be quite
surprised to see

Cape Cod cottages,
swimming pools

existing in the middle
of the Brazilian jungle.

It would be quite
a stark contrast.

Looming over these houses
is an iconic water tower

that rises 164 feet and
dominates the landscape.

Is this some kind of movie set?

It would really play with your
head because you'd be wondering,

"what the heck is
this doing here?"

Who built this replica
American midwestern town

in the middle of
the Amazon basin?

And why was it then deserted?

The roots of this town
can be traced back

to the technological revolution
at the dawn of the 20th century.

The global expansion
of the motor industry

was hampered by the
British monopoly on rubber.

Nowhere was this felt
more than in america.

Henry Ford, the father
of the affordable motorcar,

had a vision for his empire,
to make it self-sufficient.

The key lay in obtaining
enough rubber at a decent price

to sustain and grow
his automobile company.

Henry Ford is the
consummate businessman.

He's producing cars,

cars require tires, and
rubber is expensive.

So, he has this idea,

"I'm not gonna pay
high prices for rubber.

"I'm gonna cut out the middle man
"and create my own rubber factory

'cause, after all, it grows on
trees in the Brazilian rainforest."

He looked to a location
3,000 miles away

from the car plants of Michigan,

amongst the rubber trees
of the Brazilian jungle.

This is Henry Ford's
American dream,

a home away from
home, fordlandia.

Everyone knew that
Henry Ford thought big.

That was his reputation.

So, when he sets out to build
a factory, no-one is surprised

when he actually says,

"no, I'm gonna
build an entire town."

The purpose of
building the town there

would be to create a
rubber tree plantation

in which a large concentration
of rubber trees could be cultivated

and farmed as a cheap
source of rubber for tires.

In 1928, Ford began
his ambitious plan

to build the largest rubber
plantation in the world.

This would, he hoped,
meet the growing demand

for his automobiles,

such as the recently released
and highly popular, model a.

Fordlandia was actually
quite large for its location.

Housed over 2,000 people,
had a dance hall, a hospital.

Almost as if you
took an American city

and plopped it down in the
middle of the Brazilian jungle.

It was quite a vision.

Raimundo de souza Lisboa
lives here in fordlandia

and is familiar with the
mechanical beating heart

around which the
town used to evolve.

Almost the size of Yorkshire,
this sprawling plantation

and town boasted
many of the benefits

enjoyed by Ford's
workers back in america.

But this outpost of
American engineering

would have to take root in
the middle of the rainforest,

where American
values and work ethics

were alien to the
local population.

While Ford never
visited, he tried to recreate

the middle america of
his youth in this jungle city

that bore his name.

Ford did more than build a city,

he created an independent state
geared towards rubber extraction.

So, the extraction of
latex from rubber trees

is very interesting.

Over the course of the day,

the latex will rise
up into the tree.

So, the workers would have
to go out early in the morning

when the latex was very
low, tap the tree, and extract it.

The liquid latex was then
mixed with diluted acid

which coagulated
to form rubber slabs

that were pressed through
rollers to remove excess water.

Today, the traces are all but
gone, but once these factories

were setup to process

thousands of tonnes
of rubber a year.

The achievement that
Henry Ford reached

with the Brazilian government

would be that fordlandia
was almost a sovereign state

within a sovereign state,

that no intervention would
occur and they would have

a almost carte blanche to
run the town as he saw fit.

This might be a
classic case study

in cultural insensitivity.

Henry Ford looks and sees
what is working in america,

"and I'm gonna
superimpose that in Brazil."

Exporting mainstream
america to the Brazilian jungle

was easier said than done.

They were not
allowed to drink alcohol.

They were expected to garden,
attend regular square dances,

eat specific food.

Completely alien to the people
that were living in fordlandia.

And guess what?
Doesn't turn out so well.

Trouble was brewing deep
in the Amazon rainforest.

Equipped with all
American mod cons,

this should have been a
working man's paradise.

Yet Ford's dream quickly
became a repressive nightmare

for the town's residents,

and it reached
boiling point in 1930.

There is complete mutiny.

They go out and they
cut the telegraph wires.

They chase the managers
and the cook into the jungle.

The Brazilian army has to
come in and sort things out.

They had simply had enough.

So, these strict guidelines
ultimately backfired

because the people of
fordlandia just refused to live

in such a fashion that
was so strict and draconian.

It was not just
fordlandia's town

that was doomed to destruction,
the plantation fared little better.

Ford knew automobiles,
but he was no biologist.

His team in the Amazon

consisted of top Ford
factory trained men

but lacked rubber specialists.

His bid to industrialise

the biological world
ended in catastrophe.

Unknowingly, the seeds
of fordlandia's failure

were sown right from the start.

Henry Ford failed in his attempt

to manufacture an
alternative rubber source.

They planted the
trees side by side.

That's not how you do it.

They're prone to disease
and there's a domino effect,

when they're too close
together, they all die.

The whole thing just
wasn't very well thought out.

Already teetering on the edge,

Ford's high hopes for fordlandia
finally came crashing down

when synthetic rubber
flooded the market.

For all of his $20
million investment,

virtually no rubber
was produced.

Fordlandia ultimately failed

not only due to the
lifestyle restrictions

but also economic reasons.

Synthetic rubber came about
such that the economic advantage

of growing your own rubber trees,
that advantage no longer existed.

In 1945, fordlandia
was sold back

to the Brazilian government
for just a little over $200,000.

Its sawmill, hospital, houses,
and streets were abandoned.

For 60 years, it
lay eerily derelict,

a ghost town of
enormous proportions.

But today, fordlandia has
been partially reclaimed

by the local population as
a readymade place to live.

American culture
has been exported

to the entire world, but
that was done by choice.

People chose little bits of it
because it was intriguing to them.

But we have forgotten the era
when we attempted to superimpose

what we thought was
best on other cultures.

We did do that.

And fordlandia might
be the best example

of that cultural insensitivity.

And I don't think we
should forget that.

Over 5,000 miles
away in rural Germany

lies the remnants of a
truly extensive structure.

Surrounding the
town of hotensleben

are strips of ploughed
earth, knotted metal,

and crumbling concrete.

Was a very unique and
specialised construction.

9 feet high fortified
concrete walls,

topped with barbed wire
enclosed swathes of open land,

all watched over
by menacing towers.

What was the purpose of
these intimidating constructions?

And why are they still here?

Their purpose can be traced
back to the demise of the third reich.

With Nazi Germany's
defeat in 1945,

the country was divided
amongst the conquering powers.

Democratic western
Germany ruled by the allies,

and communist eastern
Germany by the Soviet union.

But the borders were
open with no walls.

The Soviets sought
to protect their border

and their ideology in the shadow
of their great western rivals.

At first, the west
Germans did not recognise

the existence of east Germany
and would openly defy the border

in terms of provocative
visits as well as things

that would do to intentionally
irritate the east Germans.

With the cold war in full swing,
the openness of the border

dramatically changed
on may 26, 1952.

To protect the eastern zone,

the Soviets built a
true manifestation

of the iron curtain,

the inner German border defence,

one of the deadliest
borders in history.

When Winston Churchill said,

"an iron curtain has
descended across Europe,"

this is what he
was talking about.

32 times longer
than the Berlin wall,

it ran for 866 miles,

cutting through a huge
chunk of the country.

The scale of the border
defence was enormous.

It went from the
baltic all the way south

to the centre of Germany.

Some places kilometres
wide with stretches of land

that were completely
devoid of trees

to prevent people
from gaining any cover.

Man (on radio): It is from
somewhere behind this steel barrier

that attack would come,

should the communists
employ armed force

to press their dream
of world domination.

Yet far from acting as a
launching point for an attack

on the west, this wall served
a very different purpose.

This is nothing to do
with a military defence line,

whatever the east
German government said.

This was totally
orientated, as the Berlin wall,

against their own people.

The communist regime
dictated every aspect of life

in the German
Democratic republic.

Despite its name,

it was neither
Democratic nor a republic.

With no free elections,
no division of powers,

and no freedom of movement,
it functioned as a dictatorship,

enforced by a repressive
secret police, the stasi.

With more than 100,000 employees
and a vast network of informants,

they spied on the population
and crushed opponents,

often covertly disrupting
their personal lives.

Floods of people desperately try
to escape to the Democratic west.

A mass exodus, however,

would be disastrous for
the east German economy.

East Germany was
a pretty vicious place.

To keep their country
going, existing,

they had to essentially turn
the entire country into a prison.

Man (on radio): This is
where the free world ends

and the communist
dominion begins,

for this is the
frontier of freedom.

To try and prevent escapees,

the Soviets started
construction in 1952

of what they called
the anti-imperialist wall.

The construction of
the border defences

came in phases.

Early on, it was very
small and modest.

But then as tensions grew
between the east and west,

significant effort was put into
making the border defences

larger and more fearsome.

Dr Susan baumgartl and her
family lived in east Germany

behind this very wall.

The fortification
consisted of two fences.

One to the western side
was called enemy watts

and was a metal grid fence.

Next to this outer fence
was an anti-vehicle barrier.

And in front of this
was a 6m ploughed strip

to see footprints of refugees.

Citizens fleeing
across the border

were treated as criminals
and if caught were heavily fined

and imprisoned for
up to three years.

Yet it proved an
ineffective deterrent.

People continued to attempt
this dangerous crossing.

So, the defences became
ever more elaborate and brutal.

In addition to a wall,
you had watch towers,

command posts,
electronic sensors.

They cleared brush,
trees, villages, everything

so that they had
a clear line of sight

and sadly a clear line of fire.

More than a symbol of
an oppressive regime,

for the many who wanted to
escape, it was a murderous reality.

Now, a manicured
stretch of land,

it is hard to imagine this
was once a death strip.

And it was indiscriminate,
running through farms,

coalmines, towns,
and even houses,

nothing was allowed
to stand in its way.

So, similar to the Berlin wall
that split Berlin basically in half.

The defence border split
communities along the border,

in some ways completely
destroying homes

and the economic activity was
completely destroyed as well.

By 1961, east Germans,

country of 17 million people,

they're leaving east Germany
at the rate of a million a year.

Over time, the border
developed from a protected frontier

into an elaborate
fortification system.

Combined with the
newly built Berlin wall,

the number of people
escaping to the Democratic west

was slashed to
almost 2,500 per year.

So, as the border defences
were increased in size,

the buffer zone
between the border itself

and almost like a no
man's land was increased.

More guard towers were added,
mine fields were introduced.

Tremendous amount of resources
were put into creating effectively

an iron curtain in between
east and west Germany.

Through the 1970s
and into the '80s,

it reached its peak with 30 guards
patrolling each 3.5 mile stretch.

This is the inner metal
grid fence facing the east.

It has, on the inside,

the thin layers of wire
that were electrified.

People were trying to
climb over the fence,

they would touch these wires
and then an alarm would go off.

60,000 anti-personnel mines
were developed specifically

to deter border crossings.

Yet 48 people still attempted
this perilous crossing

and were killed or injured
by these mines alone.

Over its life, hundreds
of people were killed

trying to cross over
from east Germany

to west Germany.

They were shot,
stepped on landmines,

attacked by guard dogs.

But it wasn't just
civilians who tried to flee.

Even the east German border
guards sometimes deserted their posts

in the hope of making
it to west Germany.

Soon, escape attempts
were no longer necessary.

A series of revolutions across
the Soviet union's satellite states

in 1989 caused a chain reaction.

It culminated in the
demise of this iron curtain.

Immortalised by the
fall of the Berlin wall

on 9 November, 1989.

With unification,

the stasi's extensive
surveillance files

held on millions of east Germans
were laid bare for all to see.

With every citizen able to
inspect their personal file.

The beginning of the
end of the Soviet empire.

Within two years, east and
west Germany were reunited.

In many ways coming full circle

and ending what world
war ii had produced.

Everybody remembers the images
of the Berlin wall coming down.

The inner defences, it
wasn't quite so dramatic.

With the reunification
of Germany,

many of the defences
in this border zone

just fell into disuse and
many were dismantled,

trying to encourage
economic activity

between east and west Germany.

Much of the inner German
border defence was dismantled,

creating millions
of tonnes of debris,

45 years to the day
after it was opened,

the wall was
officially abandoned.

Today, this section is a
memorial to its dark past

as well as a unique
nature reserve.

Once a notorious death strip,

it is now home to a wealth of
diverse habitats and species.

The preservation of the
border defence structure

is with the barbed
wire and the towers

I think are helpful
reminders for future people

about what the history

of east and west German
relations were like.

Today, it doesn't necessarily
look all that impressive

or all that scary.

It's just a strip of greenery

with a little road
running through it.

But you have to remember
that when it was active,

it was a death zone for
anyone who tried to escape.

Over 500 miles
away in east Poland

is a secret forest complex.

Hidden under the canopy,
camouflaged amongst the pine trees,

mammoth structures
sprawl across an area

covering 1,500 square miles.

You're in the middle
of a Polish forest

and you're hiking along,

the last thing you expect
to find is a concrete jungle.

What's this doing here?

These just suddenly
appear from amidst the trees.

Who needed to build
something so well protected?

These immense windowless
giants grow in size to 43 feet high

and 69 feet wide, with few
hints to their true purpose.

The walls are so thick

it's as though they'd
been built to withstand,

you know, some sort of
an apocalypse, but what?

Why built this foreboding complex
in the middle of thick forest?

And why has it been
abandoned to nature?

The answer lies in the
early years of world war ii.

By October 1940, Hitler's
expanded third reich

had swallowed up
much of Western Europe.

However, having failed
to gain air superiority

over the royal air force,

the Nazi invasion of Great
Britain was postponed.

And in June 1941, Hitler
turned his attentions east,

with operation barbarossa,

the Nazi invasion
of the Soviet union.

As the Nazis embarked on
the largest military operation

in history, crossing
vast tracts of land,

Hitler needed fully
functioning bases of operations

near the eastern frontlines.

He looked to the mamerki forest.

Hitler knows that he
was going to be fighting

modern industrial warfare.

And when his people create
command and control facilities,

they make the most

technologically
enabled facilities

that you see anywhere
in the second world war.

The largest and most impressive
of these fortified command centres

was this, mauerwald,
German army headquarters.

From here, the
army's high command

controlled the war
on the eastern front.

It was a fully
functional military town,

and it had to be defended.

So, it had barbed wire, a
mine field, a post for gunners.

What they build in
the forest of Poland

is a mirror image of Berlin.

Hitler himself has got his
own bunker and staff facilities.

And that ensures that when
Hitler is away from Berlin,

running the war,

Hitler is still able to
retain his tight grip

on power over the Nazi empire.

Just 13 miles from
Hitler's bunker,

nicknamed the wolf's lair,

top secret construction of
mauerwald was underway

in the fall of 1940.

To prepare the site, military
engineers drained marshland

and cut down swathes of trees
in this mosquito-infested forest.

In case the enemy
should discover the facility,

they spread the bunkers
out over a vast area.

It was to reduce the risk.

If you had an attack of
paratroopers or a bomb,

it could have decimated
the entire thing at once.

So, they spread them
out to reduce that chance.

This military city sprawled
across the mamerki forest.

Made up of three
sections, codenamed Fritz,

brigitt-Anna and quelle,

they were dedicated
to operations, logistics,

and communications.

It was all very
orderly and laid out

as if it were some kind of, you
know, bureaucratic operation

and not a central
hub of brutal warfare.

Items of most importance
were housed inside

reinforced concrete bunkers,

while staff and
personnel were billeting

in more temporary accommodation
made of brick or wood.

Born and raised in the local area,
bartek plebanczyk manages the site.

So, you have to
imagine that all the area

was full of the wooded houses

and were camouflaged
by the plastic trees

which were put around
these wooden houses

or on the top of this
roof of this bunker.

Real thought went into the
camouflage of this complex.

There were artificial trees
for different months of the year,

coinciding with the
changing seasons.

The bunkers were
extremely well fortified.

But what was really unique
about these monolithic structures

were the rooms
themselves were very tiny.

It's as though they anticipated
some sort of military cataclysm

and they were
built to withstand it.

The walls of these
bunkers are 7m thick.

And on the top of my head,
you have 7m of concrete.

This bunker is
getting smaller inside.

The rooms are really small,

but the comfort is
not the key area here.

The most important thing is to
be protected from the bombing.

So, it gave you 100%
chances to survive.

To reduce the chance of
allied aerial bombardment,

the engineers added
seagrass to the concrete mix,

which accelerates
the growth of moss,

providing the bunkers with a
natural and fast camouflage.

And it had another
unexpected benefit.

Seagrass is able to incorporate

into the outer surfaces
of the buildings

in order to stop the
concrete chipping.

In the summer of 1941, 40
generals and 1,500 officers

and personnel
moved into mauerwald

and engaged in their top
secret work both day and night,

managing the ever
expanding German army.

German traditions of
command and control mean

that the general goes off in a car
or a tank and commands in the field,

but then he's backed
up by a chief of staff

and a huge number
of staff officers

who stay back in a
headquarters in radio contact

and run the army while
the general runs the battle.

To keep up morale
deep in this Polish forest,

Hitler insisted that
this concrete fortress

be made a home away from home.

One thing that's striking
is just how big it was,

200 buildings, bunkers,
air-raid shelters.

But also a lot of things you would
associate with a small resort city.

They had a movie theatre.

They had a casino
close to the front lines

on the eastern front.

Hidden in this remote location,

well away from key
towns and transport routes,

it was imperative this
complex be fully independent.

As a military headquarters,
it had to be self-sufficient.

So, they had their own power
plant, they had their own heating plant,

they had their own
supply of water.

They could live, they could
survive cut off from their supplies

for a long period of time.

Over the course of three years,
Hitler spent a staggering 800 days

in the concrete bunkers of
his eastern front headquarters

and wolf's lair.

When Hitler made
his intent clear

in the briefing rooms
of the wolfsschanze,

the senior officers would
then get into their cars,

drive over to mauerwald, and
they would put it into practice.

Nazi army personnel
were successfully concealed

within this complex
for three long years.

Through bitter Polish winters
and scorching summers,

yet it wasn't enough
to prevent the failure

of Hitler's misguided
venture in the east.

No matter how good
the German officers are

who worked in the mauerwald,

they could not fulfil

the twisted unrealistic
ambitions of Hitler.

By the Autumn of 1944,
Nazi Germany was fighting

losing battles on two fronts.

The vengeful red army
was hot on the heels

of the retreating axis forces.

In January 1945,
Hitler's staff had no option

but to flee the complex.

The Germans had no choice
but to retreat and quickly.

So, mauerwald was just
left intact, a ghost town.

Hitler's retreating
army had only 48 hours

to escape Stalin's forces,

leaving no time to
sabotage their concrete city.

Unlike the nearby wolf's lair,

mauerwald was left
to the forest fully intact.

Today, these concrete
monoliths, just a short trip

from the hugely
popular tourist attraction

of the wolf's lair,
are virtually forgotten.

Yet they survive as the
most complete example

of Hitler's forest
command centres.

What we see today is just
the scale of the ambition

of the Nazis to dominate Europe
and the time they were willing

to put into building
infrastructure

and everything else they needed
to extend their military reach

is impressive and
horrifying at the same time.

Across Europe in
south west France,

lying in the region of montech,
is a mystifying construction.

Cutting through this
deceptively flat land

is a 20-foot wide
concrete channel.

Over 400 foot long, it's
partially filled with water.

Yet clearly not a canal lock,
its purpose is initially baffling.

Engineers come from
all around the world

to see this because
there's something quite,

I don't know, maybe
hypnotic, mesmerising about it.

The gradient of
this slope is just 3%,

but it's full length of 443m
gives a total incline of 43 feet.

It sort of defies
logical explanation,

but yet they built it.

The channel is flanked by two
unusual eight wheeled vehicles.

They are connected by a
metal frame and large panel

weighing 200 tonnes and
suspended over the water.

This might be a terribly
impractical design,

but it's also kind of inspiring.

It's so Heath Robinson.

We're all used to seeing water
cascading down under gravity,

whereas suddenly, we're
using a very simple mechanism

to get water uphill.

What is this
strange contraction?

And why is it here
intact, yet abandoned?

1600s, trade between
the mediterranean

and the Atlantic still relied on a
treacherous month-long passage

around the coast of Spain.

As far back as the
Roman emperor Augustus,

leaders dreamt of
linking the two seas.

Finally, the 1660s saw the
birth of the two seas canal

that would eventually
cut through France

with 270 miles of canal to increase
and speed up commercial traffic.

Yet, at montech, the canal
had a flight of five locks,

and this caused congestion
and frustrating delays.

The canal lock, the ability
to take a boat and raise it

or lower it so it
can travel by water

up and over hills is one
of the greatest advances

in technological history.

The problem is each one
needs to be filled or emptied

as you go through the
process, and it's time consuming.

Christian moretto of the
French waterways network

is in charge of canals
across this region.

Three centuries after the
two seas canal project began,

French engineer
professor Jean aubert

produced this
revolutionary contraption.

The pente d'eau or water slope.

The French water slope

was an absolutely
revolutionary alternative

to the traditional
way of using locks.

They brought the
boat into this section

at the bottom of
the slope, enclosed,

basically, a very large puddle
of water around the boat,

and then moved the
puddle up the slope

with powerful locomotives.

In a way it's absolutely crazy,
but it's also kind of brilliant.

Built in 1974, this
pioneering water lift

could carry fully loaded
barges to its peak at 43 feet.

The principle of the water
slope is actually very simple.

If you were trying to bail water
out of your sink, for example,

you would just use your hand
and basically push the water out,

and what you're
doing is you're raising

the level of the
water at some depth,

and then it kind of
goes over the side.

With the water slope, you're
starting from a level plane

and you're going
up an inclined slope.

So, the principle is the
same, you use a mechanism

to shunt the water up
and create a body of water

that's deep enough for a boat

or a barge to
actually float through.

To push 53,000 cubic
feet of water up a slope

along with a loaded barge
takes masses of power.

What I love about
the pente d'eau is that

you can see
exactly how it works.

It's all there in front of you.

It's a channel that a
barge will come into

and a gate shuts behind it.

Once this barrier
shut behind the barge,

it created a water tight seal,
trapping a wedge of water.

The barge would
then float on this wedge

or puddle of water as it was pushed
along the now enclosed channel.

And then powered by
two great locomotives

on either side of that canal,
they slowly roll forward on tracks,

bringing the gate with it.

And as that gate pushes
up along the canal,

it pushes water with it.

The engine units travelled
at one 1.5 miles per hour,

using a pushing
effect of 63 tonnes,

equivalent to a whopping
127,000 pound foot of torque.

But how do you control
this much raw power?

Moving over 1,000 feet
on a concrete monorail,

these enormous wheels took 6
minutes to complete the journey.

Two locomotives on
either side of this trench

start dragging this
dam up the hillside,

until you get to the top,
then you open the gates there

and the boat sails
happily on its merry way.

Thousands of boats, weighing
up to 250 tonnes apiece

passed along the
water slope in a puddle

of 1,500 cubic metres of water.

I mean I love this thing.

I love the simplicity of
the engineering behind it.

But it's 1970s technology.

These two whopping
great big diesel engines

slowly pushing
canal boats uphill.

It just isn't 21st
century technology.

Between the locomotives,
the construction of the slope,

the water seal to
prevent the water

that's carrying the boat
from just running away.

All of these things put together

make the reproduction
of this extremely difficult.

For 35 years, the water slope
served the two seas canal,

lifting over 10,000 boats

and travelling a distance
of nearly 2,500 miles.

In 2009, however, engine
failure sealed its fate.

The only contraption
of its kind in the world,

it was deemed too expensive
to reproduce the parts

needed to keep this
unique machine running.

Not every cool engineering
idea really turns out

to work in the real world.

I think the water slope
is an example of that.

Really, it was out of its time.

So, had it come at the
time when canals were really

the life vein of
the industrial world

that we lived in,
perhaps we would have

seen hundreds of examples.

A lack of demand
and repair costs

mounting up to almost
4 million pounds ensure

that the water slope remains
motionless and abandoned.

Today, it continues to
draw visiting engineers

from all over the world,

engineers fascinated
by this bold creation.

Even if it wasn't a particularly
successful invention,

I think engineers need to
be reminded every so often

that they need to break out
of, you know, the tunnel vision

of this how things have
been done for a long time

and actually create
something really extraordinary.

Now abandoned,

they were once on the cutting
edge of human engineering.

Within these decaying structures
are the echoes of history.

They speak of war and terror

but also of exploration
and human endeavour.

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