Abandoned Engineering (2016–…): Season 3, Episode 8 - Sabotage In The Mountains - full transcript

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A
country village eerily empty

which hides a sad secret.

All of the citizens
of this village

have just been made
to disappear at a stroke.

A mysterious tower battered by
the elements and scarred by war.

You're out here really
in the middle of nowhere.

A town ravaged,

desolate and forgotten
decaying in the desert.

Why on earth would
anyone choose to build a town

in such a remote location?

And a disused railway deep
beneath the streets of London.



There's actually
a hidden system,

a hidden system of tunnels

that you don't get
to see they're there.

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?

On the south west
coast of england

almost 200km from London

is what looks like a normal
English country village.

But it's not.

The village pond looks like
any other village pond in england



except there's
no wildlife there.

There are no ducks,
it's eerily empty.

The feeling is very much

as though all of the
citizens of this village

have just been made
to disappear at a stroke.

Travel further in and
it gets even stranger.

A few hundred yards
from the village green

is a school that looks
perfectly preserved.

The desks are still there,
the books are still there,

it's laid out as if the children
had only been there yesterday.

There are still pegs

with their names
on out in the corridor.

It feels as if it's a school
that's still being used

but from another age.

You get the feeling
that it's break time

and the children have
just gone through the door

and are running
about outside playing.

The village church too,
is in perfect condition.

The pew seats
seem freshly polished.

And the stained glass
windows are as immaculate

as when they
were first installed.

And that's not all.

In the middle of the village
there's an old white telephone box

which seems something of
an oddity in this day and age

and even more
odd is the local story

that even though it was
disconnected decades ago it still rings.

But other buildings
hint at a darker past.

Such as the cottages

which are little more
than empty shells.

And these are in an
unusual state of disrepair,

the roofs have gone,
the fittings have gone,

the windows have gone

but yet at the same
time these wrecks,

these husks have
been strengthened.

It's almost as though
somebody is about to film a movie

about 1930s england.

Why on earth are
these buildings like this?

How can you have

a little school room
that looks intact,

a church that looks intact
but a lot of ruined cottages?

What could have
happened to leave the village

so completely abandoned?

To find out what's
behind the mystery,

we need to go
back to a single day

that would change the
course of world war ii.

In 1943, britain was at war.

To win, the allies
had to invade France

and liberate north west
Europe from Nazi control.

The first phase was code
named operation Neptune

but it's known to history
but its legendary name d-day.

It was an enormous
undertaking that would require

unprecedented
planning and training

if it was to have any
chance of success.

The scale of the preparations
certainly overwhelms the mind.

Tens of thousands of troops
found themselves billeted

mainly in the south of england

to be put through
the intensive training

they'd need to
make the invasion.

Very few of them knew when
or where it would be made,

they just knew it was coming.

It was a daunting prospect
for the British army.

They had to train vast
numbers of recruits,

many of whom hadn't
seen combat before

and they needed space and terrain
and environments that were fitting

and that were like what
they were going to face

when they arrived in France.

But what does
all this have to do

with a small and isolated
village in rural england,

a world away from
the bullets and shells

and chaos of war.

By 1943 the south
coast of england

had been transformed
into an armed camp,

11 million acres,
much of it farmland,

became air fields, camps
and training grounds.

And even more land was needed

particularly to train British
and American tank crews.

If you're training
people to operate tanks

it's not enough to just
learn how to drive it.

The really key thing is
learning how to shoot it.

So, you need long distances
to practice firing those shells

where you're not gonna hit
anything you don't want to hit.

And this was the ideal location.

It was remote and situated
close to a firing range.

It was the village of tyneham.

The only stumbling block

was that 200 people
lived in the village.

How do you tell them they
need to leave their homes,

their jobs and their
neighbours for good?

Lynda price, a local historian,

has spoken to many
former village residents.

The final blow

came in November, 1943.

And totally out of the
blue, they all got a letter.

They came from a gentleman
from southern command and on it,

he said that the area was
needed for military training

and they had basically
a month to get out.

It must have been
heart breaking.

These were people who'd
lived in this village for generations

and all of a sudden to be uprooted
and told that you have to leave.

And they expected to come back,

you know, that's what's
very poignant about it.

They thought the war would
end and they would come back

and all would be as it was.

But why exactly

did the ministry of
defence choose tyneham?

Tyneham was a
backwater in a backwater.

I mean, it was
practically off the map.

They didn't have electricity,

most of them didn't even
have indoor plumbing.

People forget how primitive

the English countryside
could be back in that era.

They lived in little cottages,

most of which were
owned by the land owner,

in fact the whole estate
was owned by the bond family

and most of these people,

their lives would have
been tied into the bonds.

So, in some senses, it
was already a way of life

that was passing or perhaps
for most people even passed.

So, the inhabitants were
simply ordered to leave

by the British government.

By why then is so much
of the village destroyed

while other parts are
almost perfectly preserved?

The army knew that the
church was vulnerable to attack

in the run up to d-day.

They removed the heavy
oak pulpit and the pews

and carefully transported
the stained glass

to a place of safety.

Tyneham is now abandoned

although it hasn't been
completely forgotten.

The sacrifices of the villagers
certainly helped the allies

make a vital step
towards final victory.

The morning of 6 June, 1944

was like no other the
war had ever seen.

Over 150,000 English,

American, Canadian and
other soldiers boarded ships,

vessels, barges of all descriptions
and attacked the French coast.

By the time the
battle there was over

and the forces were able
to push down into France,

the course of the war
had been changed forever.

D-Day was a resounding success

but the villagers weren't the
only ones who'd made sacrifices.

Two and a half
thousand us troops,

many of whom had
trained at tyneham,

lost their lives on Omaha beach.

After the war tyneham
continued to be used

as a training ground
for tank crews.

And so, the villagers
were never allowed back.

However in these
more peaceful times,

the village is open to visitors.

When I look at tyneham,

what I think about is
how much dislocation,

how much destruction,

what a human cost there
is even to winning a war,

even to non-combatance.

The level of self sacrifice
that was necessary

to conduct the kind of total war

that was required
to defeat the Nazis,

that kind of effort
boggles the modern mind.

Twenty seven kilometres
west of mackinaw city

at the northern tip of
lake Michigan in the usa

is a peculiar
tower like structure.

A mountain,

a rock sticking out
of a vast cold lake.

You're out here really
in the middle of nowhere.

And here, standing
out in the water

is this odd kind of
half-broken down structure

that's kind of crumbling
around the edges.

Sometimes dazzling
sunshine reflects from the water

on to the concrete and brick.

But rubble and dead
birds litter its interior.

It's made up of three sections
which each contain a mystery.

What was enclosed
in the caged top?

And the height
of the tower itself,

height always creates a
vantage point but for what?

Attack, defence, a warning?

Look closely

and a more perplexing
picture emerges.

On the walls are large
ominous looking cracks.

Inside everything's
been stripped out

apart from strange metal piping.

And some say it is haunted
by the ghost of a man

who met a mysterious end.

The amount of damage
on a tower suggests

it's been weathered more
than just harsh winters.

And although the pitted base
may well be from crashing waves,

is there another reason why
great chunks are missing?

I mean look at
that, a remote tower

in the middle of
nowhere in america,

the last thing you expect
to see is battle damage.

The roots of this strange
story can be found in trade

and its importance
to the Great Lakes

during the early 19th century.

Before america builds railways,

america's arteries
are waterways.

The Great Lakes
and the great canals

are what enables america to
become an industrial powerhouse.

The Great Lakes together form

really a massive inland sea

for the United
States and Canada.

And this waterway was
important for shipping goods

so, you had fur pelts

then later, grain, iron ore,

all these products moving
through this area dating from really,

you know, very early in
the history of North America.

The Great Lakes connect the
mid west with the Atlantic ocean.

Measured by total area,

they are the largest group
of freshwater lakes on earth.

And by volume, they contain 21%
of the world's surface fresh water.

Their total surface area measures
nearly 3/4 of a million kilometres.

The Great Lakes are noted

for their extraordinary
sea-like characteristics.

Here, rolling waves,

powerful winds and strong
currents are common.

In fact, according to Chris west

who has sailed these
waters for most of his life,

they are more like inland seas.

You think of lake Michigan,
we can't see the other side.

You can travel from Chicago
which is the southernmost point

to the upper
peninsula of Michigan

and that's about
400 or 500 miles long.

So, it's a very
big area of water.

However, at the
straits of mackinac,

it narrows dramatically.

This is a major shipping Lane

which connects lake
Michigan to lake huron.

But it is just 5.5km wide

with treacherous underwater
currents which have often proved fatal.

If you're on a ship in the ocean

and a storm comes up and
blows you a few miles off course,

you've got thousands of
miles of ocean around you.

But if that happens
in lake Michigan,

it's relatively narrow.

There's all these shallows.

You could be on the
rocks in just a few minutes.

In the straits of mackinac
there's over 80 shipwrecks.

This was the most
dangerous spot,

they were coming up from Chicago

and they were making the corner
to go into the straits of mackinac

and there was this spot
that there was 4 feet of water

so these ships just
kept running aground.

The us government
decided it had to intervene,

to try and put a stop
to the tragic accidents.

This was how the
waugoshance lighthouse.

But how did they
go about building

a structure as impressive as this
in the middle of such a huge lake?

You start with a
wooden crib structure

that rests on the bottom

and then you bring
out rocks on barges

and you fill this
crib with rocks.

Now, you have a stable structure
that you can build on top of.

It's a feat today to
build something like that.

And obviously back in
the day, no power tools.

It was nails and, you know,
big hammers and pulleys

and so, it was very labour-intensive
to do something like that.

The lighthouse began
operating in 1851.

It was a lifeline to all
of the maritime traffic.

This gave them their road map

of how to get through
the straits of mackinac.

So, it was hugely
important for the area.

Its light attended by a
keeper and his assistant

was visible for miles around.

The lighthouse keeper's
job was both incredibly boring

and incredibly important
at the same time.

You had to keep
that light working.

You had to keep it going.

It was a pretty remote life.

The light keepers would
go out when the ice went out

which... April-ish they would
be out there until November.

And so, they're there for
essentially seven months

by themselves not
seeing another human.

The light was generated
by an oil burning lamp

which required constant
attention and refuelling.

When the light was made
invisible by mist and fog,

a fog horn was
used to warn ships.

It was powered by steam

and it worked by emitting
a low frequency warning

through two huge metal pipes.

These are the stove pipes.

They were for the fog
signal for the light house.

They were in the
fog signal building.

You can still see the
holes in the ceiling

of the fog signal building
where these went through.

So, down these steps

brings you into the
basement of the living quarters.

And so, down here there
would have been boilers

and there would have been
supplies for the lighthouse keepers.

Then first floor would have
been living room, a kitchen.

Then you go up to the top floors

and that's where the bedrooms
of the keepers would have been.

One of the waugoshance
lighthouse keepers

was a hard drinking
man called John Herman,

a notorious practical joker.

One night, Herman drunkenly

locked his assistant
into the lantern room.

It was the last
prank he ever played.

John had had a few

and John decided he
should lock the door on him.

While all this was
happening, a storm came up.

Unfortunately, John fell
off the side of the lighthouse.

And ever since then,

he's been the notorious John
Herman of waugoshance lighthouse.

The assistant managed to escape

but John Herman disappeared
beneath the waters forever.

Legend has it that his ghost
now haunts the lighthouse.

But what caused it to
finally be abandoned?

As shipping through the Great
Lakes began to become even heavier

and the boats got bigger, and
they required a deeper draft,

they rowed lower in the water,
that channel was no longer adequate.

There was another channel
farther out into the lake

that was much deeper

so they built another
lighthouse to Mark that channel

and the waugoshance lighthouse
became kind of obsolete.

In 1912, the last keepers
left the lighthouse for good.

But that wasn't
the end of the story.

Waugoshance would
play an unlikely part

in the development of a
top secret super weapon

during world war ii.

The us Navy starts to develop

a remotely piloted
aircraft, a drone,

that can drop bombs

and sink Japanese warships.

These early drones were piloted

from another aircraft

and the operators were able to
steer them using radio control...

Looking through early
television cameras

to see what that drone can see.

The project was top secret.

It was called stag one.

They need to practice.

Guess what they picked?

Our little lighthouse
sitting out there, you know.

It no longer was
needed as a lighthouse

but it made a fantastic target.

They bombed the hell out of it.

This is one of the
remnants of the bombing run.

You can see the amount
of impact that it had

because this is 1/4
inch thick boiler plate

and then you have

about 2.5-3 feet of brick
used to come out to here,

come out to where the
boiler plate is right here.

So, when the bomb hit,
pretty intense impact for it

to be able to take 2.5
feet or 3 feet of brick

and just kind of
blow it out of there.

After the war ended,

there was no further
use for the lighthouse

and it was eventually
completely abandoned for good.

Today, it's home only to
the ghost of John Herman...

Although there are
plans to restore it.

So, here's this lighthouse

that stood there protecting
the ships for so long

and then perform
this important service

during world war ii.

And let's not let it just
crumble into the lake.

In the extreme north west of
Chile, close to its border with Peru,

there is a strange
almost apocalyptic site.

It looks almost like
some kind of film set

for an old western movie.

Everything's somewhat decayed.

Everything's rusty
but it's still standing

and in other words, it
seems very much untouched.

There's something unnerving
about the row after row of houses.

What's really strange is
where the town is located.

It's in the middle of the desert,
miles away from anywhere.

Why on earth would anyone choose

to build a town in
such a remote location?

There is a swimming pool
long ago emptied of water...

With a diving board
last used years ago...

And a ghostly playground

that will never again hear the
sound of children's laughter.

Any time you see a place that
had been inhabited by humans

and then it looks as
if they suddenly left.

It gives you an
unsettled feeling.

It gives you a sense of dread,

maybe something
terrible happened here.

But journey beyond the houses
and the buildings suddenly change.

You see, sort of,
rusted bits of machinery.

There's clearly an
engineering type of feel to it.

There's a rusted locomotive

and tracks that lead to
what looks like an old factory.

Whatever happened here

was clearly an extensive and
complex industrial operation.

But what was it?

What's even more confusing

is that most of the machinery
was made by British manufacturers.

What was its function

and how has it ended up here
in this remote part of Chile?

What you're seeing
is the global economy

dropped down here
into this remote desert.

Why is it all here?

Clues lie in the
population explosion

that happened in the
new industrial world

towards the end of
the 19th century...

And in the need to feed
huge numbers of people.

For thousands of years,

farmers grew their crops using
whatever nutrients were on hand.

The manure from
animals was collected

and that was good
enough for a time.

But in the 19th century,
they started to discover

that you could add
additional chemicals to the soil

and make your farms
dramatically more productive.

Large deposits of a mineral

that would revolutionise
food production

and transform the
fortunes of Chile

were discovered here
in the atacama desert.

The atacama covers
a 1,000km strip of land

to the west of the
andes mountains,

and it's the driest
desert in the world.

Some areas have an almost
other worldly appearance,

so much so that the soil
has drawn comparisons

with the surface of Mars.

One 16th century traveller

described the atacama
desert as "without men,

"where there is not
a bird"nor a beast

nor a tree nor any vegetation."

The arid barren landscape

has barely changed
over the centuries.

However, one mineral
was in plentiful supply.

This part of the atacama desert

is rich in a mineral that
then was called saltpetre.

Saltpetre is a name for
various forms of nitrate.

And this is a chemical

that essentially
can work as fertiliser

once you break it down.

And there's very few
places on the planet

where you can actually
find this material,

this particular type of mineral

in effect just lying
on the ground

very, very easy to
excavate and mine.

Saltpetre, then
known as white gold,

was in effect Chile's gold rush.

It accounted for 80%
of Chile's exports.

The country's economy
depended on it.

At the time, the
northern part of Chile

and southern part of Peru

were actually the main
provider of saltpetre

to the whole of the world.

Small mining villages were
springing up all over the place

to take advantage of this.

Humberstone was
one of those villages.

It's situated in
that bleak desert

almost 1,500km from the
Chilean capital of Santiago

and it was the centre

of the country's
saltpetre production.

But why does it have

the very English sounding
name of humberstone?

James humberstone
was an englishman

who arrived in this area
in the late 19th century

with a better way to
process the saltpetre.

He took over the nitrate
production facilities.

And he did it so well that
within a couple of years,

he'd doubled the productivity.

Patricio Diaz valencia is director
of investigations at humberstone

and an expert on its history.

The people who used to work
here came from different countries.

They were Bolivian.

They were Argentinean.

They were Chilean.

They all came together in this
area and created a new society.

Humberstone was a company town

the 3,700 men, women and children
who lived there owned nothing,

certainly not their houses
or even their furniture.

But these conditions
were common in Chile,

and violent worker
strikes were not unknown.

Men in humberstone
were paid in tokens

that could only be exchanged
in the local general store.

It was a harsh tough life.

Tokens were paid according
to the effort invested.

There was a minimum.

For example, in order to
receive the minimum wage

so they could live,

they had to load at least
two wagons every day.

This took approximately
12 hours each day.

Digging for saltpetre
was a gruelling business.

The workers were outside
all day in the blistering sun

with little water or shade.

They scrape up this
powdery substance

off the desert
floor, crush it, boil it

and then they went
through a series of processes

that would separate
out the valuable parts

of these compounds
from everything else.

All day long,

crushers ground the
nitrate-rich crust of the desert.

That was then dissolved in boilers
forming a toxic soup of chemicals

from which they'd
eventually extract the nitrate.

Can you imagine what a brutal
job this must have been working

in one of the
hottest, driest places,

boiling these nasty...

You know, chemicals all day.

The chimneys would have
been bellowing black smoke.

The boilers would have
been seeping out hot steam.

And the sheer danger of the
work of mining was ever-present.

So, what caused the
town to be abandoned?

Was it because of
an industrial disaster

or some other calamitous event?

Two things killed humberstone,
war and technology.

During world war I, the
British blockaded the shipments

of saltpetre from Chile
going to Germany.

And at the same time
German scientists developed

synthetic ways of
creating fertiliser

and so, had no need to
have saltpetre shipped

from the other
side of the planet.

The industry collapsed and so,
that was the end of humberstone.

The houses and
factories were abandoned

and the people simply
upped and left the town.

No-one has lived or worked
here for half a century.

The town's survival is a
freak economic accident.

After the last inhabitant
left, it was sold to a developer

but he went bust before
he was able to do anything

with the town to
strip out all the bits

that he was going to sell.

As a result, it's been
preserved by the dry desert air

and is now a United
Nations world heritage site.

You can see exactly
how these people lived.

You see also how their fortunes
were on the flick of a coin,

because once the need
for that mining left, they left.

But they left
everything in place.

In england, beneath the
busy bustling streets of London,

lies a secret
subterranean world.

There's actually a hidden
system, a hidden system of tunnels

that you don't get
to see they're there.

What are they and
what were they used for?

It looks like these
things haven't been used

for quite some time.

You've got stalactites
hanging from the ceiling,

you've got bits of water
flowing along the bottom,

and then there's water

kind of dripping down the
sides of the tunnel as well.

So, it's quite a
spooky place to be.

It looks like a little
hobbit railroad.

The track is very narrow,
only about 2 feet across.

The ceilings are very low.

So, it's really
kind of mysterious.

Who made these little
miniaturised tunnels?

These twisting tracks

stretching far into the
distance provide clues.

As you move around the tunnels,

you suddenly come into
open spaces, actual stations.

So, there are stations
in these tunnel networks.

Away from the stations,

there are more signs of
activity but from long ago.

There's empty filing cabinets.

There's desks with old
broken telephones on.

When you see overalls
draped over things,

your telephones,
kiosks, everything,

it's almost as though this place
was abandoned fairly quickly.

It seems like there wasn't
enough time to remove everything

and clear out when you left.

If it was an area that
was more accessible,

you know, scavengers
would have come in,

people might have
come in and taken stuff.

You'd see graffiti.

But because these
tunnels are really quite deep,

they really did not get
picked over or stripped.

What was it?

Who worked here?

And why has it
been left abandoned?

In the early 20th century, most
people communicated by letter.

Smooth delivery of mail was
critical particularly to London,

the country's financial hub.

So, if you have a legal
contract or you have a policy,

you have a negotiation, being
able to move those documents

around the city quickly

was part of the key to
London's economic dominance.

It could take several
hours to deliver mail

from one part of
the city to another.

Something had to be
done to speed things up.

But that was easier
said than done.

By the end of the edwardian era,

the population of London had
risen to almost 7 million people,

1 in every 5 britons
lived in the city.

The fact was that
the streets of London

were becoming more
and more crowded.

Although this teaming Metropolis

was still blighted
by grinding poverty,

this was a time of tremendous
economic growth for the city.

And the mail system
had to play its part.

In 1909, a committee was set up

to look into ways of
solving the problem.

If you think about the
streets of London back then,

they were really busy.

There were horse
carriages and animals

and all sorts of things
happening up at street level.

So, to find somewhere

where they could very
quickly and efficiently move

really important
documents around,

they had to go underground.

And this was the result,
an underground rail track

stretching 10km across
London, the mail rail.

It was a revolutionary
piece of engineering.

But the constructors faced
many problems and challenges.

London is really built on
a big swamp, an estuary.

And so, as a result, when
you start digging underground,

it's very damp,
muddy, Sandy, silty.

And they in fact encountered

one of the largest
subterranean rivers in the area

called the fleet river.

And so, water
ingressing into the tunnels

was a big problem
during engineering.

Ray middlesworth, one
of the last engineers here

is well aware of the
dangers they faced.

There were incidents when
they were digging the tunnels

and many workers
had to run for their lives

to get away from the
water bursting through.

But ways had to be found
to complete this vital project.

One of the things they
did was to add air locks

and then they pushed air
into those sections of tunnel

to keep the water out.

They also used flood gates
in portions of the tunnels,

so if water did come in,

they could isolate
those sections of tunnel

which were full of water and
then quickly pump the water out.

In 1927, the mail rail was
finally ready for service.

It was the only one
of its kind in the world.

These trains do
not have drivers.

They don't have engineers.

So, it's really the first

driverless electric vehicle
system in the world.

The system meant
they could speed mail

right across London
avoiding the congestion

on the streets above.

The new track connected
Paddington in the west

with whitechapel
station in the east

and linked up six other
sorting offices along the way.

A conveyor belt
linked the tunnels

to the mainline platforms at
liverpool street and Paddington.

Ray remembers trying to keep
the system working smoothly

while processing up
to 4 million letters a day.

You had to work under
a lot of time pressure

because once the trains stopped,

they would start backing away
all the way round the system.

And the whole rail network
would grind to a halt.

This is battery loco number
two, nicknamed 'the banana'

because of its
bright-yellow colour scheme,

which we used these locos
when the railway was shut down

to retrieve broken down trains

and do maintenance work
on the track in the weekends.

This was built in 1927.

It's still serviceable.

Sturdy beast built
by English electric,

weighs 7.5 tonnes.

And I must have jumped
in and out of that cab

about 1,000 times
during my career.

Although the engineers
somehow kept the mail rail running,

the threat of flooding
was ever-present.

This is one of the four
flood gates installed

to seal off the main
tunnel from the station

in case there was a deadly flood

and we needed to
pump our water out.

It was mechanical in operation

so that it could be relied to
operate in any circumstances.

Very sturdy.

The mail rail ran beneath
the streets of central London

until 2003.

Why is it now deserted?

By the beginning
of the 21st century,

the mail rail had simply
become too expensive to run.

It was delivering mail around
London for some 80-odd years.

And its demise, well,
we had the Internet age.

We were no longer
sending so many letters.

There was also a much better
infrastructure above ground.

So, it really lost its
economic importance.

On the last day of service,

I was one of the
engineers on duty that day

and it was my job to shut down
the power at mount pleasant.

It was historic, we had a job to
do, but we all knew what it meant.

It was the coming
to the end of an era

after 76 years. Very sad.

Today, part of the
track still lives on

as a tourist ride and museum.

And I think that
that's just fantastic

to preserve that
really important legacy.

And the real beauty
of the royal mail

underground delivery system

was that it was happening
with many people

being completely
unaware that it was there.

We didn't really know

that letters were actually
moving beneath our feet.

Now, they lie abandoned,

but once, they were at the
cutting edge of engineering.

There are echoes from history
in these decaying structures.

They remind us
of terror and war,

but also of great innovation
and human endeavour.