All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S02E05.The.Abandoned.Nazi.Railway.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Tom ward: A vast,
ornate structure

abandoned high in the
pyrenees mountains.

It's a surprising building
to find in that location.

A wrecked research facility
in Russia's arctic tundra.

Something that looks
completely bizarre,

we actually have a window
into the interior of our planet.

A mysterious military base
lost in the American desert.

Looks like it was hit
by an atomic bomb.

And a towering maze
of concrete beams.

So, creating these large,
flowing, beautiful shapes

is actually quite challenging.

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 border of
France and Spain,

a tiny village of
just 500 people

sits in a steep-sided valley.

At this remote location,

4,000ft up in the
pyrenees mountains,

are the remains of a
gigantic derelict structure.

Rob bell: It's a surprising
building to find in that location.

It's grand, it's
almost palatial.

And yet, there it is,

plonked down in the middle
of the pyrenees mountains

with not that much of
civilisation around it.

It's neither a disused
factory nor power plant,

but rather a glass
and marble palace.

Its ornate three-storey facade

has 365 windows

and 156 doors...

And it stretches 800ft

along the narrow valley floor.

The idea that
anybody would build

something so grand

in a place that is almost
impossible to get to,

that is astonishing.

Immense effort has gone
into creating beautiful buildings

with a mix of classicism
and art nouveau...

So why is it here,

isolated in the mountains?

And why was it abandoned?

In the mid-19th century,

Spain was still largely cut off

from France and
Europe by the pyrenees.

This mountain range stretches
260 miles along the border.

The lack of trade routes

severely restricted
the nation's economy.

The Spanish government realised
that they desperately needed

a transport route
through the mountains.

The idea of a train line

that would cross the pyrenees

was extremely appealing,

and when it was undertaken,

it was a massive
engineering project.

It was almost like a
Panama canal type of project,

with super-long tunnels

and Bridges.

Years of very, very
challenging engineering.

The central connection
point was this,

the canfranc international
railway station.

Building was underway in 1923.

Its critical importance
lay in overcoming

a specific engineering
miscalculation.

When early Spanish railways

developed in the late 1800s,

engineers decided to employ

a broad Gauge track of 5'5".

Yet France,

along with most of Europe,

matched the international
Gauge of 4'8.5".

It was a fateful decision.

There was no way
of physically altering

the track width or wheel Gauge.

Spanish trains ran on
a different width of track

than French trains,

so they had to find
a station big enough

to unload the French trains,

load everything onto
the Spanish trains

or vice versa.

The only solution was
to create a transfer point

from one track
Gauge to the other.

So canfranc had
to be constructed

on a huge scale.

Completed in 1928,

it was one of the longest and
highest-altitude rail stations

in Europe.

It was dubbed the
'Titanic of the mountains'.

By building this huge,
impressive station in the pyrenees,

it would open up new,

strong trade routes into France

and then into the
whole of Europe.

Fernando Sanchez morales

is the current
mayor of canfranc.

On 18 July, 1928,

king Alfonso of Spain formally
opened canfranc station

and declared, "the
pyrenees no longer exist."

With border protection,

a hotel, restaurants

and 2,000 staff,

canfranc rivalled any of
the major stations of Europe.

Spain, they think,
has finally arrived

and is once again
a player in Europe.

But dark clouds loomed
large on the horizon.

A year later,

the wall street crash
sparked the great depression

and, by 1936,

king Alfonso was in exile,

with Spain in the grip
of a bloody civil war.

Rebel nationalist leader
general Franco ordered

the vital somport
tunnel be blocked

to prevent arms reaching

the republican government.

Canfranc becomes the last stop

on a railway to nowhere.

The canfranc station
had the misfortune

of sitting right on kind
of a geopolitical fault line.

Tunnels were closed for a time

then because the
Spanish government

was afraid of people
smuggling in supplies.

The station was commandeered

by Franco's army

as the Spanish general
employed the help of Adolf Hitler

to quash republican
and communist forces.

For Hitler, it provided an arena

to test out his latest weapons,

armoured units and planes

of his newly created luftwaffe.

In 1939,

Franco secured victory

and established himself
as fascist dictator.

The station reopened,

but its tumultuous
existence was set to continue.

A flood of Jews and refugees,

fleeing persecution
of Nazi Germany,

passed south
through the station.

Ironically, at the same time,

Franco sent shipments of
supplies through canfranc

to help feed
Hitler's war machine.

Gold and metals for
the production of arms

poured through the mountains

and across the border.

When the Nazis invaded
France in the second world war,

canfranc station provided

a really important railway link

for Jewish refugees
escaping France into Spain.

But going the other way,

it also provided a
route for the Germans

to export gold ore

from Spain into France

and effectively into
the German reich.

It was also a through-route

for agents engaged
in acts of espionage.

This train line was a vital link

between southern France

and, essentially,
the outside world.

It allowed

supplies and information,

travel, to the
French resistance.

They were even used
for some spy missions,

where some very brave young women
would carry packages of information

out to Spain,

where they would
ultimately be delivered on

to the allies in britain.

In a final twist of irony,

as the war progressed,

canfranc became
a key escape route,

not for Jews,

but Nazis.

With defeat appearing
ever more inevitable

through 1945,

Nazi leaders flooded through,

carrying tonnes of looted gold.

Because almost the only way
to get from France into Spain

and onto a ship to
somewhere else in the world,

because that requires you
to get off the train at canfranc,

to walk through
canfranc station...

That one facility

becomes a route for evil people

to get away and seek safety

in South America.

After the war,

with just a trickle of
international passengers,

the majestic halls of canfranc

grew more and more
shabby and neglected.

And 42 years after
it opened its doors,

it was forced to
shut down for good.

As vital as it was,

the rail line was
never profitable.

And then in 1970, there
was a train accident

that destroyed
one of the Bridges.

They never rebuilt it.

I think it became
kind of an excuse

to let the rail line
just fall into decay.

Because by that time,

air travel was becoming
more affordable,

highways were better,

trucks were better,

they had more alternatives

to this very
difficult railroad line.

With the rail
line out of action,

canfranc was
abandoned in the 1970s

and left to rust.

Today, the station's opulence
and grandeur remain for all to see.

A lot of travellers
wanna make a pilgrimage

to see this
magnificent train station

and there's something
poignant about

people working so hard on
some ambitious technology

and infrastructure
that never quite works

and then it has to be abandoned

and it just kind of
slowly rots away.

We may never truly
know which Nazis

and what treasures passed
through these platforms.

Those secrets may
forever stay hidden

in the shadows of the
pyrenees mountains.

But canfranc station

may yet live to see another day.

Around 2,500 miles northeast,

on the kola peninsula

where Russia meets Norway,

is a deserted industrial site.

A cluster of
dilapidated buildings

is surrounded by lakes

and forgotten in this
barren arctic tundra.

The only living
creatures to be seen

are arctic rabbits
taking shelter

amongst the debris.

Well, the kola peninsula
is extremely remote.

It's very, very far north,
almost to the north pole.

Ruined concrete buildings

are littered with
twisted wreckage

and smashed equipment.

And at the centre
of all this carnage,

one building appears to
have been ripped apart.

There's all of these
buildings, partly derelict.

What was going on here?

Was it some sort of
concentration camp?

Was it some sort
of military base?

So, what took place

in this bleak and
inhospitable corner

of Russia's arctic north?

And why was this site abandoned?

In the 1960s,

the Soviet union was embroiled

in a military and
technological race

with its ideological Nemesis,

the United States.

The cold war was played out

in a nuclear arms
race and a space race,

but they were also
engaged in a race

to better understand
our own planet.

A scientific investigation
of the geology

hidden thousands of feet
beneath the earth's surface.

At the moment,

the way that we
look inside the earth

is through what we
call seismic waves.

You make a big explosion
on the earth's surface

and we see the way the
shockwaves travel into the earth

and back out again.

And we come up with
structures, we find barriers in there.

But what are they?

In the '60s and '70s,

there was this huge fascination
with the structure of the earth

and trying to figure out

if you could drill down
through the earth's crust,

the top layer, into the mantle,

which is the soft
kind of plastic layer

that lies under the crust.

It was almost like a
subterranean space race,

who could get down
the deepest first?

This complex is the site
of an extraordinary project

to uncover the secrets of the
earth's geological structure.

This is the kola
superdeep borehole.

Just nine inches in diameter,

this simple and
unremarkable metal lid

opened a new scientific frontier

and it was undertaken in
direct competition with the usa.

In the '60s, the Americans
had started a project

called mohole

to try to dig down
through the crust.

They didn't get very
far, but they learned a lot.

On Guadalupe island, Mexico,

American geologists penetrated

just 601ft into the seabed...

Though this was 11,600ft

beneath the
surface of the water.

The Russians, however,
were aiming to achieve

more than four times that depth.

Their main target
was to hit 15,000m

or 49,000ft.

And then the Russians
came back in 1970

with this superdeep borehole.

Drilling in this cold
location gave them

one distinct advantage.

The kola peninsula sits in
an area of very, very old crust,

it's called a shield,

really old crust,

and what's important there

is that the temperature
increase as you go with depth

is very light,

so you have much more chance

of getting deeper
before it gets too hot.

Could the Soviets dig
deeper into the earth's crust

than humans had
ever managed before?

Construction of
this desolate facility

began in 1965...

And in may 1970,

drilling was underway.

The prize for Soviet engineers

was not just outdoing the usa.

It was gaining
new geological data

and access to the
earth's resources.

Despite its extreme
and remote location,

this base offered them
the best chance of success.

This is a very
out-of-the-way place.

They had to bring

in all the materials
and expertise,

but the Soviet
union did a lot of that.

They were good at infrastructure

and building big,

sophisticated bases
in remote locations.

Sergei nesterenko

is a Russian engineer

and experienced drilling
this challenging borehole.

The first problem
they encountered

was one of basic physics.

The borehole was only
nine inches in diameter,

but the immense torque created
by having to turn drill tubing

that weighed over
a million pounds

made the task impossible.

Soviet engineers turned
to a radical new solution...

An annular-shaped core drill.

The technology with drilling

is you actually
just have the drill bit

at the end and moving.

You force mud and other things
down to keep this thing moving

and that's where it's
grinding away at the rock.

And in between,
you can take out,

essentially, the shaft of
rock, what we call the core,

and look at the
structure of the earth.

As they ground
deeper and deeper,

the drilling process became

ever more fraught
with difficulty.

The deeper you drill,

the harder it is to manage
the drilling process.

Equipment can get
stuck in the hole,

the temperatures
get really high,

the rock doesn't
behave properly.

So this was a huge
technological achievement

for its day.

For over a decade,

they drilled into the
crust using a 200-tonne,

200ft-high drilling machine

housed in a huge yellow tower

in the centre of
the borehole site.

Drilling deep into the
earth's crust at an average

of 196ft a month

wore out 25 miles of piping

simply from the
friction and heat.

Despite these difficulties,

kola became the
deepest hole in the world,

reaching an astonishing 39,000ft

below the surface.

Dan dickrell: The borehole
beat the world record in 1979.

It was almost 40,000ft
below the surface,

which is an amazingly deep
distance when you think about it.

The marianas trench,

which is the deepest
place in the ocean,

is not even near that deep.

As news of the incredible depths

being reached by the
kola site was released...

Rumours about its
discoveries began to spread.

The fact that the borehole
had been dug so deeply

was used to create a hoax,

which was called
the 'well to hell'.

You listened really close and
put a microphone underneath,

you could actually
hear people screaming.

This was later debunked
as a complete hoax

but the fact that the
hole goes so deeply

ignited people's imagination.

Drilling continued down

to more than 39,500ft...

At which point drilling
was suspended for a year.

This led to catastrophe.

When work resumed,

the drill twisted off.

16,000ft of drill pipe

had to be
abandoned in its shaft.

When you're drilling

so deep into the earth's crust,

you're actually miles away
from where you are on the surface

and you're drilling
and drilling away.

That's one thing.

If you then take
the drill bit out

and then you try
and re-enter the hole,

that's when it can cause
many, many problems.

It's like trying to
find that needle

in a haystack down to
where you were drilling before

and the drill bit
itself can get stuck

and you can break
the drill string.

And in this instance,

thousands of feet of
drill string were broken.

Engineers now had
to start a new hole

from an offshoot

at 23,300ft.

It took another five years

to borehole down
to the amazing depth

of 40,230ft.

But at this incredible depth,

drilling became
practically impossible.

The Soviets discover that, when
you get far enough underground,

the rocks are no longer rocks.

'Cause as you go down,

it starts getting hotter

and, as it gets hotter, it's
harder for the equipment,

for your drill
equipment to hold up,

but also the rock itself
begins to get a little bit soft,

it begins to flow a
little bit like silly putty.

With their equipment
failing rapidly

as they encountered
staggeringly high temperatures,

the engineers at
kola had no option

but to halt drilling.

Though they failed to
reach their target depth,

they pushed scientific
knowledge of the earth's structure

further than ever before

and made astonishing
discoveries.

One thing that surprised them was
they discovered a lot of water deep,

deep down in the borehole,

way below where you
would find groundwater

or any effects of ocean water.

Dan dickrell:
Scientists also found

there was a tremendous amount
of hydrogen trapped in the rocks,

which was completely unexpected.

They theorised it
came from water

that had been
squeezed so strongly

that it actually
released hydrogen gas.

They're not the only
discoveries they made.

The micro-fossils
found that deep

were actually
single-celled organisms

that had existed long, long ago

and scientists were
very surprised that

life could even exist or
could be found that deeply.

The kola borehole managed

to penetrate nearly
a third of the way

through the baltic
continental crust.

It is the deepest
artificial point on earth,

a record it still holds today.

Due to a lack of funding,

however, Russia
closed the facility in 2005.

Today,

a simple welded steel plate

is the only sign that
the world's deepest hole

lies directly beneath your feet.

You wouldn't necessarily know,

but you could be standing
on that little metal plinth,

that beneath you,

there's more than
seven miles of knowledge

of what's going on
inside the earth's surface.

And that, to me,
is really fascinating.

From something that
looks completely bizarre,

we actually have a window

into the interior of our planet.

Nearly 5,500 miles to the west,

in southern California,

is the salton sea...

A shallow, saline body of water

that covers 350 square miles

of the Colorado desert

and lies directly on
the San Andreas fault.

It's an extraordinary feature

of the California desert,

a 30-mile-long lake

in middle of the wilderness.

On the northeast corner,

sun-bleached timbers

reveal the remains
of an old dock

half-buried in the desert sand.

Rotting fish strewn
along the beach

fill the air with
the smell of death.

You have desolation
and, basically, decay.

It's like a graveyard.

A solitary building has
been blasted by the elements

and its crumbling remains

overlook the Sandy shore.

But occasionally revealed
by the morning sands

are broken concrete roadways,

half-buried bunkers,

the foundations of
long vanished buildings

and two 4,000ft-long runways.

There's dead fish
along the shoreline.

It's one of the most famous

post-apocalyptic landscapes

in all of the United States.

Why was this mysterious
installation built

in such a remote and
hostile area of desert?

And why was it abandoned?

In December 1944,

teams of scientists
began arriving

at an air station just
south of salton city.

They were part
of a vital mission,

to beat Nazi Germany in the
race to develop the atom bomb.

While us forces were
embroiled in a bloody pacific war,

the joint army-Navy z-46 group

started conducting
classified tests.

Codenamed 'project y',

this mission to design

and build the first atomic weapons
was part of the Manhattan project.

Salton sea was chosen
as a key location.

The salton sea was ideal
for the Manhattan project

and its aerodynamic testing.

It was for two reasons.

It was completely isolated

and, two, that
afforded it secrecy.

In the middle of more than
20,000 acres of barren desert,

this site became a
top-secret testing range,

the results of which remain
largely classified to this day.

Leon lesicka is a local resident

and his brother worked
as a security guard

at the testing site.

They did a lot of practice here,

which was pretty secretive.

In fact, very secretive.

You will not see
anything as demanding

of coordination, cooperation

and integration across industry,

academia and the military

as the Manhattan project.

The tests undertaken
at this location

were coordinated from here,

the naval auxiliary
air station, salton sea.

Codenamed 'Sandy beach'...

This was an ideal site
for testing the ballistic

and aerodynamic behaviour
of different bomb designs.

If you're going to drop the
most powerful bombs ever,

you have to be
absolutely certain

you're dropping
them with precision.

America's atomic bombs

were designed to be dropped
by b-29 superfortresses.

From 31,000ft,

they exploded
2,000ft above ground.

Teams of observers
had just 43 seconds

to assess the
performance of each bomb

before it crashed into the sea.

Telemetry was used to
assess data relating everything

from pressure and
temperature to vibration

and to acceleration.

You have almost no
cloud cover in a desert,

so if you drop a
bomb in daylight,

you can see exactly
where that thing is.

That's the target out there
that they used to try to hit,

about 1.5 miles out there.

Although it was 400ft
away from the base,

the target was practically
invisible to the b-29 bombers above.

Pilots had to be able to
drop their bombs accurately,

otherwise they would not
survive a real bomb run.

A high-pressure
blast wave travelling

at 1,100ft per second

would knock them out of the sky.

By 1944/'45,

they're doing a vast amount

of ballistics testing,

because a very slight
modification in the shape

or length of a
bomb on the tail fins

can affect the performance.

Andrew gough: Salton sea base

became ground zero

for the dropping

of five-tonne concrete bombs.

This is where the
testing took place,

supposedly, for Hiroshima.

By the summer of 1945,

still unable to test a
live warhead at this site,

the trials at salton sea

were critical to demonstrating

that the weapons would
hit their targets first time.

You had aircraft that
had automatic cameras

and, when they're
dropping live bombs,

you can see where
every bomb falls

and then survey and
Mark that spot exactly,

and you might even be able
to recover the bomb itself.

Scientists and engineers

are testing over and over again,

to make sure

that the electronic components

that are going to make
all of that technology turn

into the most powerful blast

the world had ever seen

and work exactly as advertised

and exactly the
way the engineers

and the scientists
want it to go.

More than 120 test
bombs were dropped

at the salton sea base.

Some casing designs, however,

prove less than accurate

and four of the giant
missiles still lie out in desert

where they missed their target

and burrowed deep into the sand.

They did drop something
right in the centre

of the tennis court,

which didn't go over too big.

I guess that's how you learn.

During testing,

the fat man atomic bomb

experienced a violent
wobble when dropped.

Yet at salton sea,

this problem was resolved.

The addition of a distinctive,

box-like tail
containing eight fins,

named a California parachute,

suppressed the wobble

and improved accuracy.

Because of the aerodynamic
investigations conducted here

and the live atomic bomb tests

at the white sands missile
range in new Mexico,

america was able to deploy

both the fat man
and little boy bombs

on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

in August 1945

at once, they caused
unparalleled death

and destruction

and secured allied victory

against the Japanese empire.

Salton sea was vitally important
to the Manhattan project.

Nobody can afford to
have the brain power

that's been assembled

for the Manhattan project

build a bomb that's
not gonna hit the target.

For several years after the war,

testing for the nuclear
program continued at the base.

In the 1950s and '60s,

the nearby salton city

became a popular
recreational resort

and military secrecy was
increasingly compromised.

In 1971,

the base was shut
down and abandoned.

Today, the area has been

reclaimed by the sand

and the salty environment
has eaten away at the buildings.

There is little left of
the salton sea base

to show how vital
its contribution was

to allied victory
during world war ii.

There's no plaques,
there's no statues,

nothing to tell you that this
was once a very important site.

All that remains

is a stark reminder of the
perils of nuclear development

and the cost of all-out war.

Across the Atlantic ocean

in continental Europe,

30 miles south of the
Belgian capital, Brussels,

a desolate industrial
area spreads

along the banks
of the river sambre.

Looming like a monolith
over the wasteland

is a squat concrete tower.

It is around 200ft in
diameter at its base

and rises 354ft into the air.

Its corrugated
sides slope upwards

to reveal a gaping mouth.

It's certainly impressive.
It's amazing to see.

Roma agrawal:
It's quite beautiful.

They've got these
really flowing shapes.

Mysteriously,

the wide base is
pierced all around

by numerous gaps.

The tower's interior looks like

an unfinished beehive,

covered with
rotting wooden slats

and weed-clogged channels.

What lies behind

the bizarre features
of this massive tower?

And why was it abandoned?

In 1921,

the city of charleroi

was part of Belgium's
industrial heartland.

Yet, having suffered
four long years

of German occupation
during world war I,

its hundreds of factories
were struggling for power.

Despite Belgian neutrality,

Germany's invasion
of 1914 was followed

by a thorough dismantling
of Belgian industry.

It was part

of what historians
sometimes call

the 'rape of Belgium'.

To help drag the nation's
economy back to its feet,

a state-of-the-art power
station was proposed.

The enormous power plant im.

In the process of
generating power,

typically steam
engines are utilised.

To make steam, you need water

and when you make steam,
that water gets quite hot.

To create new steam, you
need to take the hot water,

cool it down

and then recreate steam.

The power plant was
one of the largest of its kind

in Europe.

At its heart was a
dramatic cooling tower,

designed to cool
the water back down

and produce more
steam-based energy

by burning coal.

We all recognise a cooling
tower when we see one

and that's because they've
got that characteristic shape.

It's called a hyperboloid,

this 3D form that's
quite wide at the base

and then it kind of funnels in

before coming back
out again at the top.

The reason they have this shape

is because as the
air, the warm air,

is drawn up through that tower,

it's accelerated through
that funnel where it narrows

and that draws more air in
from underneath, cooler air,

which does the job
of a cooling tower.

To produce steam-based energy,

the tower was able to cool

an incredible 480,000
gallons of water

every minute.

But this was only possible

because of the unique use of
its cone-like hyperboloid shape.

The hyperboloid
shape of a cooling tower

is extremely effective
in terms of heat transfer

between the hot
water and the rising air.

In that way,

the design is
persistent through time,

it's a very classical
and effective way

to do what you need to do.

For all its simplicity,

the tower itself
was no easy build.

The hyperboloid shape

was not simply a
matter of styling,

but a brilliant solution to
creating mass without weight.

So, creating these large,
flowing, beautiful shapes

is actually quite challenging,

because if any of
you have ever tried

creating that shape just
on a pottery wheel that size,

it's really hard.

You're trying to use formwork
and moulds to create this.

You need to change

the way the mould
fits the higher you go

so that you get
your curvy shape.

You're at a height, as well,

and you're trying to
pour concrete down here,

and then think
about doing all of that

without computers.

So you're basically
sitting there with a pencil

and a piece of paper,

working out what you need to do

and then doing it on
this really grand scale.

The plant started
operating in 1921.

Hot water from the
plant's machinery

was blasted into the tower

through its central vent.

It was collected

in hundreds of shallow channels

designed to increase
its surface area

and lower its
temperature rapidly,

with extreme economy.

They're using this principle

that hotter air is less dense

and therefore lighter, and
cooler air is more dense

and therefore heavier.

And so what happens
in these towers

is that the hot air rises up

and the cool air
stays at the base.

And the shape here helps

and gives it a bit of
an aerodynamic quality

to allow this flow to
happen very smoothly.

Through the interwar period,

the new plant
successfully helped

power huge industrial
expansion in Belgium.

From 1940, however,

Belgium was again
under German occupation

and the plant's output
was diverted to serve

their Nazi overlords.

In the post-war years,

it continued to serve Belgians

and, by 1977,

it was the main source of
energy in the charleroi area.

Yet engineers at
the time had no idea

that hanging over its future

were two deadly by-products.

Lurking in the
channels of the tower

was a killer disease.

Inside a cooling tower,

it's warm and it's damp

and at the exact temperature
in those conditions,

they can become
a breeding ground

for legionnaire's disease,

which can be fatal.

However, the tower continued

to operate
effectively for decades

without any fatalities,

yet its days were
still numbered.

The coal-powered
plant was also producing

alarmingly high levels
of carbon dioxide.

A report found it
responsible for 10%

of the total co2
emissions in Belgium.

This was followed by
Greenpeace protests

in 2006

and, a year later,

it was forced to close down.

Considered too unsafe

and contaminated
to be repurposed...

The site lies abandoned.

Today, the futuristic appearance

still amazes the few people

prepared to penetrate
its daunting maze

of concrete beams.

It is now being preserved

as an icon of design

for future generations.

After decades of being seen

as a piece of
industrial engineering,

its beauty has
actually shone through

and that's the reason
they now want to keep it.

Now nearly a century old,

power plant im and
its iconic cooling tower

show that when engineers
get a design right,

it becomes timeless.

For me,

I just love the mathematical
and structural perfection

that these towers represent.

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.

Captioned by
ai-media ai-media. TV