All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S04E11.Buckner.Building.Alaska.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

A vast snow-covered
building in Alaska...

A lot of this damage that you see
around here, it obviously came from

the weather but something else
happened, it feels like something

more powerful hit this place.

..The rusting carcass
of a cold war relic...

The strangest thing about it all
is that it somehow feels scarred,

like the building,

the decaying trains have
suffered through the history.

It's like a dark secret that's
been locked away for decades.

..A powerful symbol of a
country's renewal and rebirth...

The curious thing is that

on one hand it's ultra-modern,
these things are really futuristic

but it's also kind of dated and
retro in a strange kind of way.

..And a long, winding
reminder of the horrors of war.

The first time I came into these
woods I had a strange feeling.

It felt quite haunted
and it was spooky.

Some are engineering
marvels now abandoned.

Others are ruins
shrouded in mystery.

But within each of these
crumbling structures

are the echoes of history.

While some are associated
with dark times, they all remind us

of human ingenuity
and endeavour.

Each haunted shell is now ready

to be unmasked to
tell its own unique story.

In the small town of whittier,
in the icy wilderness of

southern Alaska, stands
a huge concrete building.

It's this epic scene,

you reach it by crossing these
freezing cold waters and then

suddenly there's this small
town at the base of a mountain.

In this harsh landscape,
one ruined superstructure

overshadows everything.

The first thing that strikes
you about this place is the sheer

scale of the building.

You're talking about a space
that has the same interior area

as 5 football fields.

Behind shattered windows
and ice-covered staircases,

the building hides
hundreds of derelict rooms.

From the outside, it's not
obvious what this place is.

And when you get inside the mystery
remains, there's so much in there.

This is essentially
a tiny fishing village

and it's dominated by
one gigantic building.

Why would a town this small
need a building this enormous?

Miraculously it's still standing,
but this vast construction has been

ravaged by the elements.

It snows 22 feet a year here,

that's 1000 times
the national average.

Nature's spent years
hammering away at this place.

Cold, harsh winds
beating every inch of it.

But this isn't a weak building
and it feels like something far

more powerful than just
weather has struck this place.

This building found itself
at the centre of one of the

20th century's
greatest conflicts.

It played a part in averting nuclear
war and also came face to face with

one of nature's gravest dangers.

It might look like it's in
the middle of nowhere

but at one point in the 20th
century, Alaska became a hot

bed of military activity.

Prior to 1940

there is a very small
population in whittier.

And then world war ii comes.

Alaska is vulnerable,

it is seen as a
possible place that

might be attacked by the likely
enemy, which is the Japanese.

The American military began to
increase its presence in Alaska.

And when the second
world war ended,

this remote northern territory
gained a new strategic importance.

At the time, Alaska had been
part of the us for less than a century.

In fact, Alaska used
to be Russian territory.

It wasn't bought
by the us until 1867.

It's this historic link that
offers a clue to the purpose

of the building.

Situated at the northern
most edge of the pacific,

Alaska occupies the area
between North America and Russia.

We tend to think of these two
countries as being miles apart,

on different sides of the
globe from each other.

But from a different perspective
you can see they are practically

neighbours.

And as tensions between
the super powers during

the cold war increased, the threat,
however small, of a Russian attack

on Alaska, focused American
attention on this remote region.

But what if it became
a Soviet territory?

Suddenly it would look very
different and would be a very

dangerous prospect for the us.

In a worst case
scenario, the ussr

gains control of Alaska, it
got a foothold for launching

troops, launching missiles,
launching planes, you don't want

the Soviet union with territory
just off your northern border.

Such a situation might seem a
little unlikely now, but during the tense

years after the end of world
war ii, it was anything but.

In 1949, the Soviets shocked
the world by exploding their

very first atomic bomb.

And the following year,
backed the invasion of

South Korea by North Korea,
sparking a war on the peninsula.

Elsewhere revolutionaries
declared victory in China,

it all added to fears in the usa
that communism was spreading.

In this climate of fear defence
became a number one priority.

In 1950 they finally decided
to act by building this.

The Buckner building, a
cold war us military facility.

It would play a crucial role in
america's battle with the Soviets.

Brenda tolman, a long time

whittier resident, has lived in
its shadow for nearly 40 years.

Built in the early '50s
and surplussed out in '58,

the building has had no
maintenance in almost 70 years

and still stands as strong,
probably, as when it was built.

The construction of the
site at whittier coincided with

a massive expansion
of the us army.

This one building was designed to
accommodate an entire battalion of

1000 troops.

What we're looking at here
is what was once the largest

building in Alaska.

It is a vast complex.

It's got 6 visible floors and then
another basement level hidden away

underneath.

You'll have your troops, you'll
have your medical support,

people for security,
your military police.

It had accommodation, it had a
canteen, it had a movie theatre,

it had a rifle range, it
even had a bowling alley.

Normally, in a us army post,
these things are scattered over

a large area.

Here you have them all
concentrated in one place.

Covering 275,000 square feet,
this enormous concrete bunker

was a city under a single roof.

So that if it came to it,

none of the 1,000 troops
would ever have to leave.

Because in this place you get
such a massive snow fall during

the year, it made perfect sense
to put everything into one building.

It was vital that the Buckner
building was able to withstand

the very worst of
the Alaskan weather.

The reason whittier
was built was because

it's an ice-free,
deep-water port.

It was built to bring supplies
to interior Alaska by rail.

95% of everything consumed
in Alaska is brought in,

47% off that still comes
through the port of whittier.

This was the us military's
primary route into Alaska,

troops, weapons, equipment
all had to come through here.

It needed to be up and running
365 days a year, otherwise the whole

operation would be at risk.

The Buckner building allowed
the us to maintain control of,

and access to, Alaska.

And as the threat of an aerial
attack by the Soviets increased,

it became even more
important to American strategy.

In the cold war equation,
Alaska is very important.

Because one of the best routes
to attack the United States with

nuclear weapons
is over the north.

A series of radar stations
were built to warn the us

about potentially nuclear armed
aircraft approaching its shores.

And many of them
were based in Alaska.

Without Alaska any attack coming
from that direction wouldn't be

picked up until it was too late,
leaving very little time to react

and possibly a deadly
scenario to follow.

But the radar defences could
only be maintained if supplies could

reach them via whittier
and the Buckner building.

This was incredibly
well-built, thick concrete walls,

solid structural foundations,
it was designed to survive

whatever the Soviets or
nature could throw at it.

By the end of the 1950s,

weapon technology had
advanced dramatically.

The invention of
intercontinental

ballistic missiles meant that the
Soviets were now able to launch

a nuclear attack on the us
from thousands of miles away.

So why go through the extraordinary
expense and trouble of maintaining

this massive military facility
on the edge of nowhere?

In 1960, the military left whittier
and the city under one roof

was left empty.

In the end it wasn't the Soviets
that gave Buckner its greatest test.

It was a natural
disaster in 1964.

Whittier is hit by the largest
earthquake in us history,

9.2 on the Richter scale,
Tsunami over 40 feet,

kills 139 people, 13
of them in whittier.

But despite this devastation,
the building survives,

the ground moved for 3 minutes
and the building stayed up.

They built this thing right.

The town of whittier
took an absolute

beating from this earthquake
but amongst all the destruction,

this building remained

standing tall, surviving whatever
mother nature could throw at it.

Today, the Buckner
building lies derelict.

This mammoth feat of
engineering is still standing.

A monument to america's
determination to defend itself

even in the harshest
of conditions.

In the south-west of
Spain, in the city of Seville,

is a landscape of surprising
and bewildering structures.

There are a number of odd,
whimsical elements, there's a large

rocket, something that
looks like a giant satellite dish.

You have a platform for a train,
you have a globe, you have a bridge

that doesn't go anywhere.

It's almost as if some child
was imagining the super

fantastic city of the future,
started building it and then

got bored and went out to
play and left his toys on the floor.

But this is no ordinary
abandoned site.

In fact, much of it is
still a hive of activity.

On one side we've got these
crazy pockets of abandoned space,

but on the other side we're in
a modern, bustling city full of

people working and
going about their business.

If there is a message to all
this architecture it's kind of

hard to figure out what it is and
why were some parts preserved

and other parts left to decay?

Completed in 1992, the remains
of this place today are a strange

mixture of the new
and the derelict.

But when it was originally
built, this was a symbol of hope

and progress for
the city of Seville.

In the 1970s, Spain went through
an amazing transformation and they

managed to convert from a fascist
dictatorship to a free Democratic

society without violence, without
a revolution. This was a first.

Here was the new Spain.

And this was supposed to be
a bold statement that reflected

it's positive plans
for the future.

Spain began to boom, and all
through the '80s, this country that

had been an economic and
cultural backwater for a few decades,

was all of a sudden entering

the elite nations of
Europe and the world.

By the early 1990s, Spain's dramatic
renewal was capturing the attention

of the world.

And it was this place that
seemed to be leading the way.

1992 for Spain is a new start,
suddenly we're into the modern

age, we're moving forward

and Spain is about to announce
its arrival on the world stage.

This is the site of the 1992
world expo, or world's fair.

To host an expo is about
dreaming big, it's about looking

forward to the future and showing
the world what your country can do.

They get remembered,
they are huge.

Not a one day event,

it's not a week event, it's 6
months and with millions of visitors.

And the legacy they
leave lasts for years.

Spain really had
a lot to be proud of

and they wanted to show it off
to the world, they wanted to tell

the other elite nations "we've
joined your club, we've arrived."

In truth, the curious collection of
structures now left at the former

expo '92 site don't really tell
us what that event was all about.

Joe Cooper, the former British
commercial consul in Seville,

explains more.

These structures
here in front of us

are really symbolic of
what the expo's all about.

The main theme of the expo is
about celebrating the 500th anniversary

of the discovery of the new
world by Spain, but also it was

about projecting, if you like, an
image of Spain as a modern country,

looking forward, being involved
in discovery in the future as well.

In that context all these
weird and wonderful things

start to make a bit more sense.

The entire place seems to
be a celebration of that ideal.

More than 100 nations came
here to build pavilions and be part of

the event.

But keeping to the tight schedule
of the largest expo ever staged was

a monumental challenge and as
time slipped away, the pressures grew.

One can say that Spain was
overly ambitious with the expo.

Project-managing infrastructure
on this scale is a nightmare.

Especially with that deadline, an
opening ceremony cannot be moved.

They were trying to do too
much in a short period of time

and it could lead to problems.

The hosts themselves
were building

a number of large
themed attractions like this.

The future pavilion.

But in the rush to get it all
finished in time, disaster struck.

The discovery pavilion
unfortunately caught fire

just before the expo started,

sort of doing lots of things
together as it were, painting

and welding at the same time,
pots of paint on the floor and welders

up above on the ceiling, spark
fell down and it all caught fire.

Thick clouds of black smoke
were soon enveloping the pavilion.

The disastrous fire looked
set to put an end to the Spanish

expo dream.

Incredibly, it turned out
to be just a small stumble.

Despite the problems, the expo
was a huge success, they had

a record number of visitors
from all over the world.

If Spain wanted to show
off to the world that they'd

arrived, they really succeeded.

Over 240,000 people
turned up every single day

to look at these buildings, to
wander through these structures.

What an incredible success.

More than 41 million
visitors came to the expo.

Many of them winding their
way along this stretch here

which used to be
a flowing canal.

You could either come here by
boat or you could come by cable car

or you could just simply walk
across one of the Bridges that

linked the city to the site.

People would
visit the pavilions,

they had a good look
round, then they came

out and went on to the next
one and so on and so forth.

So the expo, which was
supposed to symbolise

Spain's new role in the world, had
been a triumph beyond her dreams.

But what happened to the
site after the expo finished?

At the end of an expo,
everyone disappears,

the site has done its job

and what you're left is this crazy
aftermath of an engineering party.

And how different countries
choose to move on is up to them.

Often what's left behind after
events such as expo resembles an

industrial wasteland but not here,
as Luis Perez, innovation manager of

the site explains.

Over the years, many
buildings have been replaced

while others have been
overhauled and renovated.

Today, just a few solitary

structures remain
in fenced-off areas.

And the most recognisable
have been saved for last.

People really appreciate those

landmarks today, they don't
need to be re-used for any new

purpose, they mean
lots to a lot of people

standing just the way they are.

The rocket and
the satellite dish,

they've become quite iconic

and gradually they're
going to get absorbed.

And once again, this area will be
redeveloped and thronged and busy

with people with new purpose.

Cutting across the
quiet countryside

near Germany's western border
is a strange line of concrete spikes.

You start passing the first
bits of concrete and you

think that maybe you're going to
go 3m or 4m and you'll be passed it

and there's more and
there's more and there's more.

You could be walking through
a field or through the woods

and here and there catch site of

remnants from a different
era, it's not really clear what it is.

These bizarre relics remind
us of this area's dark past.

When I came here the first time

I had a strange feeling, it was a
spooky feeling like haunted woods.

It was a feeling that
made you shiver.

The strange rows of concrete
teeth here aren't alone.

Across this rural landscape
are dozens of other structures, all

of which bare the marks
of a violent struggle.

There are these concrete structures
hidden throughout the woods,

just coming out from under the
moss and under the tree branches.

You might see these structures
and really wonder what they are,

what purpose do they serve.

We're used to seeing concrete
that's degraded, that's crumbled.

But this concrete has been
hit with something very heavy

over and over again, they
look like they've been smashed.

So what connects these forgotten
ruins and what left them in this

shattered state?

Construction of these concrete
spikes, known as dragon's teeth,

began in the years leading
up to the second world war,

when Adolph Hitler was looking to
shore up Germany's defences along

its western border.

Local expert, Michel
baert, explains.

Dragon's teeth are
anti-tank defences.

And these anti-tank defences
are built in reinforced concrete.

Each one of these blocks is
linked to the one on it's left, on it's

right and behind it and in front
of it, so you can't just pull one out.

The only way to destroy
a way through is to use

dynamite to explode them,
and even that is quite difficult.

The idea was to stop an
enemy tank invasion in its tracks.

The plan was simple
but very effective.

You have different sizes, so as
the tanks, when they advance,

would go upwards

and expose their belly to anti-tank
guns that are further behind.

Running north to
south across almost

400 miles of German countryside,
Hitler's defensive network was

known as the west
wall or the siegfried line.

The siegfried line is
actually not a continuous

line or a continuous defence.

Certain areas are fairly heavily
defended with clusters of bunkers

and anti-tank
defences, some areas

are much less defended
due to the hilly terrain.

Stretching for hundreds of miles
and designed to be strongest

where an attack was most likely,
dragon's teeth were placed in

areas considered
to be vulnerable.

Some places had
multiple rows of them.

But to make the
siegfried line really work,

dragon's teeth had to be part of
a fully integrated defence system.

The siegfried line is more
than just dragon's teeth.

These dragon's teeth
have no use if behind it

you don't have the pillboxes
and bunkers with anti-tank guns.

So behind this there's
a row of 18,000 bunkers.

Really it's more like a zone, in
many cases going miles deep

into Germany, of a combination
of different kinds of defences.

In 1938, Hitler showed off

the strength of the siegfried line
in a specially commissioned film.

But not all was as it seemed.

Hitler gave the impression
that the siegfried line was

like the maginot line with
massive underground forts.

In reality, this is a very
relatively thin defence line.

This is not an
impregnable defence line.

It had great propaganda
value at home, as Hitler was

getting his country ready for
war it helped him reinforce the idea

that he was protecting his people
from these hostile neighbours.

At the beginning of the war,
defence was probably the last

thing on German minds.

Its army stormed through Poland
the low countries and France.

It seemed that nothing could
stop them and victory was assured.

So guns and equipment were stripped
out from the siegfried line and sent

to the front.

The one thing I don't think
Hitler did plan on was the situation

in which the line finally did
become quite useful to the Germans.

After the d day
invasion of normandy,

the allies were slowly advancing
towards the German borders.

The siegfried line then became
an important part of their defences.

In 1944, the Germans had
to quickly scramble to defend

the now badly equipped line.

They began to deploy troops,
they began to dig new trenches

and they really got the line
fully occupied and staffed up

only a few days before
the allied forces reached it.

Some parts of the
line were easily broken

but early successes
in areas such as

the hurtgen forest near aachen soon
turned into slow and costly battles.

The fighting in the hurtgenwald
is immensely difficult.

The Germans are defending
area that is densely wooded.

And that not only means that
it's hard to see other people,

it's hard to see the enemy, it
also means it's hard to use artillery.

Because aachen was symbolically
very important, the Germans placed

a priority on its defence and,
in fact, a few first rate troops

managed in that very horrible
terrain, in very, very bad weather,

to slow down, inflict a great
many casualties the American army.

On September 19th,

the us army began to make ground
through the suffocating woodland,

the siegfried line was
finally being put to the test.

A defensive zone
like the siegfried line,

it doesn't have to
be impenetrable.

In fact in some places they
made it intentionally weak.

So if the allied forces were to
penetrate through it and move

a few miles into German territory,
then they might get bogged down in

a deeper area where there are
more hidden bunkers, more tank traps.

The terrain in
the hurtgen forest

and the approach to aachen
is very tough terrain, it's very

hilly, there are many ravines,
it's easy to channelise the attacker.

A first row of dragon's teeth was
sometimes backed up by a second row,

giving two points at which
to stall and attack the enemy.

Beyond these, often hidden in thick
woodland, were pillboxes waiting for

an advancing infantry.

The results could
be devastating.

Communication was the
key to making it all work.

We are standing here in front of

one of the 18,000 bunkers
that form the siegfried line.

This one in particular is a
command and communication bunker,

so it's keeping the other bunkers
advised of the enemy movements.

The us army was about to engage
in one of the deadliest battles

in its history.

The American army fights its
way through the hurtgen forest by

clawing their way through those
woods and dying in the process.

Imagine climbing these
hills, through the woods,

and often in very bad weather,
it was a very wet Autumn.

They would be climbing
in the mist, and suddenly

in front of them there's a
pillbox that starts shooting.

For 3 months there was a
bloody stalemate and bitter fighting,

during which tens
of thousands died.

Finally, the Germans mounted
a counter-attack to the south,

remembered by history
as the battle of the bulge.

The aim was to break through to
antwerp and to cut British forces

off from the American army, and
most importantly, from its supplies.

The plan was then to overwhelm
the isolated British army.

Launched at dawn on December
the 16th 1944, the results

were at first spectacular,
creating confusion and panic

among the allied armies.

It seemed for a brief time that
the great German counteroffensive

was all going as planned.

The attack eventually stalled
for the simplest of reasons.

The petrol for the
tanks began to run out.

After an allied counter-offensive
that drove the Germans back,

the last chance to turn the
tide of the war had gone.

120,000 German soldiers

became casualties during
the battle of the bulge.

And vast quantities of
irreplaceable war materials were lost.

After that great German defeat,
the allies were able to break

through the siegfried line and
head for the heart of the reich.

By the time they broke through
in February of 1945, they had also

decimated the strongest elements of
the German military, and that meant

the path to Berlin was much easier
than it otherwise might have been.

Today, much of the siegfried line
has been demolished or removed.

But the sacrifices made to
break them will never be forgotten.

To walk the fields where
this fighting happened, to

see the extraordinary efforts that
went into building these defences,

to see a hint of just how
grandiose Hitler's plans were,

it's an important lesson, it's
an important part of our history.

These bunkers, when we come
across them, it reminds us of those days.

It's important, I think, to remember
and to keep the memory alive.

In central Europe, in Hungary's
capital city of Budapest,

is the carcass of
an industrial relic.

These buildings are
on the brink of collapse.

They look like even the slightest
knock or maybe a strong wind might

bring the whole
lot crashing down.

Pieces are falling off the walls,
the skylights are without their

glass, it is as though
thousands of years have passed.

But somehow they remain standing
and these warehouses are now vaults

crammed full of memories.

What you're seeing here is almost
a century of transportation history.

You see Hungary's economy
and government all wrapped up

in this one building.

These buildings are
filled with locomotives,

carriages and all kinds of
equipment from a past world.

It looks like someone locked it
all up and threw away the key.

But now finally we can
get a glimpse inside.

Stranded on overgrown
tracks are rail carriages that tell

of a troubled period
in Hungary's history.

In the latter stages of world war
ii, a more radical extreme regime

comes to power and in 1943, '44,

the Jewish community is quite

brutally rounded up in Budapest
and placed on trains and sent to

concentration camps,
where the vast majority

of Hungary's
Jews will be killed.

More than half a million Hungarian
Jews were massacred during the war.

And these railways played a
part in the terrible slaughter.

Some of those carriages left
standing in the yard are the same

type used to transport the Jewish
population to concentration camps.

Carrying them to their death.

Perhaps even some of
them are the very same ones.

After the war, this place felt the
terror of a new occupying force.

The ruins here
serve as a reminder

of the country's struggles
throughout the 20th century.

They were once at the very centre
of the rail network, as sandor tibor,

an engineer who
worked here, recalls.

Translator: Here we are in front
of the istvantelek metal works.

It was built in the 1920s
and practically all the steam

engines of the Hungarian state
railways were repaired here.

Eastern Europe was always an
area that was undeveloped in roads,

and in the 19th century
when the railroad came,

this opened up Eastern Europe.

How does the economy work?
How do you transport goods?

How do you transport
people? You do it by rail.

At the heart of it all were
the Hungarian-designed

mav locomotives.

Since we are a
landlocked country,

Hungarian state railways plays
a vital role in transporting goods.

This was a high speed train,
it was a very fast locomotive.

It could transport passenger
carriages at great speeds.

Once a vital facility for
the state railway network,

this place has more recently
become known by a different name.

One train found here
reveals what happened to

Hungary after the second world
war and it gives this place its name.

The red star graveyard.

The red star,

which was the ubiquitous symbol of
the Soviet empire, was everywhere.

This Mark of the new oppressive
ruling regime pointed the way to

more dark days ahead.

At the end of the second
world war Russia is economically

very unhealthy.

And they rip out

as much industrial capability
in Eastern Europe as they can.

The Hungarian locomotives
and rolling stock are stripped out

and shipped back to
Russia to be reused.

For a country like Hungary
which was so reliant on its railways,

this was another
devastating blow.

But history shows that oppression
often sews the seeds of discontent,

and finally, rebellion.

Engineer Josef deak recalls hearing
about those tough post-war years.

There was a dire need for
the renewal and restoration of

the railways because the
country would have been

paralysed without it.

The railway was the
pulsing vein of the country.

Hungary had lost a quarter
of its industrial base during

the second world war.

And in the immediate post-war
period, the country was crippled

by inflation.

Despite radical economic
reconstruction and land reforms,

its poorest people barely had
enough food to keep themselves alive.

One has to understand
that the eastern bloc end of

the Soviet union was
essentially a colonial system.

The Soviets expect
their slave states

to rebuild their economies
and get functioning very quickly.

If you were not achieving your
production norms, you could be

taken out back and shot and
your deputy would be put in charge.

This place played a huge part

in the efforts to satisfy the
ruthless Soviet demands.

Translator: There
were different regions.

The reason why Budapest is
important is because at the time,

there wasn't a similar
repair plant in the region.

Others came later but this was
the only place for the restoration

of steam engines that had both
the capacity and the capability

to work on the larger models.

But in 1953, the Soviet
dictator Joseph Stalin died.

And suddenly everything
began to change.

Many Hungarians saw an opportunity
to break free from the shackles of

Soviet oppression.

Revolution was in the air

and for the first time there was
a direct threat to Soviet control.

There is a feeling in Hungary
that with the old dictator gone in

Moscow, Hungary might be
able to stand on its own feet again

and Hungary might
start to liberalise.

The eastern governments are trying
to repress this but there are hopes

in the population.

The hopes reach a point
of outright rebellion in 1956.

Eventually, state security
police open fire on the crowd

and that triggered the start
of the violence that followed.

The Hungarian
uprising saw Soviet

troops marching through
the streets of Budapest.

Many had arrived there by rail.

In 1956, the Soviet army is
not a fully motorised army.

It is very, very dependent
on the rail system.

It was the Hungarian railways

that became the life blood
of the Soviet occupation.

The Soviet army crushed
the Hungarian uprising,

killing thousands, imprisoning
thousands and exiling thousands.

In the aftermath, the railways,

locomotives and carriages
were put back into service

and for more than 30 years
Hungary remained a communist state.

With the arrival of diesel engines,
the locomotives and this old

workshop have long since
been retired and now this

place acts as a keeper of memories,
of both the good times and the bad.

The warehouse and the trains
inside it look like they've been through

hell and that's just it, the
history of the 20th century

has been a series of huge
challenges and devastating wars.

And you can see the marks of
that toil on what remains here.

Now they're abandoned but once
many were beacons of hope and progress.

Each one is steeped in history.

Some remind us of difficult times
but also of human imagination,

enterprise and spirit.

Captioned by
ai-media ai-media. TV