All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S04E12.1936.Olympic.Village.Berlin.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

A mysterious island that
was once blighted by disease...

And the legend of her death
still haunts the island, and some of

the locals refuse
to visit this place.

..A pioneering complex associated
with both glory and tragedy...

It's quite a mysterious place as
well, and tragedies which happened

here throughout the last
century really also are kind of

a mirror of our past.

..A shipping juggernaut
that met a dramatic end...

This ship is clearly one that
means business, but it should

not be on these rocks.

..And an abandoned
masterpiece built by one of

the world's greatest engineers.

He had a solution, but what he was
proposing was considered by some

to be both extreme
and dangerous.

Some are engineering marvels
that have been abandoned,

others are ruins shrouded
in mystery. But each of these

crumbling structures
bears the marks of history.

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

of human ingenuity
and endeavour.

Now each haunted
shell can be revealed

to tell its own unique story.

In the brandenburg
district of west Berlin

is a unique complex that was once
the centre of the world's attention.

Now it's a largely
forgotten ruin.

Few Germans realise
that the site even exists.

It's almost as if it's been
forgotten on purpose.

There's a swimming
pool, now empty and silent.

There is nothing quite so eerie as
standing where there ought to be

11 feet of water, and instead
there is nothing but a still, chill air.

A pommel horse stands alone in a
deserted gymnasium, pleasant grassy

areas stretch out before carefully
positioned huts with verandas.

When you look at this place

in all of its green and
grassy, low-rise glory,

it feels as though you're seeing
a purpose-built company town.

But the almost utopian
feel here is disrupted by

military-looking murals and stark
blocks which look like barracks.

They're ugly,

and really these are buildings
that you don't want to keep.

The walls are covered
with newspapers.

When you get closer, you notice
something strange about them.

They're not in German.

The architecture has two distinct
styles, yet every building appears

to be part of a single purpose.

What this place
conveys is a sense

to take people's
lives and mould them.

It's all about people coming
together for a purpose,

but it's not at all clear
what that purpose is.

In 1934 this site,

which sprawls across 136
acres, was set to be remodelled.

The man in charge of the
project was Wolfgang furstner.

This was a pioneering concept
which would play a central role

in an era-defining event that

captured the imagination
of people across the world.

Yet just days after the project
was completed, furstner walked out

of his house and down to a lake,

stood on this jetty and
put a pistol to his head.

He was in charge
of the construction.

He was made an outsider

and really pushed so much
to the edge that he decided

to take his own life.

What drove this
man to suicide just

days after what should have been
the proudest moment of his life?

Jan bejsovic is an
expert local historian

who is fighting to preserve
this unique complex.

This site really mirrors much of

our past, much of the wars
and tragedies of the 20th century.

Many lives ended in this place.

We have the beauty of
youth on one side and we have

the tragedy of
death on the other.

This is the olympic village
for the 1936 Berlin games.

When Adolf Hitler became

chancellor of Germany in
1933, he inherited the games

which had been won two years
previously by the weimar government.

Its bid had beaten
the city of Barcelona.

This site would house athletes

from all over the world
in a great festival of sport.

Now in 1936, he has an
opportunity to show to the world

a new and rebuilt, completely
new kind of Germany.

This is going to be an opportunity
for Hitler, who's been in power

for three years,
to show off the fact

that depression-era Germany
is gone, the weimar republic

is gone and the Olympics are
going to show that to the whole world.

This was Hitler's chance
to show the world that

a new, rejuvenated Germany had
emerged from the great depression.

For inspiration he looked to the
Los Angeles Olympics of 1932.

The games in Los Angeles were
really important for the Germans

because for the first time
we have an olympic village

there, a real one, and the
Germans could learn quite a lot

and everybody was impressed
of what the Americans did, but still

it was easy for the Germans to
take notes and to improve things.

It was army captain
Wolfgang furstner who oversaw

the construction of the first
ever permanent olympic village,

which was built with
ultra-modern facilities to be

enjoyed by nearly
5,000 athletes.

They included the likes of
the famous German boxer

Max schmeling and, of course,
the great American Jessie Owens.

Here we can clearly see
how the Germans improved

by building a olympic village
which nobody had seen so far.

It's not just having little
houses for accommodation.

It's having real houses with
a terrace for sunbathing, with

a central heating system inside
and all the luxury of that period.

And all the people who were here
in 1936 were really impressed by it.

The athletes were even
more impressed they were

able to see their team mates
perform live on the big screen.

These games really was the
first media games, the first real

propaganda games, so incorporating
everything they had - radio,

movie, we have the two
olympian movies by leni riefenstahl,

but for the first
time also television.

So these are the games
which see live broadcast

for the very first time.

Of course, Hitler wasn't slow to
show off Germany's military might,

as the artwork in the village
media centre illustrates.

It was clear to everybody,
after seeing this mural,

what the propaganda was about.

It was about celebrating
the newly gained strength of

the German military.

And just some years after

the olympic games, many European
nations would exactly see the same

scene, having the German
army occupying their countries.

Despite the demonstrations of
a new military strength, the world

bought in to Hitler's image of a
reborn but peaceful Germany,

and the magnificent
facilities here

were certainly a
hit with the athletes.

Having convinced the usa
and Great Britain to compete

after both had threatened
to boycott the games,

Hitler had now built
the perfect stage.

Only the Soviet union and her allies
followed through on their threats to

stay away.

Hitler successfully showcased
German engineering through cutting-edge

technology, including the first
ever live television broadcasts.

There were also innovations
to the games themselves.

The Nazis were hugely

into torchlight parade, and
the Nazis introduced the idea

of the olympic torch going
from Greece all the way to Berlin.

By while the glitz and glamour
of the Olympics were dazzling

the world, the racial purification
of Germany was continuing

discreetly out of view.

While the Germans allowed
Jews to participate in the games,

they were behind the scenes
rounding up gypsies and continuing

to pass anti-semitic laws.

Wolfgang furstner, the man who
had helped make the olympic village

such a success,
soon became its victim.

It turned out that he had a Jewish
grandfather, and he was taken off

the project in the end.

It was here at the lakeside
two days after the games ended

that a real tragedy took place.

The commander of the village
came down from his house through

the woods and took his life
with his own service pistol.

The Nazis tried to cover it
up, saying it was a car accident.

However, journalists
uncovered the truth.

Furstner had
already been demoted

and, as a career officer,
he knew that his Jewish

ancestry would eventually see
him dismissed from the army.

Instead he chose suicide.

With the games over, the village
had served its purpose and the complex

was handed back to the German army
to become what was always intended -

a ready-made military base,

but there were tumultuous years
ahead and the army's stewardship

wouldn't last long.

Here we see traces of a very
different army - that's the Soviet

army, which took over the whole
site in 1945 and which did not

only leave that kind of equipment
but even their newspapers on

the wall - the pravda, the truth,
which you can still find here.

This was now a new
Soviet military base.

For a period after the war,
the Soviet counter intelligence

agency, smersh, established
themselves here, hunting for

ex-Nazis.

And rumours abound that the
underground heating system

and the swimming pool were
used for interrogation and torture.

Since the collapse
of the Soviet union,

the complex has
been left to rot.

Perhaps it brings back memories
that Germans would rather forget.

But now the site is being

repurposed once again, this time as
a development of modern apartments.

You can actually see the
long-jump pit where Jesse Owens,

one of the greatest American
athletes of all time, trained,

and also where the boxer
Max schmeling did his prep in

the lead-up to the big day. And
now it's all about to be demolished.

But perhaps a future
as contemporary

housing might finally help lay
the ghosts of the Nazi era to rest.

Off the coast of Trinidad and
Tobago in the Caribbean is

a lush green island but one with
a history of sickness and disease.

When you see this island from
the water, it looks like a lovely,

tropical vacation spot, a
nice place to build a resort.

But as you get a bit closer,
you see these colonial-style

buildings on the shore
are a little bit dilapidated.

They're falling apart.

Looking forlorn and neglected, a
once-grand house sits by the shore.

A broken pier reaches
out into the water,

while inland in the jungle,
there are more strange remains.

Some buildings look like they were
part of an old hospital complex or

a religious site perhaps.

It's clear they was some
kind of a large compound here.

There's one part of
this place that suggests

those who came here never left.

You see graves but not just a few,
there's a whole graveyard. Clearly

an entire community once lived
on this now uninhabited island.

Whatever happened here
certainly created fear and dread

among its people.

Some local fishermen
are to this day

still too frightened to
venture onto the island.

It hasn't always been this way.

100 years ago this island
was a popular holiday resort.

It was previously a fishing
village and a holiday paradise

where people came to relax, but
it became something more sinister.

In 1924, the island
changed forever

when Trinidad's British rulers
tried to solve a tricky problem.

It saw a huge influx of
people arriving from the capital

Port of Spain.

Unfortunately they brought
with them sickness and disease.

Michael forde, a local
expert, explains more.

This bay, Saunders bay,
was designated for the women,

while the neighbouring cocos
bay was designated for the men.

You'd arrive by a
launch or schooner

and have to go this building here,
where you would be administered,

registered and assigned
to one of the facilities.

If you were not well enough to
live in the cottage on your own,

you would have to be
admitted to the hospital.

These new arrivals were

the unlucky victims of a century
of dramatic change in Trinidad.

Trinidad had been a colony
of Great Britain since 1814.

In 1833, britain abolished slavery,
leaving the island's landowners

short of workers for their
sugar and cocoa plantations.

A flood of immigrants poured into
Trinidad and Tobago, but with them

came an influx of leprosy.

That was one of the
world's most feared diseases.

Leprosy was this devastating
and really tragic disease.

It's caused by a bacterium
that lives in the skin,

develops slowly over many years.

It does nerve
damage, it can cause

blindness and in severe
cases it causes this terrible

disfiguration of people's faces
or other parts of their body.

There had been outbreaks of
leprosy in the Caribbean for centuries,

but by the late 1800s, as migrants
from all over the world arrived

in Trinidad, it had
become an epidemic.

The colonial government
opened a leprosarium in the 1860s,

but on one occasion, 300
patients fled the facility.

There were fears that this terrible
illness was running out of control.

Painful, incurable and highly
contagious, it was thought that

the only way to stop the spread
of leprosy was to isolate sufferers.

The Trinidad authorities
decided to act and began

to round up leprosy victims.

These lepers were taken from
their homes, torn from their families

and forced onto a boat, sent
away to live in total isolation.

And this is where they were taken
- the chacachacare leper colony.

It opened in 1924 and
it was designed to house

300 patients, providing them with
everything they needed to survive,

but with only minimal
contact with the outside world.

This is a completely
self-contained medical facility with

living quarters,
hospital, laundry.

What is behind me is
a typical quarters that

the patients would stay in.

There was something like 50
quarters like this. A typical one

would have accommodations for
two patients... some of them have

small kitchenettes and running
water and a little veranda.

Although the colony
provided the lepers

with some creature comforts,
it was an unhappy existence.

Life was not easy
for these patients.

Men and women were
kept in separate camps,

so there was none of the
normal romantic or family life

that people expect as part
of the human experience.

And you also had to work,
but you were only paid

25 cents for the whole day.

Water was very short. They
only had rainwater they collected.

You weren't even allowed to swim
except up to chest height, and if

you broke those rules you could
be sent into even further isolation.

Worst of all, once you had
been sent to chacachacare,

you could never leave.

They were allowed no visitors,

no contact with their
families or even the mainland.

So, even though they were
in something that looks like

a tropical paradise, their lives
were actually closer to a kind of

a hellish half-life, where
they couldn't go back,

they couldn't see their families,
but they also couldn't start any

kind of new life that would be
a semblance of what they'd lost.

Today many locals still
avoid the island at all costs.

Here are the remains that
give us a clue as to why.

So, they were
cared for by a group

of Dominican nuns brought
from France, and these nuns had

to live under the same conditions
as the lepers. It was incredibly

dangerous and they suffered
along with their patients.

Two of the nuns caught
and died of leprosy.

And one of them actually
committed suicide,

which is definitely not
something you're supposed to do

if you're a nun, and the legend
of her death still haunts the island.

Some of the locals refuse to visit
this place, not because it used to

be a leper colony but they're
afraid of the ghost of the nun

who committed suicide.

It seemed the lepers
of chacachacare

were condemned to a life of
disfigurement and then death,

but in 1942 there were

new arrivals on the island
and things began to change.

They were 1,000 us marines.

The Americans established
barracks all over the island,

but one significant improvement
that it did for this island,

they established diesel generators
that improve conditions tremendously

on the island.

For the first time, there was
electricity for the leper colony.

The authorities began
to relax the rules,

allowing male and
female patients to mix.

Medical advances were also
being made in the wider world.

By the middle of the 20th century,
treatments for leprosy were getting

better, a combination of
antibiotics can actually treat

the disease and
reduce the symptoms.

As leprosy finally became
a treatable disease,

it was no longer necessary to
keep those affected locked away.

Also, the Dominican nuns
were a declining group.

There weren't a lot of new
people coming into the order

to replace the ageing nuns who,
by this time were dying off or needed

care themselves, so eventually
the colony was shut down.

Chacachacare was
a prison no more.

The last patient
left on July 23, 1984.

The entire structure was abandoned
and left over to the elements.

Today there are plans to
redevelop the island for tourism,

but right now chacachacare
is still haunted by its history

and tormented by its past,

and its future
remains uncertain.

On a dramatic
stretch of coastline

near the port city of
Cape Town in South Africa

is an amazing sight.

In this area of incredible natural
beauty, it's got the amazing ocean

and the rocky backdrop,
and then suddenly it hits you

right between the eyes, that
absolutely should not be there.

You're suddenly confronted
by this extraordinary sight.

This huge ship lies
beached on the rocky

coastline with this enormous
crane reaching up for the skies.

Only part of this giant
machine is still visible

above the crashing waves,

yet the rusting crane and
turret suggest it was once

a majestic vessel.

This ship obviously is
built for a specific job.

You've got the huge
crane at one end,

but this beautifully designed
ship should not be on those rocks.

At sea things go wrong, things go
wrong all the time, and that's why

for hundreds of years there's
been a healthy salvage industry,

where ships that run into
trouble get rescued and recycled.

But something's gone wrong here.

This crane has clearly
been here for some time.

Why has no-one rescued it?

First and foremost, there's

obviously been some
kind of disaster here.

You just want to know
how this mighty vessel has

ended up stranded
on these rocks.

The story begins in 1994 when
South African salvage expert

captain Nick Sloane
received a distress call.

So, we were busy in false
bay hiding with the super tanker.

So, false bay is a perfect place
of refuge for large ships in distress.

And we knew the storm
was coming, so we had

suspended all operations in case
we lost control of the super tanker.

And then Cape Town port
control called us up and said

that the bos 400 was
drifting onto the coast.

This is the bos 400,

a French-built vessel known
as a lay or crane barge.

It was built to do
a very specific job.

It's basically a
pipe-laying vessel, so that

beautiful engineering is
designed so it can lift up,

move and then
lay giant pipeline.

You're building an oil rig from
scratch, you would call it in.

It's a one-off machine,
and it travelled the world

building huge structures in
difficult marine environments.

This was one of the most
powerful crane barges ever built.

In its prime it was

an engineering marvel, touring
the globe, helping to construct

some of the most ambitious
projects anywhere in the world.

This giant beast was capable of

lifting 1,200 tonnes and was
valued at over us $70 million.

But the bos 400 now found
itself in perilous waters, waters that

captain Sloane
knows all too well.

So you've got these frontal
storms that come all the way across

the south Atlantic from Brazil,
and they're already full storms

when they hit the coast.

Then they hit the warmth from
the agulhas current, and those

storms that are already bad go
crazy, with all the extra energy.

So you don't wanna be stuck in
a winter storm off South Africa.

This treacherous
stretch of coastline

is known for its changeable
weather and its violent storms.

In fact, cape point is
known as the cape of storms.

Crane barges are
not fitted with engines

and rely completely on tugboats.

Pulling the bos 400 that day was
a Russian tugboat called the tigre.

So, the barge is not designed
to move under its own power,

and for that you need a tug, a
small, powerful, manoeuvrable boat,

and that does the hard work.

But there were
problems with the tug.

Not only was it
dragging a huge tow-wire

nearly 4,000 feet in length, it
had also lost its main engine.

With just the back-up engine,

you've got a lot less
power and manoeuvrability,

not to mention the fact that you
could be left with no engine at all,

and as it turned out, this
was no ordinary storm.

The crew were
completely unaware,

but they were heading
into grave danger.

The port of Cape Town was closed,
but the tug still continued to make

her approach
inshore to Cape Town.

They then started to try and turn
around, and that's when they got

into real trouble.

The tug crew had actually
been radioed repeatedly,

but because of their poor
English they didn't understand.

So they carried on.

And they tried to turn around
to get further back out to sea,

and during that operation that's
when the wire, the tow-wire sank to

the sea bed and
snagged on the reef.

The crews of both ships
were now in perilous positions.

Nick's salvage teams
were in a race against time

as the juggernaut floundered
and drifted towards the rocks.

We ran round from false bay to
try and see if we could get a line on,

but you know, in those
weather conditions,

even with a helicopter, there was
no way we could get close to her.

If you look at this now,
it's summer season,

you've got maybe a 1m, 1.5m
swell, but in the winter storm,

where the swells are actually
almost up above the crane house,

so that's the type of
swell you're talking about.

The swells were so severe that
the bos 400, despite its enormous

size, was actually disappearing
completely behind the waves.

It was simply too dangerous for
the salvage teams to attempt to

reattach the tow line.

And we just had to sit there
and watch her slowly break apart.

The helicopter took the crew off
and then mother nature took care

of her, and she ended up
on top of the pinnacles that

went straight through her bottom
and then she was fast on the reef.

The crew were eventually
airlifted to safety,

but their ordeal
was far from over.

When they arrived at the port of
Cape Town, they were all arrested

and detained, pending
an enquiry into the disaster.

That wasn't the
end of the story.

A vessel of that size
wasn't going to be left

without attempting salvage.

That was the first attempt
to try and get closer.

We had to abort, wait for better
weather, then we sent in smaller

boats and we sent people
onboard by helicopter to assess her.

The tanks right on the bottom of
the ship, they were all breached.

If you don't succeed in that first
24 hours on the South African

coast, it's very unlikely that
you're going to succeed later on.

An American company later
launched another salvage operation

but without success.

There was a long-running,
acrimonious court case.

Some members of the
tug crew were held for a full

six years before they were allowed
to return home to their families.

In the investigations that happened
after the event, it was found

that this tugboat
was underpowered

and quite frankly
just not up to the job.

It was about $80 million
insurance claim, and that's why

they arrested the tug, the tigre,
and held their owners responsible,

but they didn't have that type
of money or insurance, so it was

a total loss and a disaster from
the French construction company

and from the underwriters.

The tugboat was eventually
auctioned off but unfortunately

it's simply too dangerous to
salvage the remains of the bos 400.

But today the bos 400 is
not just a unique spectacle

for tourists and hikers.

It may well have some
kind of future after all.

There's not much of the barge
that has survived. The core structure,

the foundation of the crane,
in the next four, five years

I wouldn't be surprised if
she topples into the water.

It will add some
value, you know,

as a recreation sport area,
and you'll find artificial reef

and a whole ecosystem
will grow up on top of her.

In the green fields
of south-west england

is a valley littered
with unusual ruins.

Sweeping over the
stunning cornwall countryside,

you come across a grand stone
viaduct that spans a river valley.

But as you get closer, you
see that there's something

different about this one.

Right next to it,
there's these series of

tall columns that are clearly
a lot older and have obviously

got some kind of story to tell.

So, for what purpose
was this structure built?

Why is it now derelict and
abandoned? What became of it?

Did it somehow collapse or
was it deliberately destroyed?

The mystery deepens as you look
up and you see that the columns

just end, there's no
bridge there anymore.

First impressions might
suggest that this was a fairly

straightforward thing to build,
but that was certainly not the case.

On the valley floor you can
see, it's quite muddy, a bit boggy,

doesn't really look that
stable a surface to build on.

Look at these tidal mudflats,
look at the depth of the earth here.

This is not going to be a
simple place to accomplish

such a feat of engineering.

The structure that stood here
was not only pioneering, it was also

controversial and the subject
of ridicule, but its story is

forever linked to that of one of
the world's greatest ever engineers.

Today a new viaduct carries

the modern railway
across the valley,

but back in the 19th century,
steam trains were helping to power

the United Kingdom's
booming economy.

Cornwall was home to a
thriving mining industry,

but without a railway the region
was in danger of being left behind.

If they wanted to keep that
business and keep that trade alive,

what they needed was
a railway to connect into

the other mainlines and ultimately
continue all the way up to London.

Now, railways, when you're dealing
with flat ground, it's easy enough -

just lay down the tracks. But
that's not the case in cornwall.

You've got river valleys,
you've got steep hills.

This is gonna be a more
complicated exercise.

This particular valley
was a key part of the route.

There were dozens of Bridges
to build, miles and miles of track

to lay, but if they couldn't

cross this valley, all
of that was for nothing.

You have to get
across the valley,

and the viaduct is
the answer to that.

These are the remains
of the first carnon viaduct.

The plan was to build a vast bridge
some 750 feet long supported by

11 stone pillars. It was
an ambitious project.

Local historian Bob Richards
explains the challenges

its engineer faced.

This was actually one of the
deepest valleys they had to

cross on the whole route,
and so this viaduct itself,

the track bed was some
96 feet above the valley floor.

When you're building a viaduct,
you want something that's stable,

you want it flat and you
want it to last, and that's not

an easy thing to
accomplish here.

You have soft, muddy land that's
over 20 feet thick in some places.

The water level was higher
in those days and it's also tidal.

Not only did this make
construction conditions difficult,

it also put different stresses
and strains on the structure.

It's almost as though
everything was against them.

So building the
viaduct was always

going to be a huge structural
and technological challenge.

Luckily, the man given the job of
building it was no ordinary engineer

but a great colossus of the age.

At the time there was only really
one person who could solve this

particular problem -
isambard kingdom brunel.

Brunel was one of britain's
greatest ever engineers.

Born in portsea, Portsmouth,
on April 9, 1806, to an English

mother and a French father

who was also a civil engineer,
brunel was a precocious child.

He'd learned euclidean geometry
and was fluent in French by

the age of eight.

After completing his apprenticeship
in 1822, brunel worked

as an assistant engineer on
the pioneering project to build

a tunnel under the river thames
between rotherhithe and wapping.

Few then could have predicted
he'd eventually be responsible for

many of the innovative railroads,
steamships, tunnels and Bridges

that underpin the industrial
revolution in britain.

Brunel is probably
best remembered

for the magnificent Clifton
suspension bridge in Bristol,

which at the time had the longest
span of any bridge in the world.

But the railway and
shipbuilding industries both

also famously benefitted
from brunel's great vision.

In fact, a poll carried out in
the early part of this century to

choose the 100 greatest ever
britons placed brunel second on the list,

with only sir Winston
Churchill ahead of him.

But even for a man of brunel's
brilliance, the carnon viaduct

was a highly
challenging project.

He had a solution, but what he was
proposing was considered by some to

be both extreme and dangerous.

Why not complete the top of

the viaduct with
wood instead of stone?

Much cheaper, easier to work
with, and you'll be done much quicker.

But people wondered,
would a wood structure

hold the weight of a train?

Brunel designed timber trestles
that fanned out from the stone pillars

to support a wooden deck,
which would carry the railway.

It was an innovative design, and
by using timber instead of stone,

brunel would certainly save
the railway company money.

But this was highly unusual for

the time, and brunel's plans
were ridiculed in the press.

In 1860 this is
cutting-edge stuff.

It's scary. People don't
know it's gonna work.

They haven't seen it. To
modern eyes, we see a big,

stable structure, but to everyone
else back then, this is the future.

Brunel's imaginative design was
controversial, and today we see

that a new viaduct
has replaced it.

We have these stone
piers, stumps, really,

with nothing on top of
them. Did the wood survive?

Did it collapse? What happened?

Don't underestimate timber.

It might not look as solid and
as heavy as the masonry, but

actually it's incredibly strong,
and if it's used in the right way,

you can transport incredible
loads across it quickly and safely.

In fact, brunel's
wooden design worked.

Its success was at least partly
down to his work on the valley floor.

The stone piers going down

under the ground to the bedrock
were what took the real weight

of the construction, and the wooden
fan design on top spread the weight

evenly across the whole of the
750 feet expanse of the viaduct itself.

The supporting pillars were made
from hard rock driven deep into

the ground. That was what
made the whole structure so strong.

During construction, brunel made
full use of an ingenious invention

he'd worked with before.

He sinks these caissons,
these round, steel rings,

into the river bed and then
pumps out all the mud and silt,

which then enables your labourers
to get down there and build proper

masonry foundations.

Using caissons kept the
foundations dry and meant that

they could be placed deep beneath
the unstable earth on the surface.

While the soft
ground may have once

been a concern, brunel's designs
certainly overcame that issue.

These columns aren't going
anywhere for a very long time.

This victorian masterpiece
carried trains for 70 years, but sadly

its creator never
saw it in operation.

Brunel died before
it was completed.

So, what did signal the end
for his extraordinary invention?

Although it lasted an incredibly
long time, its major downfall

was the cost of
maintenance and particularly

that top timber section.

In the 1930s the railway authorities
designed to replace brunel's viaduct

with a new stone structure,
but his remarkable construction

was one of the last original timber
viaducts in cornwall to be replaced.

Today the modern viaduct
carries tourists along a branch line,

but brunel's great
columns still stand beside it.

Anything that isambard brunel

got involved in was built to last,
and these are a fine example of

his engineering genius
and a fine example of

the workmanship that went into
them, the fact that they're still here

150, 160 years after they
were initially constructed.

Now they're abandoned,

but many were once
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.

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