All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S07E07.Ruins.Of.The.Rust.Belt.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Narrator: A decaying
concrete jungle

of the northern border
of the United States.

It's a series of
tall vertical tubes,

completely dark, made
of concrete, no windows.

A top-secret enclave in Belarus,

where hundreds of people
once lived alongside great danger.

Perhaps this site
was chosen exactly

because the forest
makes it difficult to detect

what's really going on.

An isolated
cluster of structures

that would bring tasmania
into the modern world.

It was gonna take
a lot of ingenuity

and some very hard-working
people to make it happen.

And in Hong Kong,

a mountainside riddled with
tunnels dug to defend an empire.

They're going to throw those
grenades down into the trench,

wait for the bang and
then dive in themselves

using their sword bayonets.

Decaying relics.

Ruins of lost worlds.

Sites haunted by the past...

..Their secrets
waiting to be revealed.

In northeastern United States

at the edge of lake erie
stands a city of stone.

People sometimes use the word
concrete jungle to describe a city,

well, this really looks
like a concrete jungle,

all you can see is concrete.

These structures are
like mini skyscrapers

but they don't have any windows.

Inside these structures
are a vertical maze.

These buildings are deserted.

They've been entirely stripped.

There's nothing left at
least on the lower levels,

everything's been taken away.

Whatever work or
activity was going on here,

it's clear that it
stopped a long time ago.

Located in buffalo,
New York state,

this set of buildings is
intertwined with the city's past.

These are well removed
from the city centre,

they're right on the
edge of the city limits,

clustered around a
bend in the buffalo river.

Buffalo is a city that's
almost forgotten today

but in its heyday,

it was one of the most
important cities in the us.

I keep coming back to this site
because this is a magical place,

I feel spirits here.

Local resident Larry mruk

has explored this
historic site extensively.

The first time I
came to this place

I just remember, you know,
like how abandoned it was,

how desolate it was.

Inside you see a
series of these tall tubes

like some are made of
concrete, some are made of steel,

it's very eerie, dark,
your voice echoes.

There's nothing
else quite like this.

We come across
this almighty shaft

that seems to go up
for hundreds of feet.

Whatever was happening here,
it was a very large operation.

Most of the building
is now empty

but on the highest level
is a clue to its purpose.

Right now we're at the top
of the American complex.

What we're seeing over
here is all the conveyor belts

as if time stood still.

They're basically the
transportation system.

There's this long open
space with a conveyor belt

that stretches about 200
feet from one end to the other.

So we're 150 feet
up in the air here.

The product that
was brought up here

needed to be not only
transported up here

but then had to be moved
back and forth for some reason

using these conveyor belts.

The product they
were moving was grain.

A commodity that
turned the once quiet

frontier town of buffalo
into a powerful Metropolis.

In the 19th century,

the United States really
emerged as a major player

in the export market

and they were sending
more goods than ever

back to Europe, the
old world and beyond.

And buffalo would soon become
central to the us export boom...

..But there was a problem.

Most of the commodities were
being grown in the heartland

and there was no easy way
to get those products to market.

You have a range of mountains
blocking access to the east coast,

the roads were mostly just
muddy tracks in those days

and the railroads
were developing

but they really didn't
have the capacity

to handle large
quantities of goods.

To get produce to
the east coast ports

the us invested in a
new trade superhighway.

The solution to the
problem was the erie canal

which was a 363-mile
artificial waterway.

It was a huge man-made project

and it allowed goods
to be transferred

from the central United
States farming area

all the way to New York and
then out to Europe and beyond,

and the beginning of that journey
on the erie canal was buffalo.

Suddenly, buffalo
became america's gateway

to the rest of the world.

Buffalo was the transfer point.

You had to unload the freighter,
store that grain somehow

until you're ready to
load it into a canal boat.

Trade through the erie canal
turned buffalo into a powerhouse

with more millionaires per
capita than any other city in the us.

But for the labourers here
the work was dangerous.

When the ships docked in buffalo
the only way to get the grain out

was by hand.

Men would go into the
boats, scoop it into bushels,

each bushel weighed 60 pounds.

There were two
bushels on each back,

he would carry it up about 65
feet to the top of the grain elevator

and then dump it in.

It would take sometimes
a week to unload a ship

and these are smaller ships.

They got paid by the barrel

so they had an incentive
to move as fast as possible,

it must have been
back-breaking labour.

This device here
is a bosun's chair.

A fellow young man usually
18, 19 would be put on the swing

and then they would hit the side
of the silo with a broom or an oar

and loosen up the dust.

And one of the men who
was on one of my tours

said that while he was working
here for a two-year period,

three young men fell off of
this and drowned in the silo.

And there were no
employees' rights back then

but that was it,
take it or leave it.

If you didn't want it there
were 100 others who would.

Trading in grain was
slow and hazardous,

but in 1843 a businessman in
buffalo had a unique proposition.

Around the same time that
the erie canal was being built,

an entrepreneur called
Joseph dart came to buffalo

and he took a great
interest in the grain industry.

He looked at the
processes in place

and he thought he
could do it better.

Joseph dart was an
inventor and entrepreneur,

his idea was a grain elevator.

This here is the
actual grain elevator,

this is a part that would
swing out and into the boat,

go into the bottom of the boat

and bring the grain up to
the top of the grain elevator.

Inside the swinging leg was a belt
equipped with dozens of buckets.

The leg would be lowered
into the boat's cargo hold

and a steam engine
would turn the belt

carrying grain up
by the bucket load.

It was an invention that
transformed the grain business.

What would take a week to unload

could be done in a matter of
maybe ten hours, 12 hours a boat.

More grain was now moving
through buffalo than ever before.

Soon a dozen new
concrete silos were built

giving this place its name,

silo city.

These buildings were
built in early 1900s.

This one here was one of the
first if not the first in the world

to be of its sort.

Silo city started to expand,

they had these vast
windowless skyscrapers

that were used for
storing the grain.

They also had
facilities for processing

and milling the grain,

and even ovens the
size of swimming pools

where they would roast
vast amounts of grain.

In its heyday,

the city was processing 5
million tonnes of grain every year.

Buffalo went from being

one of the most important
grain ports in the world

to the most important
grain port in the world.

This was buffalo at
its economic height

but it wasn't going to last.

In 1959 a new waterway opened,

a new version of the erie canal
in a way, the st Lawrence seaway,

this was a system
of canals and locks

that allowed ocean-going
ships to come from the Atlantic

and sail directly
into the Great Lakes.

When the st Lawrence waterway
opened it made the erie canal irrelevant.

The new seaway took all the
trade from the canal and silo city.

Buffalo was no longer
the terminal to the world,

it was completely
cut out of the deal.

Over the next 40 years, silo
city slowly ground to a halt.

Nature's going to take
these over someday,

it might be 400 years
from now but nature will.

The examples of fern, trees
growing out in the roughs,

moss growing.

And one time when I came
up here I was up 12 storeys,

my friend the fox
was waiting for me.

So it's going to happen.

Today many of the silos
have been repurposed

as centres for art and history.

Monuments to
buffalo's golden age.

On the western edge of Belarus

is a restricted area

hidden deep in the forest.

There's really no reason

to be this far out in the
wilderness, you know,

this deep in the woods.

This is a remote area,

you would not want to be
out here alone late at night.

Beyond the barriers
and warning signs

are long deserted buildings.

You see the floors have
been taken out for the lumber,

everything's falling apart.

The paint's chipped
and peeling and gone.

A short distance away is a
formation concrete structures,

buried in the earth.

Layout of these structures
looks to be very important,

they're laid out

in a very precise
arrangement of four

and there's a central
structure connecting them all.

One of them still has the cover,
the concrete blast shield over it,

the other has been removed.

You look down it's
filled with muddy water.

This is Belarus,

a country with close ties
to the former Soviet union.

Whatever was going on
out here was dangerous,

it was shady and
it was top secret.

A ten-mile drive from
the nearest big town

is a dirt road on the edge
of an unnamed forest.

Translation: "'No
trespassing, danger ahead.'

"this facility was one
of the most classified

"of the Soviet union.

"Its secrets were well kept
by eight levels of security."

Colonel leonid spatkai served
in the Belarusian air force.

Translation: "I've heard
many stories about this place

"during my times
in the Soviet army.

"However, I learned more
about it from my comrades

"from the border guard.

"Unfortunately, they can't say
much due to their obligations."

At the end of the dirt road
sits a derelict neighbourhood

adorned with Soviet propaganda.

Translation: "On the left-hand
side, there is Lenin's room,

"that's for sure.

"Only the leaders'
portrait is lacking.

"Look, someone
even left their shoes."

Inside the stairs are crumbling,

the ceiling is
caving in in places,

just walking around
inside here is dangerous.

Translation: "In this barrack,

"soldiers had a room
dedicated to rest.

"On the left-hand side,

"they must have had
something resembling a gym

"judging by bits
of equipment left."

There was a large
military base here

but it wasn't your typical
military installation.

Their barracks and
their living quarters

all had to be kept out of
the view of the wandering eye

of a spy plane or even a hiker.

But what were the soldiers
preparing for out here?

You're 1,000 miles from
america's closest allies

in Western Europe.

It must have been
something pretty dangerous.

It's said that 60 years ago
the grass began to shrivel,

the trees changed colour and
the mosquitos disappeared.

Translation: "The warrant
officers responsible for that

"were telling me how in
the span of a few hours

"everything around
the station turned yellow

"because of the
poisonous evaporations.

"Everything went dry
because of the toxins."

Something was happening here

that even the soldiers
were afraid to talk about.

A safe distance
from the barracks

is a formation of evenly
spaced concrete slabs.

What you see here is
a very classic signature,

the sort of things spy satellites
and spy planes would look for,

a very large clean
symmetrical hole in the ground,

the opening to a missile silo.

Early in the cold
war silos like these

were built across
the Soviet union,

they housed missiles
with deadly new payloads,

nuclear warheads.

In the beginning of the nuclear era,
bombs were dropped from planes,

which required a plane
getting into enemy territory

and planes aren't that fast either
and they've got humans inside them.

Both sides figured out

that if you put that bomb
on the end of a big missile

you've got a really
effective killing machine.

That was the r-12 missile,

the heart of the
Soviet nuclear arsenal.

So the r-12 known to
NATO as the ss-4 sandal,

it was the iconic Soviet
missile in the period.

They were mounted on trailers

and paraded in every
mayday parade in Moscow.

This new missile ran on
fuel that was easy to store,

it meant it could be
ready to fire within minutes,

but there was a trade-off.

For all their terrifying power,

the r-12's only had a
range of about 1,300 miles.

That may sound like far but
it was barely enough range

to reach the targets that
the Soviets wanted to take out

and the instance the
nuclear war happened.

The r-12 was a
medium-range missile,

the Soviet union was
forced to mount them

on the very edge of its territory
here at the dvina missile silo.

So still not within range
of Washington or New York

but there the edge
of Belarus territory

if they were aimed at say
Rome or Paris or London

that's a target
that they could hit.

In the event of an attack,

the soldiers at dvina would
prepare the missiles for retaliation.

Translation: "Here we can
see the remains of the cap,

"36 tonnes heavy.

"During the launch
of the missile

"it was lifted by a big Jack
and pushed aside on the rails."

Most people probably
think of nuclear missiles

the way they're
portrayed in movies,

the classic sort of doors
over the ground sliding open

and a giant rocket coming out,
but the r-12 did not work that way.

Translation: "The missile launching
process was almost primitive,

"one could say.

"The missile was
positioned vertically

"in order to set
a target for it.

"There was no
software back in the day

"so the only way to
change its direction

"was to change the
positioning of the stabilisers

"before it flies off."

It wasn't exactly a rapid
response but no doubt about it

the r-12 was a very
dangerous weapon.

But the r-12 wasn't only
dangerous after its launch.

In dvina

one missile nearly
caused a catastrophe.

The thing about being
in charge of maintenance

for a nuclear missile

is that it's an incredibly
dangerous piece of equipment.

It's essentially a
bomb on another bomb.

The missile launches itself
into the air with explosive fuel

and that fuel is incredibly
toxic and dangerous.

Translation: "The rocket
fuel itself is highly toxic,

"hence the remote tanking

"and highest security
measures for the personnel.

"You know that it's like in
Belarus, we like to rush things,

"and that fuel was
poured into tank waggons.

"And everything went yellow

"and the birds stopped
flying, as we say.

"The evaporation was tremendous.

"Thank god all those were
taken out of Belarus territory.

"Currently, we don't have
any of those elements left."

And that's scary stuff.

And that fear, not understanding
what these missiles could do,

how they worked, their
potential for destruction,

none of it was really
understood well

even by the people who are
working most closely with these objects

of mass destruction themselves.

For 20 years the r-12 missile
was the Jewel of the Soviet arsenal,

but by 1978 it was obsolete.

Translation: "R-12 missiles
were taken out of service

"when the focus was shifted
towards mobile missiles

"which were cheaper

"and could be launched
from any point."

It was a good thing that it was
decommissioned when it was.

When they analysed the
site after the decommissioning

they discovered that the
ground was so unstable

that if any rockets had
launched out of there

it would have caused
everything to collapse inward,

detonating all
the other rockets.

Those who were stationed
at dvina still refuse to talk

about what happened here.

Colonel spatkai
is one of the few

who keep the story
of this place alive.

Translation: "The fact that

"the missiles never
left their starting points,

"never flew off to their
targets, that's a massive relief

"because otherwise

"if the cold war had
turned into a nuclear war

"I don't think we would
have been sitting here

"right now.

"Probably this place would
have been a burnt off desert."

In east Asia on the edge
of the south China sea,

Hong Kong is one of

the most densely
populated places

on earth.

It's a city buzzing with life

and almost every inch of land
that could have been built on

has been.

But the steep surrounding hills

are cloaked in thick
subtropical forest.

You start up these
steep rickety stairs

that take you
deeper into the forest.

Gradually more and more structures
can be seen in the undergrowth.

We can see vents,
we can see tunnels,

we can see channels
cut into the ground

and reinforced with concrete.

Someone has gone to great
lengths to disguise this place.

A lot of the maps of
these constructions

are outright wrong.

This is not an
easy place to find.

There's evidence
that it was attacked

and below ground, surprising
carvings Mark the walls.

The deeper you go into the
tunnels the spookier it becomes

and then you see the names
carved into the concrete,

it's bizarre.

Local historian Jason wordie

has been studying
this site for years.

The names etched
into the concrete

point to who built
these structures.

They have some
rather curious incisions

at the entrances which
Mark out piccadilly,

charing cross, Oxford
street, haymarket.

On the top of a hill
on the edge of China,

you've got these tunnels
named after English streets,

street names from soho
and London's west end.

This complex was
built by the British

who'd had a foothold in the
region since the mid-19th century.

The British had gotten
fat on Hong Kong,

taking it during the
opium wars in the 1840s

and keeping it as a
principled naval base

and also as a trading
centre ever since.

The British took control
of Hong Kong in 1841.

But this site was
much more recent.

We can date it more
or less accurately

because the fortifications
look so similar

to fortification on the
German border with France

built in the 1930s.

This British defence
system protected Hong Kong,

and it soon became known
as the gin drinkers line.

Further down below
and off in the distance

what was gin drinkers bay
from which this takes its name.

The gin drinkers line has
prepared emplacements,

it has bastions, it has tunnels

so that you can move
from position to position

without being
exposed to artillery fire.

The street names chiselled
into the tunnels here

had an important purpose.

It wasn't just a quaint
colonial affectation

naming it like this,
there was logic to it.

The unit which
extensively trained on this

when it was laid out

was the first battalion
the middlesex regiment.

Now the recruiting area
for the middlesex regiment

was central London.

On this side you can
just see regent street,

regent street again will
lead up to Oxford street.

So for someone familiar
with the London street pattern

as the first battalion
the middlesex were,

this has an interior logic
to it which makes sense.

The idea was that
in the panic of war,

soldiers would navigate their way
through the complex tunnel system

without hesitation.

And one name
marks a key location:

The strand palace hotel.

And here we are

in the observation post
of the shing mun redoubt

codename the
strand palace hotel.

The shing mun redoubt
is the command post

where the commander
of this defence line

will keep in close coordination
with the surrounding fortifications,

knitting together
this defence line.

Now the infantrymen
would have known

that the strand palace
hotel was the place to go

to look for information.

As this is the place
they went in the 1930s

to peek in through the windows

and see what the rich
and famous were up to.

The gin drinkers line
took two years to build

and included a much-needed
ventilation system.

Now ventilation
shafts are dotted

along the entire length
of the tunnel system.

Now the kinds of explosive
were still in use in the mid-1930s

when this was laid out, they
generated a lot of smoke.

But who did the
British expect to attack?

The Japanese had
invaded China in 1937.

By the outbreak of world war ii

they had set their
sights on Hong Kong

and they knew just how
to flush the British out.

The city has grown

on the back of artificially
created water supplies,

so the issue of water

is a great vulnerability
for Hong Kong.

Below the gin drinkers line

sits one of Hong Kong's
main water supplies.

This reservoir was
britain's weakest link.

So the main Japanese strategy
was to capture the reservoir here

and if you capture that
you turn off the taps.

The British angled their guns
to protect their water supply.

But these defences would not
hold the Japanese back forever.

The gin drinkers line was
designed as a speed bump

to bog down an enemy attack

while larger numbers of troops
could be rallied to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was on a war
footing for some months,

the office's buildings,

government buildings
were sandbagged,

everyone was waiting
for something to happen.

All hope lay in their
top-secret defence system

but this was soon compromised.

The British crown
colony of Hong Kong

has got a thriving population
of Japanese business people,

Japanese merchants.

These were Japanese civilians

working in Hong Kong as
agents, merchants, whatever

but were really spying for
the Japanese government.

In December 1941 the
Japanese finally attacked.

The Japanese decide
to go all the way

and try to evict all of
the European powers

from their east Asian colonies.

Within the space of three hours,

they attacked allied bases
across Asia and the pacific

including Hong Kong.

The Japanese air
force attacks Kai tak

the raf base in Hong Kong,

and they destroy the meagre
raf assets on the ground.

And they wipe-out all the
outdated British aircraft,

you know, leaving this
Hong Kong Garrison

without any air cover.

One day later,

the Japanese knew where
to find the gin drinkers line,

thanks to their
network of spies.

The Japanese assault
on the gin drinkers line

uses German world
war I storm troop tactics

and that means they're not
even going to bother with a rifle.

They're going to get their
soldiers to get loads of grenades

and they're going to
throw those grenades down

into the trench
and tunnel system,

wait for the bang

and then dive in themselves
using their sword bayonets,

their swords and just
chop up anybody left inside.

It was chaos.

Inside the tunnel system the
London codenames meant nothing

to the new soldiers brought
in from Scotland and Canada

to defend the line.

They weren't familiar
with the layout,

they weren't familiar
with the tunnel names,

they were completely confused

and this only added to
the Japanese advantage

of surprise

when they breached the line.

This is completely
surrounded by an enemy,

it's pitch black.

There are people upstairs

who don't want you to survive.

Here we have blast damage

which was caused after a
charge had been laid here,

blast, boom, in.

Original war damage in the
top likewise shrapnel on the sides

where something
clearly had detonated

and the damage
is done on the wall.

There's damage
done by small arms fire

to clear the corridor going in.

But not all the damage at
this site tells the same story.

The whole place should
have been blown apart

with debris scattered everywhere
from the Japanese attack,

but they're not.

There are punches
in the concrete

and that's because these
holes weren't from the Japanese.

The British still had
control of their artillery

on stonecutters island.

We've got shell holes,
this came in afterwards

and this was after
this had been captured

by the Japanese.

They're from the British
firing from stonecutters battery,

they wanted to destroy the
command centre and the tunnels

so the Japanese
couldn't have them.

But they couldn't stop the
Japanese taking Hong Kong.

The gin drinkers line
failed for the same reason

the British failed to hang on
to Singapore or Hong Kong.

They're just overextended,

the Japanese have
a building strength,

power, authority,
influence in China.

On Christmas day 1941
the British surrendered.

The Japanese took this
prized British possession

much more easily than
they had anticipated.

The Japanese held Hong
Kong until the end of world war ii

when the British
regained control,

until 1997 when it was
handed over to China.

The British defence of Hong Kong
has continued to attract criticism.

To this day,

there are a lot of
people who feel that

the Indian and Canadian
soldiers sent to Hong Kong

were abandoned
by the British army,

abandoned by the British empire

and used as Cannon
fodder in a hopeless defence

of a city that the Japanese
were certain to take.

In the dead centre of the
Australian island of tasmania

lies a strange mix of
industrial infrastructure.

Tasmania's interior is rugged
and sparsely populated.

Apart from these buildings,

there is nothing
for miles and miles.

We hear from visitors, their
surprised about coming across

such a large sophisticated
engineering project,

literally in the
middle of nowhere.

Huge pipes extend
out of the main building,

climbing up and
over a nearby hill.

These pipelines they're
almost like man-made tentacles

reaching out to who knows where.

Inside you see rows
of heavy equipment,

clearly, this was a massive
engineering undertaking.

You have these big lumps
of machinery from yesteryear.

Other rooms show a more
intricate side to the site.

There's something beautiful
about the engineering here,

there's a certain
care that went into it.

It's like stepping into an
early 20th century Tesla,

lots of buttons and
cool dials to play with.

Whatever went on here

needed constant
monitoring and tweaking.

The commodity produced
from this isolated facility

changed tasmania forever,

but it would take
a herculean effort.

At the turn of the 20th century,

tasmania was in desperate
need of something

the rest of the developed
world already had.

Most of tasmania was
still practically a wilderness,

it was very thinly populated,

but they wanted to modernise.

Tasmania needed to catch
up with the industrial age.

But how?

The history of building
modern civilisation

is the history of
harnessing energy.

Tasmania is a remote island

that's cut adrift from
the bottom of Australia.

If it's to find its own
reliable energy source

then it has few other options

than to look deeper
inside its own territory.

The island's unique
geography sparked an idea.

In the push to modernise,

tasmania had a great
natural advantage.

The interior is high elevation
and filled with lakes and rivers.

Steep highlands, heavy rainfall,
all they needed were the right tools

to convert that water
strain into electricity.

This is waddamana
hydro-electric power station.

Tasmania's answer
to an energy crisis.

But with no water
source in sight

it would take a visionary
professor called Alexander mccauley

to bring it to life.

Mccauley's vision was to realise
the potential of the great lake,

the largest naturally occurring
body of fresh water in tasmania.

He could see by moving
the water from the great lake

to the edge of the plateau

and then dropping it down
for 300m to the ouse river,

he could generate an
enormous amount of power.

Historian Chris tassel
has been sharing the story

of tasmania's
hydroelectric beginnings

for six years.

Most power stations till then had
been built where the water was.

He conceived of the
notion of shifting the water

if I can put it that way
some 30km, 40km,

quite an amazing notion.

But turning mccauley's idea
into reality was no easy task.

The challenge was

it was located right in
the middle of the island

where there were no
roads, virtually no people.

So they essentially
built an 18-mile tramway

to haul all of these
supplies up to waddamana,

we're talking about
generators, turbines, pipes,

everything you'd need

to build this power
station from scratch.

And events on the
other side of the world

further conspired
against its construction.

In 1914 world war I started,

all the equipment was
coming from Europe

some of it didn't get here

because it was either
seized or lost in ships at sea.

The combination
of brutal weather

and rugged terrain
also took its toll.

This was a horrific job
because it's extraordinarily steep,

the rock is extremely
hard dolerite,

and for much of winter,

the rock face is actually
in the shadow all the time

so often the water which
had frozen just didn't melt

so they had to
break away the ice

before they could get
to the rock to break it

to construct the
pathway for the pipes.

Tasmania had this vast
source of potential energy

but it was going to
take a lot of ingenuity

and some very hard-working
people to make it happen.

In this sparsely populated area,

workers had to be brought
in from far and wide.

In order to build and
run the power plant,

it wouldn't be possible for
workers to just commute in and out.

They needed a community here,

one where people
could live year-round,

bring their wives and
children, raise their families.

Peter hardstaff was raised here

and remembers how central
the power station was to daily life.

There were rules.

The village was ran
by a siren at the station.

When the siren sounded
at 8:00 in the morning

it meant we could go to the pool

and when it sounded at 5:00
at night that was knock-off time,

it meant that we had
to be home for tea.

Industrialisation is about
more than just new machines.

It's also about a new
workforce, a new outlook,

a new way of living.

And growing up next to a power
plant came with its own unique dangers.

The rules were quite simple,

you play in switchyard
you're going to die.

Play in the tower rush
you're going to drown.

While hazardous this infrastructure
was also extremely efficient

and influenced life
all across tasmania.

When the waddamana
power station opened it kind of

became the beating
heart of the island.

You have to remember
that for many years

the whole of the state grids
was controlled from this room,

this control office.

Controlling this power station

was not a responsibility
to be taken lightly.

Not much more than a decade ago

there was a problem in a
structure very much like this

at a power plant in
Russia that exploded,

destroyed the whole power
plant and killed several workers.

Even today operating
a hydropower plant

is not a trivial undertaking.

At its peak, waddamana
was a sight to behold.

This is the turbine hall,

this is the heart of
the power station.

The nine generating
units are here.

This is where the mechanical
energy from the water

coming from the central plateau
was converted to electricity.

The amount of sheer energy
travelling through this building

when it was in operation
would be something awesome,

the whole building would
be trembling slightly.

Sometimes the canals feeding
the pipelines would ice over

and this would mean
that ice would be fed

right into the turbines
creating a sound

that was likened to
using a sledgehammer

on a plate glass window.

The power plant's
groundbreaking success

was also its downfall.

Other stations sprang up nearby,

taking waddamana's blueprints
and improving on them.

After almost 50
years of operation,

this plant was not really
cutting-edge anymore,

other plants had been
built that were more efficient.

Despite its age

the power station was still
operating remarkably well

right up until it was shut
down for good in 1966.

While the turbines
no longer turn,

the station stands proudly as
an example of human triumph

over nature and adversity.

I think waddamana is one
of those very special places

where you can actually
feel the excitement

of an original vision,

an extraordinary achievement.

Despite everything,
despite the weather,

despite a location
that defied the odds,

despite a world war

they are able to come up and
use cutting-edge technology.

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