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First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

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81–90 of 102 posts

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#81

This is very exciting if you live in the Copenhagen–Malmö area. Currently it takes 5 hours from Copenhagen to Hamburg, and 8 hours if you want to get to Berlin. With this tunnel done, I believe Copenhagen to Hamburg will be less than three hours. Suddenly a weekend trip to Germany by train looks more practical. The train is very nice right now, but you need to set aside a day for travel, in both directions. It's a sh…

> If they had built a tunnel to Rostock, things would have been different…

That would’ve been an extremely long (and expensive) tunnel.

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#83
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is super complex and cheap to update. Engineering like this, however difficult, is not that complex and it's very expensive and difficult to update. We take advantage of the situation. If we invented some way of e.g. "growing" structures that turned out to be much cheaper we'd probably adapt our attitude to changing them.

Software isn't inherently complex, it becomes complex. Because it is iterative. Because we keep making demands of it that weren't planned. Imagining building a bridge and then in the middle someone comes along and says it should also be a tunnel. I think therein lies a main difference to engineering and software engineering: planning and sticking to a plan. Another thing are incentives: real engineering has real ince…

Imagining building a bridge and then in the middle someone comes along and says it should also be a tunnel

While converting a bridge to tunnel mid-construction doesn't happen, what does often happen is that design assumes a particular construction technique can be used, construction starts with that technique, and midway through it's determined that an entirely different technique is required. This results in a bunch of redesign, remobilization, etc. Just like with software, construction often does not survive first contact with reality.

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#84

This is very exciting if you live in the Copenhagen–Malmö area. Currently it takes 5 hours from Copenhagen to Hamburg, and 8 hours if you want to get to Berlin. With this tunnel done, I believe Copenhagen to Hamburg will be less than three hours. Suddenly a weekend trip to Germany by train looks more practical. The train is very nice right now, but you need to set aside a day for travel, in both directions. It's a sh…

> If they had built a tunnel to Rostock, things would have been different… That would’ve been an extremely long (and expensive) tunnel.

Yes, and it would have required much more investment in rail upgrades in eastern Germany. I can understand why they didn't go for it.

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#85
post #48

Hmm, website owners can apparently mess with my settings and make their site "smooth scrolling". Ugh. It's like having a nightmare where I'm trying to scroll as hard as I can but I feel like I'm scrolling through mud. It actually feels like they have a speed limit to scrolling, I'm used to giving my MX Master 3S a big spin and being at the bottom of a page near instantly, here it takes time.

On my mobile device, it's like they've made the scrolling accelerated and slippy, as if it's on ice suddenly. It's very unpleasant.

See how dangerous road conditions out in the open can be? This won't happen to you in a tunnel! Consider commissioning one with us today :)

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#86

This is very exciting if you live in the Copenhagen–Malmö area. Currently it takes 5 hours from Copenhagen to Hamburg, and 8 hours if you want to get to Berlin. With this tunnel done, I believe Copenhagen to Hamburg will be less than three hours. Suddenly a weekend trip to Germany by train looks more practical. The train is very nice right now, but you need to set aside a day for travel, in both directions. It's a sh…

> If they had built a tunnel to Rostock, things would have been different… That would’ve been an extremely long (and expensive) tunnel.

The Rostock bridge was proposed and this tunnel selected instead.

My understanding is that the water farther east is shallower which makes bridge cheaper. But not enough to be chosen.

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#87
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say Engineering is not that complex, have you taken into account corrosive sea water, pressure, currents, what it means to make repairs and maintainance down there etc? It is difficult, because it deals with a very complex world full of physics, chemistry and even biology in a way that does not allow errors.

Engineering doesn't seem complex because there are centuries of learnings behind it. Those learnings become rules and suddenly it appears "simple" because no one debates whether to use wood or concrete when building an undersea tunnel!

....however that really is a kind of simplicity. Your training is relevant throughout your career. In software that is much less so. I think Comsci is a worthwhile degree but mine was really only a starting point.

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#88
post #37
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is super complex and cheap to update. Engineering like this, however difficult, is not that complex and it's very expensive and difficult to update. We take advantage of the situation. If we invented some way of e.g. "growing" structures that turned out to be much cheaper we'd probably adapt our attitude to changing them.

When you say Engineering is not that complex, have you taken into account corrosive sea water, pressure, currents, what it means to make repairs and maintainance down there etc? It is difficult, because it deals with a very complex world full of physics, chemistry and even biology in a way that does not allow errors.

Software does allow errors hence, IMO, we overload the complexity and "underload" the proof of correctness. We're not really that afraid of failures most of the time.

Vibe code a bridge! Arf. I am sure someone will.

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#89

This is very exciting if you live in the Copenhagen–Malmö area. Currently it takes 5 hours from Copenhagen to Hamburg, and 8 hours if you want to get to Berlin. With this tunnel done, I believe Copenhagen to Hamburg will be less than three hours. Suddenly a weekend trip to Germany by train looks more practical. The train is very nice right now, but you need to set aside a day for travel, in both directions. It's a sh…

> With this tunnel done, I believe Copenhagen to Hamburg will be less than three hours. Even when the tunnel will finally be done, Deutsche Bahn will find creative ways to make it take five hours again.

I recently took the first direct train from Prague to Copenhagen which was expected to take 13 hours from PRG to CPH (normally it should be 11 but there is a construction on the high speed line between Berlin and Hamburg so we had to take a detour through Uelzen).

The train left the Czech Republic with 0 minutes delay. Long story short, we crossed the German-Danish border more than FIVE hours later than the original plan. And it wasn't even in the same physical train, the original one got cancelled from Hamburg because of the huge delay we already had.

As for the reason of the delay, at first it was just German "normal" state of things, we left Bad Schandau (the first German station) on time, got to Dresden with 5 minutes (still "on time" according to DB), then without any visible reason got 20 minutes on approach to Berlin where there were so many people on the platform that it took some other twenty minutes for the passengers to get on and off.

When we arrived to Luneburg, the train stopped and after an hour or so the crew said that there is a problem on the line to Hamburg so we'd have to take another detour (from a detour!) and go through Hannover which added several hours to our delay. On approach to Hamburg we already knew that we'd have to transfer to a Danish train there, which thankfully went pretty fast and we left for Schleswig, where our train stopped again, this time because of a "fire in the vicinity of the tracks". After another two or three hours that it took the firefighters to realize that nothing was actually burning, we finally left Germany and the rest of the trip went just fine and we did not gather any additional delay in Denmark, arriving to Copenhagen in the middle of the night (instead of the original 7:30pm).

TL;DR: Sänk ju for trävelin wiß Deutsche Bahn!

Czech media even wrote[1] about how the train failed to get to its destination.

[1]: https://zdopravy.cz/prvni-primy-vlak-z-prahy-do-kodane-skonc...

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#90

"It looks like you're trying to visit our US site, but you're not based in the US. If you'd prefer to visit our global site, please click on 'Global site' below, alternatively if you wish to continue to the US site, please click 'Continue'." Do they want me to read their article or not? It shouldn't matter where I am for that Are they aware this question invokes anxiety to the visitor because many websites will show…

> It shouldn't matter where I am for that

Ah, an old person on the internet from the days before it was balkanized. How great it was to live in that time that no longer exists.

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