At the end of World War II the victors found gigantic unfinished systems of tunnels all over Nazi Germany. Hitler ordered the construction of some 800 underground complexes in an effort to keep the Nazi war machine alive. 60 years ago British and American bomber squadrons tried to destroy these subterranean shelters including Hitler’s very own Alpine bunker. The Reich Underground II: The Last Stand, 2004
Many top secret projects were rushed into hundreds of tunnels scattered across Europe. The location and true purpose of many of these tunnels is still a mystery today. Hitler’s Secret Tunnels, History 2019
It’s March 2019 and the Tunnel that runs under the sea between Folkestone in England and Calais in France is just weeks away from its 25th birthday, and days away from the official deadline on Brexit. The Channel Tunnel: Life on the Inside I: Go with the Flow, BBC 2019
What was once a futuristic pipe-dream became a real-life wonder for the modern world in the mid-90s after six years of tunnel construction from both ends. ibid.
It’s the busiest railway system in the world running up to 400 trains a day on its 62 miles of track. Most of those trains are Euro-tunnel freight shuttles loaded with trucks and Euro-tunnel passenger-shuttles loaded with people. ibid.
The Channel Tunnel links two great friends and rivals – Britain and France – and it’s been ferrying cars and lorries and people between those two countries for a quarter of a century. The Channel Tunnel: Life on the Inside II: At the Double
‘You will sometimes see wet patches in the tunnel.’ ibid. train driver
There are two crossover points in the Channel tunnel system about a third of the way from the coast at each end. ibid.
Around 1,000 pets a day pass through the Channel tunnel. ibid.
The idea for the Channel Tunnel as we know it was born in 1867 and became a reality in 1994. The twin tunnel connects Calais and France to Folkestone in Kent. And in the last 25 years more than 400 million have zipped through at 140 km an hour or more. It’s run by Eurotunnel, a Franco-British company. The Channel Tunnel: Life on the Inside III, The Initial Idea
They foresaw France and Britain working together to make it happen. They imagined trains travelling back and forth between Paris and London. They even anticipated the finer point of the debate between remainers and leavers. What was once a Channel Tunnel dream has been a Euro-tunnel reality since 1994. Channel Tunnel: Life on the Inside IV, What Goes Around
Up to 60 navvies are believed to have lost their lives during the tunnel’s construction … The Blisworth tunnel was considered something of an engineering wonder. Dan Jones, Building Britain’s Canals I, Channel 5 2020
The team have found numerous clues spanning across an area of more than fifty feet wide between boreholes C1 and OC-1, including evidence of wooden tunnels nearly 90 feet deep that all pre-date the discovery of the Money Pit by as much as 150 years. The Curse of Oak Island s8e24: Silver Lining, History 2021
Tunnels will become El Chapo’s calling card. Drug Lords s1e1: El Chapo, Jack Riley DEA, Netflix 2018
Who would own the middle of the tunnel? Yes, Prime Minister s2e3: A Diplomatic Incident, Sir Humphrey to Jim, with Bernard, BBC 2001
There will be no escape unless you wish to die. The Colditz Story 1954 starring John Mills & Christopher Rhodes & Lionel Jeffries & Bryan Forbes & Guido Lorraine & Anton Diffring & Eric Portman & Frederick Valk & Denis Shaw & Ian Carmichael et al, director Guy Hamilton, German
You have been blacklisted all of you as enemies of Germany. ibid. Commandant
Ah so, a tunnel. ibid. German
As the Mercedes carrying Diana entered the Alma tunnel it lurched to the left to try and avoid a slow-moving Fiat Uno in front of it. The driver Henri Paul lost control. The car slammed into the thirteenth concrete pillar at sixty-five miles an hour. The force of the impact removed the front bumper. The car then spun round one hundred and eighty degrees and smashed into the opposite wall. Diana: The Witness in the Tunnel, 2007
The most secure prison in Mexico. And a daring attempt to break in. Great Escapes with Morgan Freeman s1e3: El Chapo, History 2021
Drug lords have their own private armies. So the walls of Puento Grande need to be able to withstand a full-scale assault from outside. ibid.
This cell is home to one of the most notorious and bloodthirsty narco criminals of all time: Joaquin Guzman, known to the world as El Chapo. ibid.
‘He escaped on July 11th 2015 and then he is recaptured again on January 8th 2016.’ ibid. Gina Parlevecchio, US lead trial counsel
Western Penetentiary 1996: It was overcrowded and in disrepair … One man sees a puzzle to be solved: Nuno Pontes, the Mastermind. Great Escapes with Morgan Freeman s1e4: Conquering the Wall
140,822. Nun Pontes is trying to drill his way into an underground crawl space. From there, he will be able to tunnel under the prison’s impenetrable wall. ibid.
Dawn finally comes. It’s time … The Pittsburgh six may have just executed the perfect prison escape. They have a two-hour headstart on the authorities. ibid.
The six travel undetected to Pasadena, Texas. There, they hide in a hotel while waiting for falsified documents so they can leave the country. ibid.
They have found the remaining escapees … The Pittsburgh six executed one of the most brazen, brilliant and cunning escapes in history. The mastermind, Nuno Pontes, got just twelve day of freedom, and then fourteen years in Solitary, spending twenty-three hours in a cell utterly alone. You have to ask yourself, Was it all worth it. ibid.
A Nazi POW camp in the heart of the Third Reich [Stalag 3] crawling with spies. One brave British officer organises an audacious escape. Can he and his men break Hitler’s iron grip and tunnel to freedom? Great Escapes with Morgan Freeman s1e5: Escaping Hitler
Three bloody deep, bloody long tunnels will be dug: Tom, Dick and Harry. One will succeed. ibid.
‘76 men had dispersed out and were on their way to escape as far as they could.’ ibid. historian
‘He [Hitler] was eventually talked down to executing only 50.’ ibid.
Every morning over four million people descend into a vast network of tunnels beneath the city. London Underground Revealed, National Geographic 2014
It’s the biggest metro system in the Western world. ibid.
In the hidden world beneath London an army of 4,000 workers is attempting to build the biggest sewer in Britain’s history: seven metres wide and twenty miles long, the enormous tunnel will run directly beneath the River Thames. The five-billion-pound tunnel is urgently needed. The Five Billion Pound Super Sewer I, BBC 2018
A project first mooted almost twenty years ago. ibid.
London’s excess sewage has to go somewhere so to stop it backing up into people’s homes – it’s released into the Thames. ibid.
London’s Victorian sewers are a labyrinth of more than 500 miles of interconnecting tunnels. Parts of the network have never been accurately surveyed. ibid.
If successful, the new super-sewer will capture this waste and transfer it to Europe’s largest treatment works east of the city. The Five Billion Pound Super Sewer II
Jim must scan every inch of the 20-mile stretch of the Thames to complete the underwater map. ibid.
Every day over 30 tonnes of wet-wipes are flushed down London’s loos. ibid.
During tunnelling, engineers plan to excavate over 40,000 tonnes of earth every week. ibid.
The most important part of the machine is the cutter-head; it’s been built specifically based on the predictions of what the earth will be like sixty metres bellow the Thames. The Five Billion Pound Super Sewer III
Sixty metres below the assembly team’s feet deep underground in Battersea excavators have been battling through the tough ground. ibid.
El Chapo Guzman’s network of tunnels is a critical innovation and it sets him apart from his competitors. Kingpin s1e2: El Chapo, caption, History 2018
A giant stone monument rising from the sands of Egypt. A labyrinth of long forgotten tunnels beneath the German countryside. And the remains of an ancient pyramid located in heart of the United States. Ancient ruins fascinate us because they often reveal how much or how little we know about the past. The UnXplained with William Shatner s3e8, History 2022
This is the Blackwall tunnel completely empty. 50,000 vehicles come down here every day. The Thames at Night with Tony Robinson III, Channel 5 2021
Europe, France, Mont Blanc, March 24th 1999, 10:30 a.m.: The world’s deepest tunnel cut through solid rock lies 2478 metres beneath Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain. It’s a vital road link between France and Italy … More than 5,000 vehicles use the tunnel every day, including tourists, locals and lorries. Seconds from Disaster s1e2: Tunnel Inferno
The first signs of trouble: white smoke is escaping from behind his cab … Suddenly, it explodes … producing more and more thick black smoke … It’s a living nightmare. Most of those trapped are unconscious within minutes. ibid.
Such is the ferocity of the fire that it burns for 53 hours. Only then can firefighter pick their way through the charred debris. They’re horrified to discover the remains of the 38 trapped people. ibid.