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Underground Freight Networks
morphovar writes "The German Ruhr University of Bochum is conducting experiments with a large-scale model for an automated subterranean transport system. It would use unmanned electric vehicles on rails that travel in a network through pipelines with a diameter of 1.6 meters, up to distances of 150 kilometers. Sending cargo goods through underground pipelines is anything but new — see this scan of a 1929 magazine article about Chicago's underground freight tunnel network (more details). Translating this concept to the 21st century would be something like introducing email for things: you could order something on the Internet and pick it up through a trapdoor in your cellar the next morning."
Meh. By the time they get something like this up and running, home fabbing will probably be very viable anyway.
Je me fous du passé
I'm sorry, but that's just a dumb analogy. Email isn't overnight or even fast, it's nigh instantaneous. How about "overnight shipping for free" or something else that doesn't involve breaking it down into bits?
How about the security implications? Hack the system, free stuff. Or, mail a bomb to your ex.
The postal system is more secure because people are constantly in the loop.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Just hope that a shipment of spam doesn't clog your tubes :)
this would be great target for terrorists, especially if it's your society's major delivery network. a few well-placed ticking bombs would bring you down. it ain't 1929 no more.
Nice fantasy - we can't even get fiber to the home let alone deliver things to your cellar.
This system wouldn't work in Florida or any other place where the water table is actually above ground. That is of course unless they feel like spending tons of extra money making this tunnel system able to survive in local conditions. It's okay though at some point here we'll get started on that high speed rail we voted into our constitution 12 years ago. After that we can vote this in as well...
Even if this were practical for large businesses like the old pneumatic tube system in NYC, there is no way it would be practical for someone to dig it out to every home in the area for a handful of deliveries per month at the most. Digging tunnels is expensive and time consuming.
The best you could hope for is to have it dug to the basement of a large apartment complex.
I read the internet for the articles.
Because its the only thing that makes sense?
You going to put a large tube above ground in the way of everything? This is the well established technique - subways, sewers, utility tunnels, even catacombs. If this were to be implemented it could even follow the existing networks. The tubes could follow the subways to neighborhood distribution centers or the sewers to individual buildings.
If you put it above ground, you get increased traffic congestion (given that it will reduce available space), lesser security (items could "fall off the truck" any place the system was accessible) and a lesser adaptability. If a river is in the way of a surface road, you have to build a bridge. If a river is in the way of a tunnel, you build more tunnel.
Building the second story above ground rather than below is probably cheaper. It also allows windows. If the extra room is only used for storage, that doesn't matter, but it does for living space.
Infuriate left and right
The thing to remember is that no one owns the underground. In the heavily urbanized areas where these are planned, you'd have to condemn a lot of private property and route around existing roads. railroads, etc. That can be a lot more expensive than digging holes.
But a cellar is cheaper to maintain environmentally.
I've seen some nice finished cellars. Now if you want a room you are going to spend 12 hours a day in, you want windows...otherwise it's just like work!
Cellars would make an excellent home theater space, also a great space for a LAN gaming set up. The constant coolness of a cellar would be good for computers, and the heat computers give off would rise to the rest of the house.
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Only if you would otherwise build a one story house to begin with, and I'm firmly of the opinion that in cities where land is expensive due to scarcity, construction of one-story buildings, residential or otherwise, should be prohibited by building code because it is basically squandering land. Don't get me started about all the one story office buildings in the Silicon Valley area. If all of those one-story office buildings were two story buildings, we almost wouldn't have land scarcity at all... but I digress.
If you're starting out with a two story house, two stories with a basement generally is a lot nicer to look at than three stories. Adding a basement also provides a lot more usable space than turning the attic into a partial floor. And, of course, adding a basement means that if you later need still more space, you have an attic that you can convert into a partial floor.... It's a lot harder to add a basement afterwards than it is to convert an attic.
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You must live somewhere where things never freeze. In colder climates, foundations have to be built under the frostline, which makes basements pretty much a standard feature.