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Stad Ship Tunnel

Started by Antarctica, June 05, 2017, 03:02:44 PM

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Antarctica

So it seems the Norwegians are really building it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stad_Ship_Tunnel

How about Simutrans?

Leartin

That's already possible for the longest time. If you create a channel that's also a tunnel, you'll get that. Though it usually won't look great since ships are often too big, so there are clipping issues.

Ters

Ship tunnels have also existed in the real world for a long time. It is just the size issue.

As for ship infrastructure and ship sizes in Simutrans, I guess the lifts filling in for sloped ramps on "ship bridges" (navigable aqueduct) in Simutrans will also have clipping issues. I don't know how much they are used by Simutrans players, though. I have never used them, since I hardly use ships at all (too slow for big maps, at least with JIT1).

Personally, I find bridges for ships a more insane engineering solution than tunnels for ships. While ships aren't heavier than water, or they would sink, water itself in those quantities is quite heavy.

prissi

However, ship bridges are very common, even on a large scale (lots of them in germany, dutch and britain, i.e. countries with channel infrastructure before railsways).

A very recent one see here this crossing of Mittellandkanal over the Elbe river, just built in 2003.

Ters

I know they are real, but they still seem insane. Some of the ship lifts used to access a few such bridges look even more insane. At least one looks like a beefed up amusement part ride.

As for insane tunnels, I'd say the one Norway intends to build which can withstand a head-on collision from a submarine (not the biggest ones, though). Why would the tunnel have to withstand a submarine? Because it is a tunnel through water, not rock. It is also the only tunnel design I've seen which takes cyclists into consideration. On the other hand, it is probably the only road construction project I've seen in Norway which shows what I consider little more than a token concern for cyclists. Then again, that is probably because the tunnel is too long for pedestrians to be a concern. (The Oslofjord tunnel may also be considered insane, if only because it is so steep that vehicles, particularly trucks, catch fire on a regular basis, causing evacuations and lengthy repairs. And it is supposed to be an important bypass for trucks in particular, keeping them away from the crowded and polluted-as-it-is city of Oslo.)

Tunnels through water is something Simutrans lacks support for.

prissi

You can tunnel through an ocean, you just need long steep slopes (as in Norway, if I recall my trip from Trondheim Airport to the Town ... )

Leartin

That would be an underground tunnel, just that there is water between ground and surface. A tunnel through water would be more like this: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/norway-could-build-the-worlds-first-floating-tunnel

Ters

That's the tunnel I was writing about. And the purpose is exactly to avoid the slopes. We have enough tunnel fires as it is, and these tunnels might be far from fire stations. Fjords are also as steep below water as they typically are above. pak128 has no chance of representing that, only pak64 comes close with its double heights. (There is no underwater tunnel near Trondheim.)

Technically, I don't think construction in water would be much different in Simutrans from underground construction. The biggest issue is probably the interface between the underground and underwater sections, at least if underwater tunnels should be independent from underground tunnels.

Leartin

If you really want underwater tunnels, I think the best way to do them would be adding an "underwater-view", which would show the ground under water. From there, you could have "underwater tunnels", which would be buildt on the ocean floor, just like you build normal ways on the ground, and "floating tunnels", which would work like underground tunnels in that they can be at any height and go up or down.
Furthermore, you would need two additional kinds of tunnel portals. One kind of portal would work just like a normal tunnel portal, but it can only be placed on slopes underwater, to connect underwater tunnels and floating tunnels with underground tunnels.
The second kind of portal would be an air-to-water-portal. Technically, if you build any tunnel under water that leads to the surface, that tunnel should be able to connect to a normal way of the same type. But you would need the portal graphic to be placed above the water surface in normal view mode, to indicate where the tunnel begins, since otherwise it would look no different from a normal way on a slope next to water.


I guess I don't need to mention that in that case, the next step would be underwater buildings, which would probably be easier to implement than underground buildings. Who doesn't like Bioshock?

Ters

I was just rambling along about an idea. The way Simutrans generates maps, it is rare to get long and relatively narrow waters like fjords or the English channel, where bridging is unrealistic and going around is way too far (although the latter depends on how the pak set is balanced and some options in simuconf.tab). By the time such tunnels would realistically be available, my network is pretty much complete anyway.

I don't really need air-to-water portals. Most, although indeed not all, tunnel to underwater tunnel joins I've heard of is located on an island, even if it is artificial. A tunnel portal that goes down from the surface (water or not) would have been useful in general, but won't work in half-height pak sets, which needs two tiles to reach sufficient depth. Such a pak set could perhaps use a different kind of portal.

As for the underwater-to-underground portal, I think it would have to be part of the underwater pak.

Ves

Speaking of tunneling through water, the Øresundsbron and tunnel is worth to mention. The tunnel is not bored but made out of a big bunch of prefabricated concrete segments which where floated to its location and then sunken into the water. I never saw this myself, but apparently, when you flew in and out from Kastrup Airport, you could see the tunnel segments down in the water from the air.

So, laying tracks and roads on the seabed is already possible in the real world :-)

Quote
The connection between Peberholm and the artificial peninsula at Kastrup on Amager island, the nearest populated part of Denmark, is through the 4,050-metre (13,287 ft) long Drogden Tunnel (Drogdentunnelen). It comprises a 3,510-metre (11,516 ft) immersed tube plus 270-metre (886 ft) entry tunnels at each end. The tube tunnel is made from 20 prefabricated reinforced concrete segments – the largest in the world at 55,000 tonnes each – interconnected in a trench dug in the seabed. Two tubes in the tunnel carry railway tracks, two carry roads and a small fifth tube is provided for emergencies. The tubes are arranged side–by–side.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/oresund_Bridge

Vladki

Similar technique was used to build one of metro (underground) tunnels under the Vltava river in Prague. It was built on the shore, and then pulled into the river. I'll try to find the video.
https://youtu.be/mtwB8cO_Arw

Ters

We've done that in Norway, too, although I don't know if any is that long. One runs right outside the our supposedly fabulous opera (although the roof seems more useful than the interior), connecting two previously existing tunnels bypassing the city center. (That is the route the earlier mentioned tunnel is a bypass for, when it's not closed due to fire.) If you tried that kind of construction in a fjord, it would be more like a pair of elevator shafts.

I'm not sure one would notice the difference in Simutrans between a tunnel running on the seabed or just below it.