UWaterloo Steam Tunnels (2016) | Hacker News Reader

UWaterloo Steam Tunnels (2016)

hashman.ca

70 pointsluu32 comments

http://web.archive.org/web/20221216220038/https://hashman.ca...

During high school I explored the steam tunnels under my hometown university and for my moxie I received an indefinite ban from “all property owned, leased, or controlled by the University of _____” and 6 months of probation.

Post 9/11 these are really quite locked down. Back around 2006 it was mostly IR motion sensors so you could army-crawl under a 300 degree steam pipe and become invisible, as long as you were careful not to burn your back. Now with cameras and AI motion detection I’m not sure there’s a way to explore these for long and remain undetected.

During orientation in my freshman year, we were told (off the record, by some seniors) the steam tunnels have been permanently closed for years, despite the huge convenience they used to provide by connecting far-away buildings underground in the winter when it gets extremely cold, because an alarming number of rapes/sexual assaults had happened down there.

Never really verified whether that was true. I wonder how this photographer was able to get down there.

UW has a ton of completely open tunnels all over campus without needing the steam tunnels. It’s been a decade but if I recall, you could go from Modern Languages to Environment 1-3 to Arts Lecture to Tatham to SCH or DWE and then to all the other engineering buildings. You could visit most of the campus without going outside. Very nice for a Canadian winter. :)

This is a common urban legend present at any university with these types of utility tunnels.

Due to various physical hazards, these tunnels are just not the safest to be in as an untrained individual, and were never open to the public.

They should look at Carleton University in Ottawa as an example.

Big, wide, brightly lit tunnels with cameras on every square inch. No more dangerous than any other part of campus. Entirely open to everyone and often the fastest way to get around.

I can't guarantee that they were never open to the public, but I can say that the waterloo steam tunnels were definitely not designed to be accessible. The tunnel from V1 to main campus is narrow and has a ladder about halfway. Also the steam pipes and many building controls seem to be out in the open and unprotected.

I'm not sure how this photographer got down, but about a decade ago there was a way to sneak in through an access panel.

Some students were interested in lock picking.

Carleton university in Ottawa has a network of tunnels linking different buildings on campus as well. You can go from res to classes without going outside when it is -20.

Those tunnels were one of my favorite parts of being there. I lived in residence during my fourth year and once went three weeks without setting foot outside. January is not a nice time in Ottawa.

Some people wonder how people will adapt to our Mars/Luna underground settlements. These types of places in our northern environments are pretty good examples of people acclimatizing pretty well. Several northern cities have a lot of their downtown area connected by tunnels as well, although not so sure how many residences are connected to those areas.

University of Toronto has a huge network of these, however after a series of tunnel exploration exploits they pretty much created a gated access system.

http://www.infiltration.org/journal-utmain.html

I remember exploring these tunnels. It was surprising how far you could go. Pretty much anywhere on campus.

Yes, Museum at the North all the way to college and StGeorge - further now with new construction. They also added refrigeration with a chilling building. I was amazed at the heat huge volumes of books quietly oxidising in stacks 80-100 feet deep give off - and there was another hiding area - student carrels CAN fit 2.... if they are good friends..

wow, I totally forgot about infiltration.org.

Thanks for that blast from the past man.

Yes, blasted through those tunnels in first year in 1958, steamy, warm dripping/hissing places. The Devonshire place(residence) cat often went there for warmth and mice etc.

Virginia Tech has such a system as well. Linked pictures are much nicer than any of us managed :P

Pitt has a couple too, but we keep things offline :-)

University of Washington (the other UW lol) has similar tunnels - but we were all explicitly told it was instant expulsion to go there during orientation. IDK how true that threat really was.

University of Wisconsin (the other other UW lol lol) also has steam tunnels. We were advised to not go out not them because Tunnel Bob and other inhabitants may not be welcoming to visitors.

It turns out he has a Wikipedia page!

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

no one i know got caught :)

I'm a student at Johns Hopkins, and we have a fairly extensive steam/maintenance tunnel network. I've been down about 15 times this semester (although more focused on climbing buildings as of late), and hauled quite a few other students with. Burnt my arm pretty bad once, and got caught once but just played stupid and they let me walk. Plenty of evidence from past generations; seems to me like they were pretty popular in the 70s... who could've guessed.

You can find some of the pics here: https://www.instagram.com/jhu_liminal_spaces/?hl=en

Of all places, Charlottetown, PEI in Canada has a district system fueled by a garbage incinerator that provides heat and cooling capacity to the hospital, university and a number of buildings downtown.

My understanding was in Montreal, if you include the subway, you can get to and from buildings of 4 different universities without ever going outside.

I guess that's also true in Boston.

Campus steam tunnels are a central feature of S01E08 (Goliath Is My Name) of the late 1980s 'War of the Worlds' tv series. Going to guess one of the writers was a tunnel geek during their university days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZbXgjZfxyM

I wonder how common these are in Europe and how common it is to explore them. My uni and the neighboring one share much of their infrastructure and as such the tunnels reach almost every building on campus - but most students from both institutions have no idea they even exist.

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

U. of Illinois (Urbana) had steam tunnels when I was there. You could tell where they were, because the snow on the ground above them was melted.

Same with Akron U. (NE Ohio).

Snow melt is one of the first things I look for when visiting new campuses.

If anyone wants a mini AMA I went to Waterloo and have personally been into the tunnels (and was never caught!)

I think the link title would be more helpful to mention "University of Waterloo"

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