Metro stop is Ancient Rome's new attraction | Hacker News Reader

Metro stop is Ancient Rome's new attraction

bbc.com

119 pointsStevvo40 comments

> When most cities build metro systems, they simply blast through rock.

I'm not sure that this is true (ignoring the bit about blasting, which hasn't been a standard way to build metro lines for a very long time, of course); there was a lot found when London's Crossrail was built, say.

(While it's not made totally clear, I assume they're mostly finding stuff building stations, not tunnels. The tunnels are ~20m below ground, but the stations have to go all the way to the surface.)

Really, any old city, anytime you build anything you may find something. For instance, here's a supermarket with bonus Viking ruins in Dublin: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/aungier-street-lidl-arch...

> (While it's not made totally clear, I assume they're mostly finding stuff building stations, not tunnels. The tunnels are ~20m below ground, but the stations have to go all the way to the surface.)

This is exactly right. Rome's subway is famously dug very deep (30-80 meters) so the tunnels run under the ruins, but each station requires an excavation down to tunnel depth.

Blasting through rock is expensive and only done if needed - I'd suspect that most projects now are cut and cover or tunnel boring machine - both of which can also be terribly expensive (see: Seattle).

Blasting through hard rock is easy. Finland has perfect rock and makes lots of tunnels with blasting. Soft rock needs support so TBM tunnels and shores up.

Yeah, this one looks to be TBM for most of the underground sections.

Thessaloniki had the same issue, and now there's a stop where you have walkways above the ruins.

Some photos of the "before" here:

https://www.thessalonikiguide.gr/metro-thessalonikis-mia-arx...

As one of the cities I spend part of my life, the new metro experience is great, and how they integrated the stations into old Greek infrastructure.

I only morn the loss of jobs that could have been part of the metro, if the wagons weren't robots.

That's great to hear, I've only been in it once (I prefer to cycle on the waterfront), but I hear the ticket machines still don't accept cards. Typical Greece, though it's nice that it actually works well for what it is.

I was there now during both Easters, they do actually, the biggest problem is having different cards for metro and bus.

Actually we have the same problem in Lisbon and Porto, the cards you can top up are company specific, only the monthly subscriptions work across companies.

I meant credit cards, it used to be that you can only pay cash. I agree, though, in London everything just takes credit cards so you have no dedicated ticket cards. Much more convenient.

>Actually we have the same problem in Lisbon and Porto, the cards you can top up are company specific

What do you mean? The Navegante works for all of it in Lisboa!

Navegante is a monthly ticket I was talking about, replacing the old L1, L12, L123, L123X kind of monthly subscriptions.

If you get simple tickets they will only cover Metro/Carris, then you need additional ones for CP, Fertagus, Transtejo, Softlusa.

Do the multimodal finally cover all of them, it has been a few years since I was a few days in Lisbon beyond the airport and travel north?

It used to be that some could be reused between transports, but only if the amount of travels was empty, and then recharged on the other system, being tied to it, until the travels would reach zero again.

I believe Athens was the first city to do this some decades ago.

Once again Romans taking "inspiration" from the Greeks :)

In the same vein, Bloomberg office in London UK has an Ancient Rome museum and the access is free: https://www.bloomberg.org/arts/advancing-the-arts-around-wor... (disclosure: I work for Bloomberg).

I’ve visited the Mithraeum. It’s maybe not a must see for a tourist, but great that it’s publicly available for free.

In Sofia we have roman ruins everywhere around metro stations https://archaeology-travel.com/bulgaria/serdika-ii-metro-sta...

It's quite interesting to see how much earth is typically above ancient ruins. Cities built upon cities for 1000's of years where a street or building was once at ground level and now is 2-4 stories beneath our modern world.

While visiting Vienna, there are ruins on display in Michaelerplatz (central Old City), so cool.

I've always been confused how this works. Did people shovel soil on top of buildings then build new buildings on that? Why? Did it accumulate naturally perhaps during periods when a site was unoccupied? Would some buildings be higher than their older neighbors, with entrances above street-level until everyone else caught up?

I believe in Rome, it was mostly flooding/alluvial debris. But yeah, sometimes buildings would collapse and they would just build again on top of the ruins.

There definitely are instances of buildings being misaligned.

In my ancestral family home there was a door wat ground level, but originally it had a few steps to get to it; the outside ground had gone up by some 40cm with sediments over a century or so.

Or had your house also sunk like Miami is doing?

good question!

In this case, I think not: there's paving stones under the dirt, if the building had sunk those would have to be comparatively higher up (they don't weigh as much) but they still lay at the front of the steps.

(or I should say, laid, sadly the building had to be levelled after an earthquake)

I have to wonder sometimes what an ancient Roman would think of modern Rome. What artifacts would be they grateful to see preserved, and which by contrast would have them thinking 'haha, you dorks care about that?'

The "mouth of Truth" has attracted tourists for centuries but it was just a drain cover, and it would fit your idea perfectly.

Amsterdam's Rokin metro station is also set up as an archaeology exhibition. Definitely worth a visit.

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

https://belowthesurface.amsterdam/en/

For reasons, I used to go to Rome quite frequently in the 2010s, and the construction of Metro C was already a meme. But now some of the stations are quite interesting indeed.

You know the meme, "they found ruins of metro C while building the metro C"

As a casual Rome enthusiast give us the lore drop

In a place like Rome with layers and layers of deep history they should just think of building elevated metro systems.

You are getting downvoted, but Rome is nothing but a museum. It would be empty if not for the tourist attractions.

Of course elevated trains are not good for tourism. Not unless you're Elwood Blues and can get used to the noise.

https://youtu.be/0lL3PODLf_A?feature=shared

Lot of rumours, truth is it's unmotivated, the station is underwhelming compared to similar stations in Europe and - most important - it's already falling apart and encrusted in dirt, with mafia and corruption handling maintenance and cleaning

>it's already falling apart and encrusted in dirt

It opened four months ago.

What are you on about? I literally visited it last weekend and it was spotless and thriving with curious tourists interested in the well showcased findings.

Station Is huge and it's easy to overlook the issues. You have to look at the ceilings and spot the grime where water leaks (it was raining inside the station at the first rain literally the week after the opening). Look at the misplaced panels, broken trimmings and approximate maintenance works. Look at the lime spots (due to leaks) in the stairs. Look at the more out of reach waste that crews don't care to remove. Make all of those add day by day, and let me know when you'll visit next what you see.

Okay, I'll say it: is it really worth encumbering the movements of millions of people for decades in order to make a few boring history exhibits? If you want to see some the bone comb that belonged to somebody's great^100-grandmother, there are dozens of museums that already have one on display.

The problem isn’t the present tense. The problem is once those artefacts are destroyed then they’re destroyed forever.

They might find some important writing that can shed light on history.

Those people live in a museum-- Rome would be nearly empty if not for the tourist attractions, as it was for so many centuries.

Yes. I travel around the world looking for such things.

Is it encumbering? It seems like it's not at all.

Is it really worth? YMMV, but yes if you ask me.

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