Railway workers in Tokyo were proud of their latest accomplishment. They had created a new subway line to replace the old above-ground line. There was only one problem – they had to shove a portion of the old line underground to make it all work. So they decided to do the entire thing in just one night.
Actually, in less than a night. From the time construction began, at 1:00 AM, to the time of the arrival of the first train on the newly-sunken line at 5:05 AM, only a little over 4 hours had passed.
And the whole operation was incredibly complex, as RocketNews24 explains:
In just one night, Tokyu Railways put their proprietary, somewhat clunkily named STRUM (Shifting Track Right Under Method) tech to the test, mobilizing all 1,200 engineers at once to slowly lower the existing tracks along a pre-built incline to connect it with the subway tracks below.
Building the incline required holding the tracks up on temporary scaffolding as the company dug out the earth below, which kind of makes us doubly glad the method held up.
And New York's MTA is really proud when it does basic maintenance using a few guys over the course of an entire week's worth of nights.
If the US learns only one thing from Japan, let it learn the railway system. Because this is simply incredible.
H/t to r/videos!