Labour Day

These are the two Ahae magnets I got in Daejeon.

We started high up.

Next stop was far below.

I found that the stairs didn't lead all the way to the very bottom, but to a passage one floor above.

The others are following more slowly.

The train station itself was down this way.

Someday this will be a familiar site to commuters.

Break area in three languages.

This tunnel led to the bottom floor of the huge hole we'd descended.

Looking straight up.

Up ahead we saw something I hadn't encountered before.

As we got closer, it became clear it could only be one thing.

A gigantic tunnel boring machine.

This is only the front tip of a very long machine, a part known as a cutterhead. It rotates to drill through solid rock.

It was only parked here, having presumably completed its job. There was ample room to go around the cutterhead and see behind it. Here you can see one of the grippers that keeps the TBM stable as it drills. I also believe there may be an operator's cabin up top.

This is the back of the cutterhead. Messier than I expected.

I came back from around there.

A close look at the cutterhead. It is apparently 11.6 meters in diameter.

There was room on the bottom level to squeeze past the cutterhead, and back there I was surprised to find a little break room.

I wonder what food was in here.

This thing stretched on and on. Another TBM with a diameter of 14.01 meters had a total length of 125 meters, so this one is probably comparable.

I believe the apparatus above me was for conveying rock debris carved by the TBM to the back, where it could be removed.

I didn't go up.

Thirsty?

Back at the break room.

Can't pick one.

Oh great, now we see the safety warning.

Here's looking the other way, toward presumably the southeast. I was surprised it was dark.

I didn't want to go farther than this side tunnel because of that car parked there.

We headed back the way we'd come.

It took a few attempts to find the exact passage we'd come through before.

On the way up.

The others are behind me.

Taken from the surface.