Happy Friday. This is The Shake 🤝: the weekly newsletter that occasionally gets sent out during happy hour… cheers to the weekend🍻 

Here’s what we got this week:

• The Revolutionary Thames Tunnel

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The Revolutionary Thames Tunnel

Imagine being a merchant in the 19th century, traveling thousands of miles and surviving all the hazards at sea just to arrive at the London port and be stuck in a traffic jam similar to present-day LA during rush hour…

Merchants delivering goods to the south of Britain (the heavily populated region during this time) would have to shift to ox carts to haul through the docklands and cramped London Bridge.

It became the center of the world's largest traffic jam.

In 1825, the Thames River was the busiest river in the world with 13,000 boats passing through every day. There’s a tale that you could’ve crossed the river by jumping from boat to boat back then.

Another crossing closer to the docks was needed, and private enterprises knew a pretty penny could be made through toll revenue.

Another bridge was quickly dismissed because merchants and warships back then had masts that were 180-200ft high - making developing a bridge across the River Thames a very tall task to avoid interrupting access to the Pool of London.

So if you can’t go up… go down.

Crossing the Thames River was a significant challenge, and ferry services were often overcrowded and unreliable. Ambitious visions to go underground and build a tunnel beneath the river emerged as a potential solution, although many skeptics thought it was impossible.

Richard Trevithick made the first attempt in 1807. It failed miserably due to the roof and walls constantly collapsing. The soil would change from clay to quicksand once under the river, and their primitive mining technology couldn't stop water from breaking through.

It would take a man of genius ingenuity to solve the problem…

Fast forward a few years and the next Thames Tunnel project was led by Marc Isambard Brunel, a French engineer, and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who became chief engineer of the project at only 19 years old.

It’s no surprise Isambard would later become a legendary figure in the history of civil engineering. Regarded as the Elon Musk of his era and the genius of the Industrial Revolution.

But even with top-notch talent, building the Thames Tunnel was an immensely challenging endeavor.

The Thames River was a tidal river, meaning the tunnel had to be constructed beneath the riverbed while dealing with the constant influx and efflux of water with the tides.

Due to this, workers had to deal with dangerous conditions due to the high risk of flooding during construction. The tunnel flooded on six different occasions, killing six men and almost taking young Isambard Brunel’s life.

Despite these challenges, several key innovations were introduced during the construction of the tunnel.

To prevent water from flooding the work site (similar to previous attempts), the tunnel had to be built in a submerged, pressurized chamber. The pressurized chamber, coined as the "shield," was a pioneering invention by Marc Brunel and a precursor to tunnel boring machines.

This shielding technology laid the foundation for the modern tunneling method - allowing workers to excavate and construct the tunnel safely under the river. The tunnel was also the first to use brick-laying machines to construct its lining.

Marc Brunel got the idea of the shield by observing a rotten piece of ship’s timber on a walk through the docks. He noticed that it was infested with shipworm, which so happens to tunnel through wooden ships.

It piqued his interest as he analyzed the burrowing technique that shipworms use to tunnel through the wood. It shoves pulped wood into its mouth and digests it, excreting a hard, brittle residue that lines the tunnel it has excavated and renders it safe from predators.

Marc’s insight to adapt the burrowing technique and produce an innovative way of tunneling led to the creation of the shield device, which has been imitated for tunnel construction for the last 180 years.

After many ups and downs, the construction of the Thames Tunnel was finally completed in 1843, nearly 18 years after it began. It was supposed to take only 3 years…

The tunnel was opened as a pedestrian walkway with the intention of generating toll revenue to cover the construction costs.

It was repurposed to accommodate horse-drawn carriages and later electric trams. The tunnel eventually became part of the London Underground railway system.

Today, the Thames Tunnel is considered a significant milestone in the history of tunnel construction and engineering. It demonstrated that it was possible to construct tunnels beneath rivers and other bodies of water, which opened the door to countless future tunneling projects around the world.

The Thames Tunnel stands as a testament to the ingenuity and determination of the Brunel family and their pioneering work in the field of civil engineering.

It still remains an integral part of London's transportation infrastructure and a historical landmark.

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^{DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own res}