Some of the World's Most Useless Megaprojects 

That one cracked me up! 🤣 Nice job sir, you made my day.😊

A line from nowhere to nowhere Its almost poetic😂

LOL!

Lmaoo

I happened to read this comment at exactly 0:14 into the video and I gotta say... sometimes things just work out.

whole country's like that, we suffer from bad ideas but we fool ourselves into thinking that it's somehow good

Actually they aren't afraid to say no but they are more eager to say yes because it's the best time to swindle money from the rich idiots

Saudi arabia is so fked if oil income ever dries up

​@2Phast4Rocket no, they all say "yes" otherwise they'll be executed.

Genau das selbe dachte ich auch gerade 😂

I don't think trains run on time anywhere in the world, except Japan

@@oldtimegames96pretty much, Japan is really good at its trains though. First time I visited I was warned to not get on the train if it’s 1 minute early because that’s likely the wrong train. True enough, their trains are usually exactly on time.

The spectacularly convoluted semi-privatization in the 1990s, which constitutionally (!) prioritized freight trains over passenger trains, ruined it. Ever since then, Germany's pathetic train schedules have been a running joke in German-language media, but somehow, the stereotype of German "clockwork efficiency" is keeping alive a myth of German trains being on time. For the average US guy, who never steps a foot outside his country, let alone continent, that may be understandable. But Simon lives in Prague; how can he not be aware that the neighbor to the west might have better roads, but sucks spectacularly at trains?

​@oldtimegames96 That isn't 100% a good thing, though. There've been multiple cases that made it to court (each with testimonies indicating it's a common practice countless others have been subjected to) about train drivers, who narrowly missed the timetable due to factors outside their control, and got sent to "retrain" at JR facilities, which consisted of getting shouted at that they had failed the company, while either stuck doing nothing, but think about "what they've done", in a seminar room or being made to do janitorial tasks. For weeks, even months. Obviously, this leads to tremendous stress during this "training" as well as on the job for literally zero real world benefit, which in turn leads to burnout, suicide, and dangerous speeding in densely populated areas to catch up when held up. AFAIK the (overall thankfully still relatively few) train derailments in Japan can all be traced back to this. Granted, the last case I read about was some years ago, but given general resistence to all sorts of work environment improvements in Japan, I've precious little hope that this no longer happens. Even in Japan most kinds of mental and physical abuse of employees (and students) have been illegal for decades now, ever since lawmakers recognized they had an extraordinarily high rate of suicide as well as of people literally working themselves to death. But all the JR companies are powerful (and I wouldn't be surprised to hear of such at other train lines as well), and in the end the whistleblowers are the ones that get ostracized by their (ex-)coworkers.

While the idea is sound, the 'quality' of those buildings means that paintballs could eventually displace enough 'concrete' to make one of them collapse.

Real life (non-lethal) PUBG!

more like 5000 players each team

I mean could be a pretty nice thing for China to allow Paint ballers,airsoft and mil sim to use these cities for urban combat events.

the slaves on the lower floors will get plenty of shade alright... both physically and metaphorically.

I live in Saudi Arabia.

@@user-on7eu2eo8u would you call 'access to the sun' a priority?

It's almost like all their money wasn't earned via critical thinking lol

​@@rustythecrown9317we would shade the whole goddamn country if we could. #fuckthesun

It might happen, just on a much smaller scale. I agree its a stupid idea, though.

It is happening. Right now. I live in the UAE and the stupid line is making things really tight for the builders here as all the contractors are moving their staff to the Line because the Saudis are spending whatever they have to in order to get people there

​@@randomuser6306happining and finishing are 2 diefferent things The Saudis never finished that 1km tower they wanted to build 10 YEARS AGO.

​@@ghaznavidnah they will Abondend it half way in and scratch it from memory with propaganda.

Just like that 1km tower they wanted to build 10 YEARS ago..... Yeah.

That’s not even factoring all of their other ambitious projects they have planned for that part of the country. Projects that require untested/completely nonexistent technology. At the end of the day, this whole project will be nothing more than an ecological disaster.

@@troybaxter How I wish all those huge oil reserves were found in, say, the Benelux countries, and not in a backwards hellhole like Saudi Arabia. Now the money is spent on golden Lamborghinis and the most moronic projects the world has ever seen.

@@troybaxter well its being built anyways and construction is going full steam ahead. though latest disaster of the american bank collapsing after the crown prince invested 10 billion of public funds in it while ignoring hes advisors begging him otherwise(same ones that approved the line) have put hes projects into questions as public support have nose dived this past months.

@@Jack-he8jv it may have gone underway, but it definitely won’t succeed…

@@Jack-he8jv His majesty can do no wrong. His vision shall be realized and his city will cleave his kingdom into two beautiful slices like Zulphicar cutting a cake. His coffers will never be empty so his project will come to fruition.

We're having a good chuckle in Massachusetts over a school. Minnechaug Regional High School. Lights had been on 24/7 for a year and a half. Still not sure if they fixed it. Nobody could figure out how to turn off the system.

And it isn't even the only stupid airport in Germany - there's also Kassel.

He did a Brain Blaze video on it, back when it was Business Blaze.

They also had to change all the monitors in the Airport once, since the original ones where so old that they wouldn't get through modern regulations

We germans arent always smart, usually the berliners are the type to louse such an easy thing up.

Agree, I watched the presentation at WEF. My first thought was this not been thought through, blowing sand, prevailing winds, animal migration, accumulation of debris...

Good point. I want to see a deep dive dove could spend hours picking the line apart

My thoughts, exactly. Wide space in the lower level would, also, offer possible passageways for wildlife.

They can't even get toilets to function after placing a giant glass peen in the desert.

People don't realise that The Line is about politics. Saudi Arabia have big plans for the region of Neom with land acquisition in the region beginning back in 2017. The plans includes a large shipping hub, airport and ski resorts as well as a major city, luxury hotels and a world renowned marina. Much of this land is claimed by an ethnic group called al-Huwaytat. The original deal for Neom was for the tribe to be compensated and only the land needed for the first stages of development to be handed over allowing the developers and the al-Huwaytat to benefit from the growth of Neom. However this deal stalled out as the tribe began being forcibly evicted from these lands as to make way for an ever increasing list of developments including new agricultural projects. Things came to ahead in 2020 with major protests, The government declared these protests illegal and launched a major security crackdown, many of al-Huwaytat leaders were arrested and charged and the most vocal opponent of the evictions was killed in a confrontation with police. Police in the region tasked with evicting people reportedly appealed to the government for help as they were being assaulted and even shot at whilst attempting to relocating tribe members and construction work was impossible due to the unrest. In 2021 the line was announced and became part of Neom project coincidentally it went right through the heart of the tribes many town in the area. Authorities announced it would force the entire tribes removal from the region, military personnel were dispatched to help relocate the tribe and peace was restored in a matter of weeks. The line will probably never be built and it's funding will be folded into the rest of the Neom development project.

Great analogy 😂

Yeah, and this was a political problem. Well, we talk about Berlin after all... Parts of the family work/worked for big construction companies that build these kind of things and they could only shake their heads about the crap Berlin was doing. If they gave the project to just one capable company it would have been finished 10 years ago and with way lower cost, but the politicians in Berlin really wanted to bring in shittons of small companies that all did their own stuff and in the end nothing worked together. Really well done.

Are you aware of 'pass it on' on the Sorted Food channel? That's exactly what you're describing :) My analogy would be more like: find someone offering the cheapest price with total disregard of their skills and keep replacing them with the next cheapest one until the end of Berlin or Germany or time itself. Repeat in Stuttgart.

Back in 2012 I loved these postcards with Walter Ullbricht saying: 'Niemand hat die Absicht eine Flughafen zu errichten' (Nobody has the prospect to build an airport, a joke on the original sentence on the Berlin's Wall)

Yeah, I go to Berlin every now and then. I remember seeing BER on the map for several years, but the flights always went to Tegel. I asked my cousin (native Berliner) about it and he just shook his head. Now I have flown home from there once and it was not great. By contrast Tegel is a pretty great and easily accessible airport.

Perfection! Heard it in Simon's voice 🤣😎

Into the Whistlerverse.

Whistlerverse of Madness...

Whistlerversal Soldier

Imbecilic and sad, no wonder she left you.

"it would save a few million in profits that a general contractor to organise the thousands of sub-contractors otherwise would charge…" Ouch...Oh, well, it was other people's money, so no big deal, right? Save a 'few million' by not hiring a general contractor...good. Spend a few billion because not hiring a general contractor fucked things up...oh well, these things happen, right?

OH hell yeah!!

That was the man himself who didn´t even manage to match his left and right shoe, was he?

The idea was the population would keep booming

meh, any city in rush hour would be far worse (time wise) to traverse due to car centric development.

Oh and let's not forget the fact that a broken down train isn't technically late per the german rail company...

Wow. Compared to the trains here in America, you're still better than we are. But c'mon guys, German precision is what you're famous for. That and Hitler. Of these two things, if you lose your amazing precision, then you're down to only...well, you get the point.

Some correction: The Schönefeld airport was not just in the vicinity, BER was basically built on top of Schönefeld airport. There used to be two runways south of the old building (the now retired terminal 5), too close to each other for parallel operation. The northern one war demolished, the southern one was rebuilt. To the south of that the new airport building was constructed partially on the location of the old hangars (the historic Henschel aircraft factory was preserved) and on additional land for which Diepensee was demolished. South of the new building they added a new runway fit for A380 planes (which come only every two years for the ILA air show…).

My family and friends had the running joke for years, how I would graduate before Ber gets done, how Id become 18, than 20, and so much more. Worsed part is, that we sadly were right for far to long

Statistically speaking any country that has its railways always running on time will be at war within 2 years. Ask any Italian.

Yuppers! Noticed that too! These videos are getting increasingly hyperbolic and desperate for views...

Yeah, I was like, Ummmm. Say what?

@@stickynorth Next you'll tell me Starbucks is desperate to sell coffee

2021

Assuming he ment 2022 but yeah i caught that too

I agree, the lack of redundancy is the least of the projects concerns, but the fact that such a major issue is the least significant issue here is alarming.

Yup, investment properties. Its the norm in China tho that new builds are sold as a shell. Its up the the buyer to do services. He was wrong about central planning. Its the total opposite. Build build build, sell sell sell. No thought on where the ppl will work etc. And the guv let it go on cos the construction inflates the GDP. Where I live, 3 traditional towns totally demolished, being replaced with high rises. Thriving communities hundreds of years old, gone.

@@TheScotsalan It's not about installing plumbing or wiring, as a huge percentage of the buildings cannot be lived in, ever. The concrete has the strength of styrofoam, because... why bother?

​@@VideoDotGoogleDotComand even if they are populated, a 1.0 earthquake would make em topple like dominoes

nobody said the arabs were smart... just rich... more dollars than sense.

That is not how sand works.... During colonial times there were cities in Namibia, now covered in sand, but not when they were occupied.

They need to sweep it every now and then, along with corpses of migrant birds, I suppose.

@@phoenix5054 and the corpses of the poor from below.

@@mikatu The buildings in Namibia are not 170 meters long, let alone 170 _kilometers_ long. It's like comparing your front door to the Berlin Wall.

Try to imagine the logistical nightmare of just in time deliveries. "Oops, a ship had good seas and arrived early, and oops another ship arrived late." Where do you place all those warehouses?

He is a failure before the crown is even on his head. Neom, the Line, Mukaab (huge cube building building) and Qiddaya (Six Flags amusement park in desert) 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

@@paul_321 He definitely radiates no-dick energy.

he probably laid a "Line" to many and got into ideas.

*snorts another mountain of coke

Dont wanna be that guy but he's Mohammed, his dad is King Salman, hence Mohamed bin Salman literally "Mohammed Salmanson"

Preach. I worked for the county of Los Angeles for a loooong time. Not a day went by where some stupidity didn't flabbergast me. I mean actual, real, literal shock. The rest of the world has to be the same or worse.

You strike me as a bitter dumba**.

​@@IrishMike22 please make my day with the best story that comes to mind. I'll give you Internet points.

@@IrishMike22 thank you for your work, citizen. 👍 glad you've found your way to greener pastures.

@@IrishMike22 no hate. Just a bit disapointed

You are forgetting the biggest similarity with BER, Mirabel International Airport. 45 minutes north of Montréal, mass farms and houses expropriations, exceeding costs. All of that for nothing.

The Karolinska hospital in Stockholm, Sweden is the same. Took much longer, got more expensive, and even turned out smaller than before so we now have too few hospital beds. There was another Karolinska hospital built in the '70s where they went the other way and built a huge hospital south of the city - turned out well, but they didn't finish the infrastructure so there was no way to get there for a couple of years...

Montreal seems to be good at this for some reason.

Why talking such NONSESE ???

@@crocodile3736 just observing reality. Besides it will be the human equivalent of the Mouse Paradise experiment, that's something you can Google for yourself.

Failing to mention this really crucial fact questions the credibility of this channel in general.

Great idea, but as pointed out, it, um, didn't work out that well. An airport that can't take night traffic is kind of a huge problem, innit?

@@Melody_Raventressit’s not uncommon for airports in Europe to not permit or heavily restrict night flights. E.g. London Heathrow, Gatwick and Stanstead Airports all have a quota system for the amount of noise permitted at night (2300-0700) - i.e. you can have a couple of noisy flights or a lot of quieter ones. Many German airports, e.g. Frankfurt and Cologne have a ban on night flights (2300/0000 to 0500) Amsterdam Schiphol limits night flights to approximately 80 a day.

@@Melody_Raventress all the old inner-city airports were closed at night and the restrictions would have tightened in the future. The main driver for Schönefeld instead of a remote location was so there is no need for a second airport nearer the city. If you really need night operations there is still Leipzig airport. In the end it’s always the question of how much money the state should spend on airports. There isn’t a huge demand for night operations outside of hubs.

so they destroyed the old airport and made it not used anymore such a great idea!

Yeah he said that.😊

Since when have the Saudis given a shit about ecosystems?

@@godamid4889 Or logic, or their subjects, or human rights, or laws, or morals. Actually, the list of things they do care about likely consists entirely of themselves and their money.

@@Darca1n well said.

Or they would put "animal tunnels" under them like they do for highways

Even then, Midgar would work better irl than the line

Doers do, while everyone else talks and talks from a distance. Let them build it. Am sure they have the brain power to build a building! ... That's what it is, a huge building.

More dollars than sense.

@@motchi2667 probably found the money down the back of a sofa

I am SO glad I saw your comment. I was going to be on my way thinking BER would just accumulate weeds. If YOU have this to say, there must surely be others. Good!

I'm guessing that it was because the planners either ran out of money, or that the flat would collapse if a door was installed

Tofu - Dreg vid ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-s-2DtL-Wjkc.html weak af steel ffs

''very poor quality '' sums up ALL of china since the late 40's.

Not all. Their biggest problem is still the population. However, I believe the media is blowing it out of proportion. In China property ownership is a big thing nowadays - having a flat or a house you don't even live in is considered an investment. Also, one of the most famous 'ghost cities' - Ordos Kangbashi - has actually gained a substantial amount of citizens over time. So, not a total failure but a weird thing nonetheless.

it is chinese construction! of course it isn't good. In Angola they built a hospital that never opened because it was unsafe for anyone to stand inside. Every single country that bought the myth of the chinese high speed rail cancelled their orders because it is not safe for them. chinese quality is famous all over the world but not in a good way.

@@Drak_Thedpproblem is not population, due to one child policy there will be more older people than young soon, that’s trouble. Younger people are willing to immigrate to US/west we will have to see how this works out for China.

many people would, its headed by a committee of international advisors with various specializations so the issues raised against it are most likely already accounted for, on top of that is the fact that it would be the most walk-able city on earth.

@@Jack-he8jv its a city the shape of line dozens upon dozens of km long. do you just lack common sense?

Yes and it will bankrupt Saudi Arabia as well. Excellent. 😅

Mind expanding on the apartment building part? Not sure what you mean but I’m interested!

@@max1999_ Tempelhof Airport was located in the middle of the city, literally in the middle of apartment buildings. Simply go to the English Wikipedia article "Berlin Tempelhof Airport". There's a picture that will make you understand immediately. 😂

@@pepsi-mcrib holy shit you’re right hahaha. I thought you meant that they flew between two apartment buildings on approach. But it’s literally surrounded on all sides. Thanks for the quick lesson haha

😂 i am not only one noticing

BER really is the antitheses of how overrated German engineering is. As someone that works with German software and technology daily (and I do mean daily, as in 6-7 times a week), I can truly attest to this fact.

Maybe they'd have a dedicated army of sewage trucks like Burj Khalifa...

Yeah, proponents of the Line simply cannot comprehend just how stupid of an idea this is. It doesn’t take a fucking genius to see how easy it would be for everything to fail. We can focus on the issues with transportation, as it is the most glaring, but like Simon said, electricity, water, and sewage are all one major event away from total catastrophe. And if you think that can’t happen, then you have not been around the type of equipment that goes into electricity, water, or sewage. It would literally be an engineer’s worst nightmare.

@@troybaxter you know its not like they are limited to 1 cable for electricity or 1 pipe for sewerage, they can have multiple ones that can be used for redundancy across various levels of the underground or going on either side of the line.

@@Jack-he8jv you still miss the point. It is easy to destroy all those networks on a single line. It is hard to do so through a 2D mesh network. And again, you still have a very limited amount of space for substations, water lines, sewage lines, etc. Not enough to have substantial enough redundancy to prevent failure.

@@rilmar2137 Hmmm No cars though. So I guess also no lorries. They are just going to fly it all overhead in the hover taxi things. And you thought seagull poo was a problem.

Do I smell time travel shenanigans here?😁

@@DarkZodiacZZ if this was Denver International Airport, then I would have no trouble believing it

@@winterx2348 DIA cost far less, and I had far fewer problems. 20 years later it’s one of the busiest airports in North America so yes, renovations and updates take a long time

@@Matt-yg8ub I was referencing the famous Denver international airport conspiracy theories. Seems like a fine airport, but if you want to get lost in a funny rabbit hole, I suggest looking it up

@@winterx2348 oh, trust me, I went down that rabbit hole, many times. I used to have access to all those tunnels myself :-)

Yeah it's extremely common for beard boy to get things very wrong

MERS

T… YIL (yesterday, not today :D) that Musk's hyperloop was basically only "done" to sabotage California's high speed railway.

What ? Does that mean someone arriving could just hop onto another plane ? Stowaway style ?

@@TheScotsalan No, that not, there still is the checkpoint for the boarding passengers. But the exiting passengers are basically routed right into those who wait for the next boarding and there is insufficient space for waiting at the gates so this creates a mess. It feels like an early 1970s stlye airport for a smaller city not like the newly built airport for the capitol of Germany.

@@guidokorber2866 Ahh right. I recall singapore had a similar setup. I need to check 👍

Singapore does have that setup.

@@guidokorber2866 in zürich the system is the same and it works, sorry

Someone likes boys...

@@Darth-Claw-Killflex someone is new here and doesn't know Simon is lovingly referred to as 'Fact Boi' by some of those whom appreciate him. Have a good day 🤙

As you are a self-proclaimed berliner, I am surprised your emoji isn’t a jelly donut.

@@baomao7243 that took me a minute. „Berliners“ are not „jelly doughnuts“ if you want to make that joke call them „pfannkuchen“ or „krapfen“ thats other names for the sams food. They are not doughnuts because they have no hole, and filled with more like a marmalade than jelly.

@@axbrax5697 Just poking fun using the loosely told story of President Kennedy’s speaking mishap. Sorry for “lost in translation.”

@@baomao7243 yeah absolutely. I just found it funny that i had to read your comment 3 times to get what you are saying. First i thought you implied all prople from berlin are cops.

@@baomao7243 It was NEVER a "speaking mishap". That "mishap" is a myth at best… there's a reason that the "jelly donut" (which, as AXBRAX said, isn't a donut) isn't called a Berliner in Berlin. "Berliner" is the actual true and correct demonym for inhabitants of Berlin. In Berlin, they are called (IIRC) "Pfannkuchen". In most of the rest of Germany, these "not donuts" are indeed called "Berliner".

Hilter will be pissed hear that... he worked extra hard to make them go on time...

@@rustythecrown9317 Nah that was his bro Mussolini

@@padinspi11 don't think Mussolini had much to do with BRD's railways.

@@rustythecrown9317 Of course. I meant the dictator who was known for making trains run on time was not the moustache man but the bald italian (cool surname i found there)

Was trying to figure this out myself.

It depends on the connection and the exact routing. There are a bunch of neuralgic choke points around Germany with some of them situated in such a way that if they fail a whole lot more than what needs to pass through them gets disrupted due to backlog.

Check out CityNerd's recent video on Valencia, Spain.

@@JonMartinYXD will do thanks

now you know who the idiots were all along.

You ever watched Fascinating Horror’s video on the train crash at Gretna Green?😳😳😳😳

So New York, just less efficiently designed?

This does not adress on of the points made in the video: the vulnerability of linear structure.

The line is dumb

@@samuela-aegisdottir The vulnerability is that it lacks exit doors on the long sides. Firewalls internal to the structure would be able to block fires and the rail tracks could all be underground. The real problem is that to make it economic it can't be a line.