Steam Tunnels

Welcome to the College Tunnels resource site. Here you will find links and info about University Steam Tunnels around the world. (Well, mostly the US) I will put up any info I can find about Tunneling, though the web is pretty sparse in that regard right now. Currently, I have made myself the self-proclaimed unofficial alt.college.tunnels web site.

Disclaimer

I can take no responsibility for anything you might do with the info on this site. It is for informational and educational purposes only. The views expressed here do not represent those of UCSD, my employer, girlfriend, or cat. Tunneling is a very dangerous activity and you do so at your own risk. I am not liable for you. Consider asbestos before tunneling, and bring a respirator. More info here.

Background

Most Universities and Colleges have Human-passable tunnels running beneath them, which contain utility pipes, often steam pipes, as well as sewer, electrical, network connections. It has long been a college pastime to explore these tunnels. These tunnels are always off limits, and that is part of the lure - to do something "forbidden". Different schools have tunnels of varying quality, size, and cleanliness. Sometimes they are very large, well lit, and (seemingly) safe. Others can be dusty, hot (well over 120 degrees at times), tiny (crawling size), and pitch black.

College Tunnel WWW Pages

The most common question on alt.college.tunnels is "Are there tunnels at XXX university?.. ne1 have any info on them?!?" Partly in response to this,I have started a list of college tunnel links & info on the Web. Currently, I have 61 Colleges listed. If you know of a web page with tunnel info on a University I don't have listed, please email me. Start one for your college!

alt.college.tunnels

The USENET newsgroup alt.college.tunnels is one of the primary discussion areas on the net for college tunneling. Unfortunately the group gets a great deal of spam being under the alt.college.* heirarchy. Here's the Archive of alt.college.tunnels. Search the alt.college.tunnels archives (1995 - present).

The Underground

The Underground is a Tunneling mailing list that was set up in response to the overwhelming spam problem on alt.college.tunnels. To subscribe to The Underground, send a message to underground-request@userhome.com with the word subscribe in the body of the message.

What is tunneling?

From the Jargon FIle:

hack 9. [MIT] v. To explore the basements, roof ledges, and steam tunnels of a large, institutional building, to the dismay of Physical Plant workers and (since this is usually performed at educational institutions) the Campus Police. This activity has been found to be eerily similar to playing adventure games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Zork V=The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 2.9.12, 10 MAY 1993

Another Term is Vadding:

vadding: /vad'ing/ n. [from VAD, a permutation of ADV (i.e., admin's continual search-and-destroy sweeps for the game] A leisure-time activity of certain hackers involving the covert exploration of the `secret' parts of large buildings -- basements, roofs, freight elevators, maintenance crawlways, steam tunnels, and the like. A few go so far as to learn locksmithing in order to synthesize vadding keys. The verb is `to vad' (compare hack, sense 9). This term dates from the late 1970s, before which such activity was simply called `hacking'; the older usage is still prevalent at MIT. The most extreme and dangerous form of vadding is `elevator rodeo', a.k.a. `elevator surfing', a sport played by wrasslin' down a thousand-pound elevator car with a 3-foot piece of string, and then exploiting this mastery in various stimulating ways (such as elevator hopping, shaft exploration, rat-racing, and the ever-popular drop experiments). Kids, don't try this at home!