memo: measure twice, build tunnel once.

Nothing could beat the engineering incompetence of "Big Dig" (tunnel construction) in Boston, but workers in Poland are trying.

Recently, a new railroad tunnel in Warsaw was completed... only to find that it was too short for the trains to actually get through.

One official said, "During work on the tunnel, tracks were laid down on newly-raised ground which meant the distance between the tracks and roof of the tunnel became shorter."

The error was ultimately blamed upon the fact that the workers who laid the track never talked to the team that built the tunnel.

This incident was the third major engineering screw-up in Poland in recent months. Earlier this year, another tunnel was built and found to be too low for trucks.

Last year, engineers produced plans that, had they been implemented, would have created two sections of the same road that would have missed each other by 5 miles.

The plan called for the two ends of the road to be built toward the middle. Unfortunately, each section of road would have come to a dead-end in the countryside.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2965078.html?menu=news.quirkies