Website information (and history)

This webpage was first built during the month of August 2000. It was originally built to replace the idle Penn State Underground website, which had at that point not been updated in almost a year. Since then, the group of urban explorers responsible for all of it's content have been posting reports about, and media from most if not all trips into the Steam Tunnels. With somewhere around eight active members, and other sporadic explorers make up this unnamed group of infiltration enthusiasts.

After a short time named the "Penn State Underground", the site was contacted by the owner of the original page whom had come back into town, and began to update and enlarge his site. So, the name was changed to "PSU Steam" and with the help of a friend of the webmaster's, the site was moved off of the old geocities server onto it's current placement at http://www.mooreshire.com/psusteam/ where it continues to grow and flourish.

As the twenty-first century came along, PSUSteam stopped being an active group as members graduated or simply lost intrest. The last trip into the tunnels by a member of PSU steam was in 2002 when we conducted a tour of the tunnel systems for an Australian Urban Exploration enthusiest by the name of Panic. His site documenting the Penn State stop in his around the world UE tour can be seen here. Since that date there has been no activity by this group, and this website stands only as a learning tool for intrested parties.

Tunnel information

Sometime back to the late 1800s, the newly built Penn State decided to heat itself. It built huge catacomb like passageways that crisscrossed what was the entire university and pumped superheated steam throughout the buildings keeping the students and teachers warm. Two deferent pipes full of steam are down there. One is labeled as LPS or Low Pressure System. This is the steam that is used to heat the buildings closer to the university. The other is HPS or High Pressure System, which is sent to the furthest reaches of the university.

Now these tunnels are used to hold TV and phone cables, electrical wiring (for lighting), and some pressurized water pipes. The steam and hot water still heat the tunnels enough to melt odd strips of snow along the surface and to keep urban spelunkers toasty during their romps into them. Measuring about five by six and a half feet in size, piping lowers that to about three feet wide and six and a half feet tall. Sometimes junctures narrow it down to a crawlspace. Lights in hand, or strapped to heads, urban explorers venture down to see what secrets lie within this ancient maze of concrete and brick.

Although entry is extremely difficult, from the inside one has access to almost every building on campus that is older that the forties. The occasional grating leaves a shaft of light and pile of leaves and cigarette butts on the ground. Musky and hot, the tunnels are surprisingly void of life and oddly clean.

Here are some points of interest:

Entrance:

Okay, here's something that pisses a lot of people off. PSU Steam will not tell you how to get in. Why? Because most people are too dumb. They will get into the tunnels, start trouble, get caught, and ruin it for the rest of us. If you are interested in entering these tunnels, you will do so at your own risk with no help from us. We do this to make sure that the wrong people don't get in.

Openings:

There are four basic openings, and two special openings into and out of the tunnels. The first four are "bar locked" and "deadbolted" street gates, plus closed grates, and maintenance stairwells. The two special opening points are the building entrances, and the infamous underpass. Please see the pictures section for images of all these.

Stuff that's down there:

Once one reaches the insides of the tunnels, you are sharing them with a variety of different pipes and wires. Electrical wiring (in opposed to, say; networking wiring), water pipes (often hot), and the two large "LPS" and "HPS" pipes. Also dangerous asbestos insulation and some very hot sections of the tunnels. Please see the safety section for more related information.