Welcome to the Finland 2 Virtual Reality Tour

What is Finland 2?  Finland 2 is a former main station on the nuclear-hardened AT&T Long Lines transcontinental L4 coaxial cable.  This was part of the network that provided the nation's long distance telephone service in the era before fiber optic cable.   This network also provided the bulk of the military's communications in the US, including providing connectivity between the President and National Command Authority and the nation's strategic nuclear forces.  As a result, AT&T built their network to survive anything but a direct hit from a nuclear weapon.  The aboveground microwave radio network was built to survive nominal blast winds and was protected from fallout radiation in thick concrete reinforced buildings.  The underground cable was served by underground reinforced concrete terminal stations equipped with thick concrete walls and steel blast doors, with air filtration to keep out fallout particles, and food and water for operation for 2 weeks in a protected mode.  

Finland 2 is the terminal main station serving the Philadelphia area on the east-west L4 cable (L-carrier is a type of multiplexed cable transmission equipment, with L-1, 3, 4, and 5 being the deployed versions of it, each capable of carrying more trunk channels than the previous).  The next station east of Finland is at Cherryville, NJ, serving the New York City area, and to the west is Lillyville, PA, serving Pittsburgh.  This tour will allow you to see the inside of the bunker and most of its operating systems as they appeared in July, 2000.  AT&T had long since removed the transmission equipment from the L-carrier system.  The bunker is entered through the doorway between the garage doors on the building to the right.  The small building on the left of the picture is the emergency exit, and next to it is the exhaust shaft.  The intake air shaft is behind the garage building.  The aboveground microwave building is out of the picture to the right.

Click on the door above to enter the bunker. 

Contact me: mailto:mwj116@psu.edu

©2000 Michael W. Jacobs Commercial use of these images is prohibited.