Where Old Trams Retire: Depot No. 5, Wroclaw, Poland

In the western industrial suburbs of Wroclaw, Poland, at Legnicka 65, there is a walled complex of early-20th century workshops. I read on the internet that these were tram workshops and saw some photographs of abandoned trams. Well, for an urban decay fan, that was too good to resist. I was not sure if access would be possible, but a gate was open and we drove in. At another gate, a fellow was directing trams into a side track, after which they would move back out to the street, but otherwise, the place was quiet.

And there were plenty of old tram cars rusting away.

I walked behind some buildings, and there were more old trams. Neat place! (These are digital photographs from a Fuji X-E1 camera.)

The old shops were well-built structures with a lot of character and a lot of peeling lead paint. I walked around one corner, and there was a fellow and his lady friend grilling sausages, at 10:00 am. They seemed mildly surprised to see me, and then went back to their sausages.

At least one building is now used as an acrobatics studio.

One building still contained chassis and pieces of tram cars, but no one was inside that I could see.

But another building has become an art studio for welded art, like the moose (?) in the picture above. I assume the sausage-grilling couple were artists. Regardless, if you visit Wroclaw, the Depot no. 5 is a fun place to visit.

Here is an academic article on urban archaeology at the site by Dawid Kobiałka of Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, with some excellent black and white photography.

The square photographs with film grain were taken on Kodak Tri-X film with a Rolleiflex 3.5E camera with Xenotar lens. I developed the film in Kodak HC-110 developer and scanned the negatives with a Minolta Multi Scan medium format scanner. Click any picture to expand it.