From the Archives: Sugar Land, Texas in 1984 with Technical Pan Film

Sugar Land is a city southwest of Houston, Texas. Although Houston was inexorably sprawling in that direction in the 1980s, you still had a sense of countryside in Sugar Land. The town was surrounded by farmland and was known for the giant Imperial Sugar factory that occupied a multi-story complex of buildings and railroad tracks.

The Southern Pacific Railroad built the mission-style depot in 1927. It looked unused in 1984. I am glad to report that the depot was moved to 445 Commerce Green Blvd. and now houses the Chamber of Commerce. Good for them to reuse such a nice historic building.

Commemorative medal from the Sugar Land Heritage Foundation

This is a postcard of the Sugar Land sugar mill and nearby railroad lines in 1909. The depot was built to the left of where the men are standing on a locomotive. (From: (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1717/m1/1/: accessed March 2, 2017), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Fort Bend Museum).

I liked the old-fashioned farmhouses. Back then I did not take careful photo notes, so the exact location is unknown.

This old farm had asphalt shingle sheets for siding ("tar-paper shack").

More tracks and warehouses. I tried to identify the trailer company in the warehouse, but it may no longer exist.

I took these photographs in 1984 with a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic camera with 55mm ƒ/1.8 Super-Takumar and 28mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Multi-Coated Takumar lenses. The 55mm lens is one of the late-1960s versions with a thorium element, which has turned slightly yellow with time. The film was the ultra-fine-grained Kodak Technical Pan film, which I exposed at EI 25. This was an emulsion developed for the military or for microfilming use. It was very contrasty unless you used the special Kodak Technidol developer, and even then it was hard to use. I only experimented with Technical Pan one more time, in Athens, Greece.

I scanned the negatives with a Plustek 7600i film scanner using Silverfast Ai software.

The Spotmatic is still in good condition, and I recently used it in Vicksburg with Tri-X film. As always, I am amazed at the superb quality of these mid-century optics.

Last train to Arusha

Dear Readers, sorry, the title is a bit deceptive. There are no trains to Arusha, and I think the last one left the station at least a decade ago. Arusha is a bustling commercial city in north central Tanzania. Most western visitors know it as a gateway to safaris in the Tanzanian game parks or as a gathering point before a climb of Kilimanjaro. Arusha itself does not offer much for the tourist, but it is busy, noisy, grubby, and colorful.

The railroad was built in the early 20th century, during the great era of railroad-building around the world. The official Tanzanian railroad web page states, 

"Construction of the 86.08 km Moshi-Arusha railway extension of the Tanga Line starting at Moshi in 1911 and reaching Arusha in 1929. The railway distance from Arusha to Tanga and Dar es Salaam is 437km and 644km respectively." 

My guide, Morris, said the railroad was built by the Germans. He was partly correct because while the Germans were forced out of their African colonies in World War I, they certainly began the construction project when Tanzania was part of German East Africa. According to Wikipedia, Germany controlled this part of east Africa from the 1880s to 1919, when, under the League of Nations, it became a British mandate.

On my first day in Arusha, I asked Morris to take me to the train depot. He was surprised, and said he had never had a tourist ask him to go there. We took rides with rent-a-motorbike transport guys. Mine had a spare helmet and was very careful, avoiding the rain gutters that line most of the roads. Some of these are serious troughs, about a meter deep and lined with organic debris of unknown aromatic origin. The depot buildings are in a warehouse part of town. Lorries were parked in the dust.

The buildings were intact and secure, so someone still takes responsibility.

The tracks were meter gauge, another remnant of the German origins for this project.

The electric supply from the mains is a bit erratic in Arusha, meaning often there is no electricity.

Were there once 1st and 2nd class outhouse stalls? Odd.

Some gents were sitting at once of the platforms. Morris asked them if I could take their portrait. They said they did not see many white people (Westerners?) around there.

It was pretty sleepy on the track side of the depot. The bugs were buzzing, the sun blazing - time for a nap.

There was not much happening inside, either. The buildings are locked, so someone has possession. I hope they can one day restore train service.

I took these photographs with a Panasonic G3 digital camera with the Panasonic Lumix 12-32mm lens, and added a polarizing filter for scenes with sky. To convert to black and white, I opened the RAW files in Adobe Photoshop Elements (using ACR 7.3), then opened DxO FilmPack 5 to use one of the black and white emulations. Most of the time, the Kodak Tri-X was best, but on some very contrasty scenes, Kodak BW400CN retained detail in the shadows. I usually added the yellow filter to darken the sky a bit.

Old Hattiesburg High School - neglect and decay

Thomas Rosell wrote an article for Preservation Mississippi on November 18, 2015, titled Not Good News from Hattiesburg. He documented the continuing collapse of the historic Easton High School. Thomas's article jogged my memory, and I found some photographs that I took in 2011 during a quick drive through town of the Old Hattiesburg High School at 846 North Main Street. 

This must have once been a handsome and proud building. I had never seen it before and was struck that such an edifice could be abandoned so carelessly. I read in the Hattiesburg American that Hurricane Katrina caused severe damage in 2005, followed by arson in 2007.

I was alone and did not want to venture inside, but I took some photographs of the doorways. Notice the steel bracing behind the handsome limestone entry porch. Hmmm, do our contemporary mega-schools have limestone entry halls?

Like many schools in the early 20th century, there were separate Boys and Girls entrances. But there may be good news: a November 16 article in the Hattiesburg American describes a proposal to develop the building into "age-restricted" housing. 

On a more optimistic note, the Italian Renaissance Revival-style Union Station and New Orleans & Northeastern Passenger Depot, at 308 Newman Street, has been restored and serves as an intermodal transportation center. The city acquired the building and land in 2000 and completed a 5-year, $10 million renovation in 2007. The Grand Hall is now used for art exhibits and social events. It's nice to see gorgeous old buildings like this still in use and respected for their architectural uniqueness.

Photographs taken with a compact FujiFilm F31fd digital camera.

Being Restored: the Santa Fe Depot, Redlands, California

The Santa Fe Depot, at 347 Orange Street in Redlands, has been unused for at least three decades. But the building is in reasonably good condition, and, as of 2009, there were ambitious plans to turn it into a combination restaurant and retail space. As of late 2013, I did not see any progress, but these plans typically take years to get going.

Santa Fe Depot, Redlands, California

Originally built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, the pseudo Greek revival depot was designed 1909 by architect Arthur Brown, Jr., and constructed in 1910. A nearly 300-foot long colonnade along the platform looks grand, but hides a somewhat more modest 100-foot depot building.  The depot closed in 1970.  The tracks are now owned by the State and may be revived as part of a commuter transit system.  It would make sense to develop rapid rail to connect to Ontario and LAX airports.  

1922 route map of the AT&SF railroad.

Undated photograph from abandonedrails.com.

This was an active depot decades ago, and the 1922 route map shows Redlands as one of the system's many destinations. It must have once been very lucrative to bring passenger traffic to and from southern California.

Santa Fe Depot, Redlands, California

The day I took these photographs, I saw a professional photographer taking portraits here, possibly a corporate job.  He had reflectors to bring light in to his subjects.

The old waiting and baggage rooms look reasonable.  Someone must have repainted in the last few years.  I took these photographs through some dusty windows, bracing the camera on a ledge.

Heavy-duty industrial restroom - built for the ages.

Sturdy old-fashioned restrooms were built to last in the old days. The tiles and stalls surely are original.  I hope this building gets a new life soon.

Articles on other railroad depots:

• The Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad Station, Saginaw, Michigan
• Mississippi Valley and Yazoo Railroad Station, Vicksburg, Mississippi
• Closed depot in Markópoulo, Attika, Greece
• Deserted train station in Milies, Greece
• The Athens to Peloponnese Railroad Station, Corinth, Greece

Wikipedia has a good article on the AT&SF railroad.

For information on the Redlands loop from San Bernardino to Redlands, see the abandonedrails web page.

Photographs taken with a Panasonic G3 digital camera, some RAW files processed with Photo Ninja software.

UPDATE

There train is back! The Redlands - Downtown Metrolink Station is just west of the old depot. Service began on October 24, 2022. You can take the commuter train to Los Angeles. The Metrolink web page provides schedules. 

Former mining town: Lavrio, Greece

Lavrio (Modern Greek: Λαύριο, classical Greek: Λαύριον) is a seaport on the southeast corner of the Attica peninsula, about two hours drive from Athens. This is the warmest part of mainland Greece, and the palms and tropical plants almost make you think you are in the tropics. In antiquity, Lavrio was famous for its silver mines. The mines, worked by slave labor, provided much of the revenue for the Athenian state. Around 483 BC, the mines provided funds to expand the Athenian fleet to 200 triremes, thus laying the foundation of Athenian naval power. According to the Blue Guide, Greece, some mining was already in progress here in paleolithic times. The mines were eventually exhausted but were reopened in the late 1800s by French and Greek companies to extract manganese, lead, and cadmium.

I think all mining has now ended.  But hills around town still have dilapidated factories, industrial buildings,  and pieces of machinery.

On the shore road is this half bridge, once probably holding a conveyor system or an ore railroad.

This iron pier extended out into the bay from the half bridge.  I noticed the cobble on the beach had a dark red, chunky appearance.  It was probably some sort of slag.

Today the modern town is cheerful, and locals and tourists sit in the plazas and enjoy coffees and meals.  A ferry goes to Kea (Tzia) island,with connections further to the Cyclades, and there are plenty of yachts in the harbor, so the town has a healthy tourist influx.

Lavrion was the terminal of the Athens-Lavrion Railroad, last used in 1957 (see the 2012 post on the rail station in Markoupolou).  The old depot is now a restaurant. Putting restaurants in old depots is a popular use, but many of these eateries in the USA fail rather quickly.

Here is another railroad building also reused as a restaurant and another one being used for storage.

Photographs taken with a Nexus 4 smart phone (operated by dumb user...).