 |
|
|
UER Store
|
|
sweet UER decals:
|
|
|
|
Activity
|
|
473 online
Server Time:
2024-04-20 11:02:00
|
|
|
 enigma32
   
Location: Los Angeles and NYC
Gender: Male
 |  | Manchester Train Yard, Manchester, NY
< on 6/13/2005 6:28 PM >
|  | | | A couple days ago (or perhaps a week ago... It's hard to remember with this 80+ degree heat and humidity!) a few of us (Mad Hatter, a friend of mine, and myself) drove out to Manchester, NY to check out the old train yard that I've read is/was the second biggest in the world. This is my account of our trip. Pardon me if it's incredibly boring. I'm certainly not any kind of an author......
Despite the high heat (81 degrees, I believe) we met in the early afternoon a block or two away from the site. My friend and I arrived a bit early, so we scouted the area a bit and found, as I had assumed that this would be an easy target. In fact, It was as easy to find as the Rochester wiki (ww.rocwiki.org) described, and the area was fairly dead, save the occasional RIG (the manufacturing plant located next door) employee driving by. The whole place is very overgrown, and appeared to be ignored by all the locals, save the high school age kids that would use this as a safe haven for smoking.
When Mad Hatter arrived we got together what we thought we might need and headed toward the building on foot. A truck drove by us as we were arriving, but seemed to pay little attention to us.
Based on the Rochester wiki I had expected there to be just the one, large building, but in fact there are a few smaller buildings as well. We started by entering the nearest side of the large, arc-shaped structure (think of it like a half of a roundhouse). It was immediately noticable that there is activity of all sorts in there-- tagging, skateboarding, smoking... In fact, when we heard some voices we ducked back outside and went to explore one of the smaller buildings first.
This was the Koppers Forest Products building. There most definitely was a fire in there at some point, and now it is mostly filled with discarded pallets and random junk. There is lots of paperwork strewn about as well...
According to the PDF on the Rochester wiki this building was used for saturating railroad ties in creosote, which is some sort of oily substance that preserves them. This might explain the oily smell and large tanks in the basement of this building. (The basement was flooded, so we weren't able to explore down there very extensively.)
We found a boiler-looking device in the lower floor (not first floor, just lower floor-- there was a ground-level section and a raised section), but we were unable to determine what its purpose was exactly. There were white growths coming from the ceiling throughout most of
this facility. They were dripping regularly. One of them dripped on me. I'm still alive. (I have a feeling this was some sort of calcium or sodium deposit being pushed around by water from a leaky roof perhaps?)
We wandered back in the direction of the main structure, discovering some rails hidden beneath trees and other gunk. They seemed to be connected to a tunnel-thing that projected from the semi-circular building toward it's origin. That is, their purpose seemed to be to bring trains to that structure as if it were a loading dock of some kind.
From the tunnel/hallway we walked back into the main structure and wandered around. There is nothing incredibly exciting in there, but it sure is cool looking 
There are portions of it that have fairly new looking cinder block construction-- and even an extremely new (last 5~10 years) lighting fixture.
The sky lights are also quite interesting, although they are blocked off in most cases. It is easy to see how, once upon a time, train cars could come in the building from the interior portion of the circle, freight could be loaded into trucks arriving from the exterior portion of the circle, and then both could depart and do as they needed. Unfortunately a significant portion of these doorways were blocks by cinderblocks, though a few remain.
There was an old truck located just outside the structure. It had been there for quite a while.
We headed over to another smaller stucture... This one appeared significantly newer, perhaps '70s vintage? It was posted in numerous places. So we just took a picture through a window. It appeared to be someone's storage building.
Then, just as we were about to leave, we realized an old water tower a few hundred yards away. In the process of checking out the water tower, we discovered a huge graveyard of railroad track parts, and another two small buildings. One was a tiny three-sided structure (with a roof) and the other was not accessible on the inside.
We did get to the water tower, and took some pictures, but none of us were feeling brave/limber enough to climb the ladder.
After the watertower, we headed back in the direction of our vehicles, walking along the tracks. The main stretch coming in and out of the area appears to still be used today (the top surface of the track is worn shiny) though the switched side branches don't look like they've been used in years.
I've posted my photos from the excursion on my computer. I imagine my bandwidth is plenty enough-- if there's a problem, though, just let me know...
http://enigma32.ho...chester_Train_Yard
~enigma32~
|
|
'Dukes
 
Noble Donor
Gender: Male
At least someone llikes me
| |  | Re: Manchester Train Yard, Manchester, NY
<Reply # 1 on 6/14/2005 2:21 PM >
|  | | | Link didn't work; post the pics here maybe.
I got your tour winner right here pussies, at least he'd crash out trying. |
|
enigma32
Location: Los Angeles and NYC
Gender: Male
| | Re: Manchester Train Yard, Manchester, NY
<Reply # 2 on 6/14/2005 8:05 PM >
| | | | Sorry, bad thunderstorms == downtime. I really have to finish rebuilding that UPS I have...
The link should work fine now.
I don't think I can post here 'cause I'm a level 2....?
|
|
Mad Hatter
Location: Boulder, CO
Gender: Male
| |  | | Re: Manchester Train Yard, Manchester, NY
<Reply # 3 on 6/15/2005 7:55 PM >
| | | | More Pics if anyone is interested:
http://rocue.textamerica.com
The first 60 or so images are from Manchester. There is also another slideshow, slide your bowser a little way down and look on the left, it's under my favorites and above my links.
Teaser shots:
|
|
Parepin
Location: Western New York
Gender: Male
MK is your new god. When will you admit it?
| | |  | Re: Manchester Train Yard, Manchester, NY
<Reply # 4 on 6/17/2005 4:13 AM >
| | | | I cruised down there last night. Nice find. I was pretty impressed with the overall size of the main building. Being night, however, I was unable to figure out the overall layout of the structure. I did, however, do some wicked drifting in the stone parking lot of RIG.
<reuben> somebody keeps jiggling the doorknob on my front door, then running away
<reuben> i don't know if i should call the police, or hook up some electricity to the doorknob
<cristobal> why don't you put ice on the stairs <cristobal> and heat up the door knob <cristobal> and swing paint buckets down from your two story foyer <cristobal> then a few years later, fade from the public eye..... |
|
|
|
All content and images copyright © 2002-2024 UER.CA and respective creators. Graphical Design by Crossfire.
To contact webmaster, or click to email with problems or other questions about this site:
UER CONTACT
View Terms of Service |
View Privacy Policy |
Server colocation provided by Beanfield
This page was generated for you in 78 milliseconds. Since June 23, 2002, a total of 738592616 pages have been generated.
|
|
