Posted on October 4th, 2009 by thirtyfootscrew
I just got back from a trip to Cuba where I spent a couple of nights in Havana before going to a beach resort for a much more traditional holiday and I thought I’d share my mini-urbex outing I had in the city. Aside from trying to get a feel for the place and doing the touristy-type things I also took a little walk with my camera during which I came across a corrugated iron enclosure, my urbex-based 6th sense made me think “hmmm… I wonder what’s in there?” and I navigated round to the entrance (FYI, it’s on Dragones between Amistad and Industria – near the Capitolio).
It turned out that the yard was full of wrecked, rusted and derelict trains, most (if not all) having been made in America in Philadelphia’s Baldwin Locomotive Works or the Vulcan Iron Works in Wilkes-Barre, PA. After I spent a little while wandering around the yard the owner (or at least keeper) of the place turned up, a lovely old man who rents out the space not filled by trains for use as a car park. The man (whose name I couldn’t quite understand) spoke no English but proceeded to show me around the yard pointing our the ages on the trains, most of them seemed to have been made around 1920 but one was as old as 1873.
Here are a handful of shots that I took in the yard…
Popularity: 30% [?]
Tags: che guevara, cuba, exploration, fidel castro, havana, rail, railway, steam, train, urban, urban exploration, urbex, wreck
Posted in Industrial Urbex, Site Visits, Urbex Photography | 1 Comment »
Posted on September 5th, 2009 by sickbritain
Following up on my Top 10 Abandoned Asylums post I decided to start looking at other ‘genres’ of urban exploration, in this week’s post it’s going to be industrial sites. When I started researching the list I had a few obvious sites in mind but for the rest it was really tough to build a good solid list, industrial urbex seems to be much more diverse and localised than asylums. It seems that explorers will travel great distances to visit an abandoned asylum but there are seem to be enough derelict warehouses, mills, factories, etc. on a local basis so people tend to visit places close to their homes.
As before, I have selected a top ten list based on the number of Flickr photos I found for each site in a single search, doubtlessly I will have missed important sites and got the ranking wrong but please feel free to point them out by leaving a comment. All of the photos used below were taken by other photographers and are used under a Creative Commons license (click through to Flickr for attribution), if you think you’ve got a better photo and it’s not CC – get your licensing sorted!
1. Pyestock NGTE
2. Inverkip Power Station
3. Nottinghamshire Colliery GroupAnnesley, Clipstone, Pleasley
4. Steetley Magnesite
5. Thorpe Marsh Power Station
Popularity: 57% [?]
Tags: abandoned, Annesley, Clipstone, colliery, decay, decayed, derelict, electric, electricity, exploration, Gas Turbine, Industrial Urbex, industry, Inverkip, mines, mining, NGTE, Nottinghamshire, Notts, pit, Pleasley, power station, pyestock, Pystock NGTE, ruined, Steetley Magnesite, Thorpe Marsh, urban, urban exploration, urbex
Posted in Industrial Urbex, Urban Explorers, Urbex Photography | 2 Comments »
Posted on August 19th, 2009 by sickbritain
All over the UK dotted throughout countryside and city alike lie abandoned asylums, relics of a bygone era of mental health where the aim was to isolate patients in a secure facility rather than integrating them with the community. Here I have selected a top ten list based on the number of Flickr photos I found for each asylum in a single search, doubtlessly I will have missed important sites and got the ranking wrong but please feel free to point them out by leaving a comment. All of the photos used below were taken by other photographers and are used under a Creative Commons license (click through to Flickr for attribution), if you think you’ve got a better photo and it’s not CC – get your licensing sorted!
1. Hellingly
2. Cane Hill
3. West Park
4. Whittingham
5. Severalls
6. Denbigh
7. Deva
8. St Mary’s
9. Talgarth
10. St John’s
Popularity: 100% [?]
Tags: abandoned, asylum, cane hill, dark, decay, denbigh, derelict, deva, health, hellingly, hospital, lunatic, mental, nhs, ruin, severalls, st johns, st marys, talgarth, urban exploration, urbex, west park, whittingham
Posted in Asylums & Hospitals, Urban Explorers, Urbex Photography | 3 Comments »
