Steampunk Porn
It had been too long since my last adventure. So, on Saturday, my partner-in-exploration and I hit up an old site for a second visit. On our first trip we saw one blast furnace, but left early when we were spooked. This time, we made sure to see what else was in store, and boy were we surprised.
Clairton Coke Works in the midst of a "quench," where they use water to cool down the coke as it leaves a 2,000C oven.
A few weeks back, a friend of mine told me that the Coke Battery in Monessen, PA had been shut down and was going to be gutted for parts within the month. A coke battery is a facility that takes in raw coal and processes it into an intermediate product that is used as a fuel in the steel production process. This was a rare opportunity to be able to get into a plant that hadn’t yet been stripped, and we were told the time table was short, so we took the unusual step of exploring during the week (thank God for flexible work schedules). Three of us made the trip down, found the plant pretty quickly, and immediately knew that something was wrong. We expected the place to be mostly abandoned, but the parking lot was more than half full. Obviously the workers were still there. Was it possible that our intel was a little premature? Continue reading
Control board for the hoist house.
I have a special affinity for Carrie Furnace. She was my first abandoned factory, and she’s very close to home, so it’s always nice to plan a return trip. Not to mention the fact that I always find something new! Last weekend, I had a leisurely excursion and got a bunch of shots from new angles and places I hadn’t yet seen.
I’m never happy with my blast furnace shots, so I tried another one…the sunlight was pretty harsh, so I’ll be trying that again the next time I’m there. The majority of the shots I’m posting come from either (a) the hoist house (which was used to power the cables that lifted ore into the furnaces) or (b) the high line, where incoming supply cars emptied their contents. Take a peek into a National Historic Landmark.
-aigulf Continue reading
Bell heaters for the annealing mill. Each one fits over a single stack of ribbon coils.
Blast House
I had another adventure with friends last weekend, to probably the best site I’ve seen so far. We were there for 6 hours, I took ~400 photos and was excited to go home and sort through them for goodies. Unfortunately, I had to turn around and go out to a semi-formal party, and I wanted to bring my camera. So I dumped the photos onto my computer, and pulled the card to use again. When I went back the next day to process the photos, only 50 of the 400 were there. Son of a bitch. Continue reading
I'm an engineer by trade, and a photographer by hobby. In the fall of 2007, I bought my first digital SLR, a Nikon D40x, and haven't looked back yet. The majority of my photographic expeditions involve abandoned structures in Western Pennsylvania, but I'm never without my camera while on the road or at a Pirates game, and I have been known to take the occasional photo of a plant.