Very ruined ones.

Aloha Roy,

     Aside form Geebax's very astute observation, we would really need more images or a good video.  It would be fun to try to figure it out.

Aloha and Drone On!

Geebax Posted at 3-5 18:22
Very ruined ones.

Ha Ha Ha

Cetacean Posted at 3-6 01:16
Aloha Roy,

     Aside form Geebax's very astute observation, we would really need more images or a good video.  It would be fun to try to figure it out.

Hiya Cetacean ;
  The "Ruins are fairly local so getting more photos shouldn't be a problem .  I filmed it last year and I don't remember the greenhouse being there . Thanks for showing some interest and I'll Post new photos soon.

Aloha and Drone On !

  PS . Thanks for the letter form comment . It gave me a chance to use a semi-colon ^up^ there

Don't know, but nice shot.

I've sometimes been able to identify sites using https://wikimapia.org/

Ex Machina Posted at 3-6 06:21
I've sometimes been able to identify sites using https://wikimapia.org/

Thanks Ex I’ll check it out

Montfrooij Posted at 3-6 06:13
Don't know, but nice shot.

It’s about 3 acres fenced off and abandoned. It’s really only visible from the air , except for the smokestack that’s one of the tallest structures around

Roy Rogers \\ Posted at 3-6 06:56
It’s about 3 acres fenced off and abandoned. It’s really only visible from the air , except for the smokestack that’s one of the tallest structures around

That sounds interesting!

Roy Rogers \\ Posted at 3-6 06:54
Thanks Ex I’ll check it out

Let us know when you figure it out!

Roy Rogers \\ Posted at 3-6 03:08
Hiya Cetacean ;
  The "Ruins are fairly local so getting more photos shouldn't be a problem .  I filmed it last year and I don't remember the greenhouse being there . Thanks for showing some interest and I'll Post new photos soon.

Aloha Roy,

     Yeah, I am an oldie but only try to be a goodie!  Looking forward to more information.

Aloha and Drone On!

OK, now to get serious. The smokestack looks to be made of steel, so that would suggest the ruins are industrial and not really old. The building looks to be of concrete constuction, so that would suggest a relatively recent building. And the repetitive 'cells' inside the remains of the building on the left suggest a type of operation where things were manufactured. So, my guess would be an old munitions factory or perhaps explosives manufacture.

I wonder if the stack is an air vent to an underground bunker??

Geebax Posted at 3-6 16:02
OK, now to get serious. The smokestack looks to be made of steel, so that would suggest the ruins are industrial and not really old. The building looks to be of concrete constuction, so that would suggest a relatively recent building. And the repetitive 'cells' inside the remains of the building on the left suggest a type of operation where things were manufactured. So, my guess would be an old munitions factory or perhaps explosives manufacture.

Well you just got me exited to find out . I know Raytheon used to have a plant somewhere in that town. im going to do some research  

The oldest photo I could find with it in it . I circled it with a highlighter .

The Map to the City

Roy Rogers \\ Posted at 3-6 16:40
The oldest photo I could find with it in it . I circled it with a highlighter .

The Map to the City

It was apparently a paper mill: https://www.trulia.com/homes/VA/ ... St-Bristol-VA-24201

About the mill:
https://www.heraldcourier.com/ne ... 7-b989e7c5dfb9.html

A zoomable view showing the repeating concrete structures (railcar supports?):
https://digital.lib.utk.edu/coll ... ct/volvoices%3A3198

Ex Machina Posted at 3-6 17:24
It was apparently a paper mill: https://www.trulia.com/homes/VA/ ... St-Bristol-VA-24201

About the mill:

Good Job Detective Ex !! I believe you've solved the case

What do you think those concrete arch structures was used for ?

Roy Rogers \\ Posted at 3-6 17:33
Good Job Detective Ex !! I believe you've solved the case

What do you think those concrete arch structures was used for ?

Looks like railroad ramp support structures. Must have been quite an operation back in the day.

Ex Machina Posted at 3-6 17:34
Looks like railroad ramp support structures.

Ah I see , To ship the paper out on .  

Ex Machina Posted at 3-6 17:34
Looks like railroad ramp support structures.

Well this was fun , you do the next one :-)

Roy Rogers \\ Posted at 3-6 17:38
Well this was fun , you do the next one :-)

I'm currently documenting the demolition of a large grain elevator -- the largest in the world when it was built in 1926. Here are a couple vids from a while back, much is now gone.

https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=203913

Ex Machina Posted at 3-6 17:43
I'm currently documenting the demolition of a large grain elevator -- the largest in the world when it was built in 1926. Here are a couple vids from a while back, much is now gone.

https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=203913

Here's a Ruined textile plant . I've seen old photos of it from WW2 and they had machine guns mounts on top .  Now its falling apart , should be torn down . You can find videos of local kids filming it at night trying to chase ghost

Roy Rogers \\ Posted at 3-6 17:53
Here's a Ruined textile plant . I've seen old photos of it from WW2 and they had machine guns mounts on top .  Now its falling apart , should be torn down . You can find videos of local kids filming it at night trying to chase ghost

Wow, looks wide open. Hmm... ;)

Nice music, BTW.

Ex Machina Posted at 3-6 17:59
Wow, looks wide open. Hmm... ;)

That was one of the first site I ever filmed . I didn't think so then but watching it now its glitchy and jerky

Ex Machina Posted at 3-6 17:24
It was apparently a paper mill: https://www.trulia.com/homes/VA/ ... St-Bristol-VA-24201

About the mill:

Aloha Ex,

     Nice research!   Roy's map had some good information.  Boy, take a day off and miss out on all the fun.  

     Here is a series of satellite images of the site between 1997 and 2015.  You can even see the spur from the railroad.  It looks like the elevated rail did not directly connect with the spur.  From Roy's image, it looks like they moved the greenhouse to.



Aloha and Drone On!

Roy Rogers \\ Posted at 3-6 16:40
The oldest photo I could find with it in it . I circled it with a highlighter .

The Map to the City

Aloha Roy,

     Got some more images for you.  You can even see the evolution of the rail spur.  Apparently the elevated rail did not meet the spur.

Aloha and Drone On!

Cetacean Posted at 3-7 01:55
Aloha Ex,

     Nice research!   Roy's map had some good information.  Boy, take a day off and miss out on all the fun.  

This is an awesome resource . Can I ask where did you find this ?

Cetacean Posted at 3-7 01:55
Aloha Ex,

     Nice research!   Roy's map had some good information.  Boy, take a day off and miss out on all the fun.  

Hold up there might still be Mystery here .  The rail may have never made it to the tracks , plus it doesn't look like the smoke stack was ever connected to anything .  I think we need to go farther back in time.

Ex Machina Posted at 3-6 17:34
Looks like railroad ramp support structures. Must have been quite an operation back in the day.

Aloha Ex,

     Well, I got some of that backwards.  It looks like the greenhouse is in the same location since between 2012 and 2015.  Interesting location.

Aloha and Drone On!

Roy Rogers \\ Posted at 3-7 06:21
Hold up there might still be Mystery here .  The rail may have never made it to the tracks , plus it doesn't look like the smoke stack was ever connected to anything .  I think we need to go farther back in time.

... campaign=share&sp=0

From this photo, it would appear that the old low building beside the greenhouse may have been a store for finished paper, and the curve on the left side of the building could have accomodated a railroad spur to a loading dock on the outside of that building.

As to the stack not being connected to anything, if the plant was generating steam for part of the paper making process, it would not necessarily have had the stack as part of the building. Stacks are quite often free stanbding structures separated from buildings.

Those overhead structures may have been the supports for an overhead gantry crane. If this plant produced large rolls of paper, maybe for newsprint, then they would have needed a substantial crane for moving them around.

Methinks you need to do a low level pass over thos remains, perhaps even try to get permission to go in and walk around taking photos???

Roy Rogers \\ Posted at 3-7 05:17
This is an awesome resource . Can I ask where did you find this ?

Aloha Roy,

     That resource is Google Earth.  If you have ever wondered what happened to the old Google Earth images that they kept replacing with the newer and more up-to-date images, well, this is what they did.  

     In the lower left of the Earth image, of at least Google Earth Pro, is a year.  (I think the year indicates the earliest date for images of that location.)   The old, unused images have been archived and there is a slider in the upper left that provides sensed locations for each year archived.  

     Some years are good and some are not so good.  Many of the between years archived for this location show significant vegetative overgrowth.  

     I made screen captures of each year of interest and placed then on a new, blank image sheet in a photo editor.  I made the resolution 300 pixels per inch and the size 8X10 inch.  Then I pulled the area of interest in each capture and placed it on the new sheet.  After six images looked about right, I moved images around and cropped the new image and added years to each capture image.

     As you noted, "an awesome resource"!  And a good resource to share among the like-minded.  (The others get bored.)

Aloha and Drone On!

Cetacean Posted at 3-7 16:49
Aloha Roy,

     That resource is Google Earth.  If you have ever wondered what happened to the old Google Earth images that they kept replacing with the newer and more up-to-date images, well, this is what they did.  

I agree, the History Tool is one of my favourite tools in Google Earth.

Geebax Posted at 3-7 16:30
From this photo, it would appear that the old low building beside the greenhouse may have been a store for finished paper, and the curve on the left side of the building could have accomodated a railroad spur to a loading dock on the outside of that building.

As to the stack not being connected to anything, if the plant was generating steam for part of the paper making process, it would not necessarily have had the stack as part of the building. Stacks are quite often free stanbding structures separated from buildings.

The zoomable photo I posted earlier shows several stacks on the original site, of which the largest is the last standing -- -probably because it wasn't directly attached to a building.  It may not have actually been a smoke stack, but rather a way to get cooler air into the factory -- I forget what these structures are called but you see them at blast furnaces and they're typically much taller than normal smoke stacks.

Ex Machina Posted at 3-7 17:35
The zoomable photo I posted earlier shows several stacks on the original site, of which the largest is the last standing -- -probably because it wasn't directly attached to a building.  It may not have actually been a smoke stack, but rather a way to get cooler air into the factory -- I forget what these structures are called but you see them at blast furnaces and they're typically much taller than normal smoke stacks.

Yes, that is a distict possibility.

Roy Rogers \\ Posted at 3-7 06:21
Hold up there might still be Mystery here .  The rail may have never made it to the tracks , plus it doesn't look like the smoke stack was ever connected to anything .  I think we need to go farther back in time.

https://www.skypixel.com/photos/ ... campaign=share&sp=0

Aloha Roy,

     Yes, there is a mystery still.  And it appears to be underground and otherwise demolished.  All we have are old photos and drawings and photos of remaining structures.  The odd shaped building next to the smokestack and the greenhouse most likely has underground structures that will solve part of the mystery.  The smokestack likely includes a stream release for boilers, etc. in the odd shaped building.  

     From Ex's zoomable view image "showing the repeating concrete structures", the building next to the smokestack appears to be a classic industrial, metal framed and brick / metal walled with giant windows (having small panes) building.  What remains is basically the basement of the odd shaped building and it is actually the foundation for that building.  

     If you also look closely at the same zoomable image, you can barely see what appears to be a rail boxcar barely blocking a very small part of the side of the smokestack bottom.  This raises an interesting question about the odd curve on the other side of the basement / foundation "building".  Note that the curve aligns as an extension of the railroad spur.  The curve also ends (when extended) to be parallel with the elevated rail but way over on the other side of the factory.  Interesting.  Now, we need to think paper, it is a paper mill after all.

     The steam would provide heat and humidity where needed.  Most critically, the steam system allowed climate control without regard to seasons during the storing and loading of the paper onto boxcars.  Now as we know from our irritable printers in our homes, humidity can really screw with our printer paper.  This mill appears to have been a high tech (for the time) operation with climate control in its loading and distribution of the paper product.  Think about this for a minute.

     If you look again at Ex's zoomable image, you can see that the two sets of windows on the end of the building are wide enough to allow the boxcar into the building.  These windows would be over the actual doors which you cannot see.  Also, look at the drawing Roy provides in Post #21.  Zoom in on that one and you will see that the spur side of the building gets a little imagery, hand drawn but imagery none-the-less.  The curve in the spur for loading paper product seems to have gone into the building next to the building with the odd shaped basement.  The spur disappears into the building.  The spur would need to disappear into the building to preserve climate control to deliver good paper product.

     Now note the berm built between the odd shaped foundation and the remaining buildings.  All the buildings between existing structures and on top of the berm have been demolished.  That would make sense if they were only for preserving climate control because they would be of low total volume density and thus easy to remove.  There was also a trade-off between concrete, metal and wood for construction that the engineers had to consider between the existing structures, especially when they need to support a rail boxcar.  Personally, I think this next part is really cool.

     There was a sideways rail car transfer system that allowed boxcars to move sideways and straight between the spur and up to the main mill buildings.  Look at Roy's original photo.  At the end of the elevated rail and next to the smokestack are three elevated rail concrete supports rotated 90 degrees.  The six posts between the three rotated supports and the elevated rails are also for support but provide room for the steel rail mechanisms for a sideways transfer of the boxcar.  Further toward the bottom of Roy's photo is the berm.  

     A boxcar could be transferred sideways from the elevated rail, over toward the berm area, which could handle two boxcars side by side, and one or both could be rolled onto the odd shaped foundation / basement.  On top of the berm, as seen in my six dated photos, numerous other boxcars could be filled, held, processed and eventually entered onto the spur for rail delivery – all inside the buildings that provided climate control.  Amazing

Aloha and Drone On!

Cetacean Posted at 3-7 19:27
Aloha Roy,

     Yes, there is a mystery still.  And it appears to be underground and otherwise demolished.  All we have are old photos and drawings and photos of remaining structures.  The odd shaped building next to the smokestack and the greenhouse most likely has underground structures that will solve part of the mystery.  The smokestack likely includes a stream release for boilers, etc. in the odd shaped building.  

'There was a sideways rail car transfer system that allowed boxcars to move sideways'

Technically, a traverser.

But I do not believe the elevated section would have handled boxcars, nor was it used to load anything, Elevated structures like that were typically used to unload material, not load it. And the zoomable picture shows the elevated section was well above any doors for loading. The other issue is the material underneath the the elevated section. In the zoomable photo it looks like rock or rubble underneath the structure, although I cannot see what part that would have taken in the paper manufacturing process. The only explanation I can think of is that the material being unloaded was coal, and the building adjacent to the elevated section was the boiler house. That would make some sense, as that building had the large stack with the dirty smoke coming out.

Granted that appears to be a steel boxcar on the structure, but if it was used for unloading, then it normally would have been gondola cars used for that process. Gondolas unload through a hatch in the floor of the car. Note that in Cetacean's 2002 photo, there are two gondola cars at the extreme left on what remains of the railroad spur. There was also enough room for a siding off the spur to arc around and climb up to the elevated section.

Geebax Posted at 3-7 20:01
'There was a sideways rail car transfer system that allowed boxcars to move sideways'

Technically, a traverser.

Aloha Geebax,

     Yes, coal could have been a fuel, but I dismissed that option because this was a paper mill developed so smaller trees could be grown and harvested for commercial purposes.  Whether it is coal or wood chips, whatever the combustible was, it still had to get to the boiler, so you have a point.  

     Mahalo for the technical name information.  Traverser, good name.  I would never argue trains with you.  For that matter, my only experience with trains was Marklin models as a young'un in Germany and driving a "tourist" sugar train down in Ewa for one excursion (and many rides later).  If I recall right, all I did was put my hand on the throttle!  LOL!  But, it was an interesting lesson in trains; from an engineer's point of view, no less.

     Regarding the elevated, it gets nowhere near the boiler area where a gondola car would be useful.  And using the History Tool for this location shows a large number of gondola cars as well as boxcars.  I wonder if the gondola cars were used in the woodchip stockpile area.  Here in Hawai'i's sugar days, we had track that was laid down by hand and then lifted and moved to the next area when it was needed.  The woodchip stockpile area looks like that could have been done, albeit with an added step or two.

     The idea that this design would be typical would not allow for the internalization and climate control of the loading logistics.  It is paper after all.  The elevated does show a boxcar on it and there is no indication that any track from or to the elevated area can connect to the spur except on the other side of the factory grounds.  The only way to get there that I can see is through the climate controlled building using traverser technology.  This would allow loading product on the way.

     Really?  What is that material under the elevated?  I was looking at so much overgrowth in Google Earth that I just thought it was vegetation.  Good eye.  Did you notice that the elevated also has a bend to it where the boxcar sits?

     In Roy's drawing, the "smoke" appears to be coming out of the side of the smokestack that is still standing.  Could it possibly be vegetation and not smoke?  And in Ex's interactive photo, it looks like four or even five smokestacks with no smoke coming out of the "boiler" smokestack.  Any ideas about the "Phantom" smokestack between the belcher you noted and the boiler smokestack.  That is a strange one.  

     In Roy's drawing, I do see a second spur going over to the wood chip stockpiles, but the left spur (in the picture) goes into the building as noted earlier.  Do you think that could be wood chips under the elevated track?  It would make sense that the elevated was dropping wood chips that were turned into paper with the rest of the buildings processing the pulp into flat sheets.  There could be different shifts moving product one way and wood chips the other way with the traverser.  

     One thing I do know; good ol' Roy is going to have to fly a few more rounds to get us all on the same page!

Aloha and Drone On!

Cetacean Posted at 3-8 00:21
Aloha Geebax,

     Yes, coal could have been a fuel, but I dismissed that option because this was a paper mill developed so smaller trees could be grown and harvested for commercial purposes.  Whether it is coal or wood chips, whatever the combustible was, it still had to get to the boiler, so you have a point.  

In Ex's post with the news paper article it said the owner also started a 2nd company the same year as the papermill , and that it was on the adjacent property .  
highlights in this property map show both , but under 2 different owners .


This is the current owner of the ruined "papermill"


Records show it was purchased in 2012 for 45k  but its taxed value is 135k .  A tax rate of 2% would mean sense 2012  21,600$  have been paid in taxes for a property that isn't being used . That along might mean nothing but its just fishy to me .

Cetacean Posted at 3-8 00:21
Aloha Geebax,

     Yes, coal could have been a fuel, but I dismissed that option because this was a paper mill developed so smaller trees could be grown and harvested for commercial purposes.  Whether it is coal or wood chips, whatever the combustible was, it still had to get to the boiler, so you have a point.  

I loaded up this morning to get some requested footage , raw none edited...