El Paso and Juarez

Work Trip, March, 1988

 

All Photos Copyright © 2010 by Robert E Pence

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These are scans from some negatives I found recently while cleaning out a cabinet in the basement. I hadn't seen them in a long time, and had given them up for lost. Who knows what else I'll find as I clear away accumulated junk?

 

I went to an employer's assembly plant in Juarez to help with the implementation of a real-time production and inventory tracking system. Leaving Fort Wayne, the scene might make one wonder just what kind of Podunk town this is. I can't remember what my routing was or where I changed to a real airplane, but probably because of lousy visibility I didn't take more photos en route.

 

A couple of sunset shots. I think these might have been taken from somewhere near my motel in El Paso.

 

 

I never got around to taking many photos in El Paso. I did slip away from work early enough one day to photograph Amtrak's Sunset Limited, which was on time. The big GE P30CH six-axle locomotives were bought to haul heavy Superliner consists on long-distance trains, and for some reason were never a great success. They entered service in late 1978, and by the time these photos were taken, they were nearing the end of their run. Not long afterward, I saw some on the dead line at Amtrak's Beech Grove shops (Indianapolis); one of those had burned up.

 

 

 

Notice that the second car up is different from the Superliner in the foreground? It's one of the bi-level cars that the Santa Fe had built for Super Chief and El Capitan. They were the inspiration for the Superliners. I think that one might have been running as a crew dorm.

 

 

 

1905 - 1906 El Paso Union Station, designed by Daniel Burnham. Lots of glass in interior partitions to let outside light come in. It was very well-maintained.

 

 

Ruben, one of the managers at the factpry in Juarez. Good guy.

 

A Saturday-night stay got cheaper air fare, and my motel would throw in free Saturday nights for all-week stays. The company was happy to let me stay into the weekend, because it saved them money. Most co-workers I traveled with wanted to head home as early as possible on Fridays. I took advantage of the opportunity for some sightseeing, and on Saturday I drove my rental car to a parking lot on the US side near the bridge and walked across.

 

Note the guy climbing over the gate on the railway bridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Railroad station - at first glance, a rather nice, modern-looking building. Closer inspection, though, showed  the maintenance standards weren't stringent. First impression - screen door hanging from one hinge.

 

I didn't know if this might be a pay car, or if there was some other reason for the bars on the windows.

 

 

El Paso Santa Fe freight house, near the border.

 

Flying out. I wish I had taken more photos of both El Paso and Juarez; sometimes I passed up a lot of good opportunities to take photos on business trips, and looking back now, I wish I had done differently.

 

 

Awesome.

I took advantage of the opportunity for some sightseeing, and on Saturday I drove my rental car to a parking lot on the US side near the bridge and walked across.

Good idea, you wouldn't want to try to drive around Juarez anyway. People don't know how to drive friendly down there.

 

I've visited Juarez about a dozen times over the last couple decades with my church as a teenager and in recent years a good friend of mine from high school and college ended up working a little south of the city. It has been interesting to visit every other year or so and see the city grow and get gradually poorer throughout the 90's, then see it continue to grow, but stabalize in its poverty over the last decade, at least from my perspective, though the crime has gotten out of control. It has been a sad transformation to see, but very interesting.

 

I still find it funny that outside of El Paso only the rich people can afford to buy a house up in the mountains, but in Juarez only the poor people end up living in the mountains.

Wow, these are amazing. You can really see the difference in culture reflected in EVERYTHING in these photos. Especially the architecture styles, and the commotion on the street. Great shots.

Wow...the El Paso station is amazing.

Good idea, you wouldn't want to try to drive around Juarez anyway. People don't know how to drive friendly down there ...

 

Everyone warned me about the drivers, but in driving to the factory from El Paso every day, and occasionally driving with co-workers to restaurants, I didn't find them much different from what I was used to in Fort Wayne -- completely random and erratic in their moves, clueless as to the presence of other drivers, and in utter contempt of what might, to the uninitiated, pass for traffic laws. The only things that scared me were those big white buses; their bumpers were liberally smeared with various colors of paint from encounters with automobiles. I stayed well away from those buses when driving.

 

Maybe it's different now, but then, I found the drivers in El Paso to be much more aggressive than those in Juarez. I don't remember what the name of it was, but there was an expressway I drove regularly that was utter anarchy, with doses of mayhem thrown in from time to time. One evening I came by a place where a semi had cut off a car and shoved it clear up and over a concrete barrier between the opposing lanes of traffic.

 

I wish I had taken more photos in downtown Juarez; the Mexicans appear to be master craftsmen and artists in concrete and stucco, probably because of the lack of timber. There were some Streamline/Deco facades that looked as if they might have been from the fifties or thereabouts, and the floor and walls of the lobby of the factory where I spent my days were tiled in rich, vibrant colors.

 

At one time, El Paso streetcars crossed the bridge just into Juarez before turning around and heading back. One of my co-workers said that until border restrictions were tightened a few years before, many Mexicans rode the streetcars into El Paso to shop. Some people hoped that the service would return, and when I was there the streetcars were in storage and the tracks and catenary were still in place on the bridge and on one street that I saw in El Paso. A few years ago, I saw the streetcars advertised for sale.

 

Wow...the El Paso station is amazing.

 

When I go through some of these old sets of negatives, I realize how much my photographic habits have changed since I switched to digital photography. With film, I always was conscious of the cost of every click of the shutter, and sometimes constrained by the amount of film I had left. With digital, the transformation for me was immediate; with no incremental costs to concern me, I felt free to blaze away at everything that might be of interest, often trying various compositions and angles on the same scene. Now, I would have covered the station from every angle I could think of, inside and out. It was interesting to see Burnham signature features with a soutwestern accent.

 

Quite a scene at the border!  I didn't realize that the river was so narrow there...

I got to go down to El Paso/ Juarez in March of 1997 as a 19 YO co-op for mock build out and a team building exercise. It was my first trip to the border towns and NAFTA towns of Mexico. I don't remember much about Jauarez except that my coworkers had a favorite store they stopped and bought beer each night after leaving the plant at night to drink while waiting to cross the border and that when you looked down upon the city from El Paso at night there was a dark spot in the middle of the lights where the slums were.  Also it snowed while I was there. So much for going somewhere slightly warmer than Ohio.