With 1986 behind us, let's kick off 1987 with a look at the photos from 30 years ago this month.

* Houston Chronicle reporter Carole Keeney dropped in on the folks who keep the Hermann Park train running. From July 1, 1985, through June 30, 1986, it carried 748,000 passengers.

When the customers pass through the gates each day, they see a group that looks the part it plays. Weathered faces, hard-working hands and a quick "howdy" spark visions of railroad men, sitting high in big locomotives, riding the rails to adventure.

For at least some of the crew, the image they project has some basis in fact.

John Glaze, 46, has headed up the train crew for 18 years. But he started loving trains even earlier. His father worked for the Sante Fe Railroad. And his uncles were railroad men.

"I started out when I was 9 years old in Kansas City," he said.

"A guy gave me $1 to wipe the steam engine off."

At 16, he started working full time in Kansas City's Swope Park, taking care of a miniature train like the one he now supervises. He stayed with the park, running the train, until he moved to Houston and Hermann Park. He's only wavered once from the train business.

Two years ago, he decided to take a job with a mobile home company. In six months he was back at the microphone, announcing "All aboard, the Texas special for an air-conditioned ride" in a slightly nasal tone, the words tripping from his tongue like the clicketyclack of a big wheel turning.

"My heart was always in the park," he said. "People say to me, 'How can you do the same job everyday?' But it's not the same. Every day is different."

* Vietnamese immigrants here were increasingly concerned about crime and the city's efforts to deal with it.

Here's what Susan Warren found in her Feb. 15, 1987, article:

Refugee Tony Nguyen spends long hours in discussion with a friend in an attempt to come up with a solution. Neighborhood patrols? Vietnamese police? Handguns? It seems, he says, they have exhausted every possibility.

Though the refugees are concerned and many are afraid, most are not yet ready to throw their safety concerns entirely into the hands of authorities. The ways and traditions of their old country are still very much a part of their lives.

"Vietnamese people handle police problems within the group," said Fred R. von der Mehden, a political science professor at Rice University who specializes in Asian studies. "They try to do it within the family, within the village, within the smaller community."

In spite of this, refugees who have most successfully acclimated themselves to American ways believe that to successfully combat crime in their community, their people must learn to cooperate with police.

To accomplish this, Nguyen says, police need to be more visible and a more consistent force in the Asian community to gain the refugees' acceptance and trust.

"It's a two-way exchange," said Nguyen Ngoc Linh, publisher of the Vietnamese Ngay Nay newspaper. "If you come to us, we open up to you. But if you don't come, and only breathe down our necks looking for witnesses whenever there are problems, then we don't know anything."

One Vietnamese refugee, a resident of the robbery-plagued South Belt area, said community meetings to explain the criminal justice system would help Asian refugees to better decipher and comprehend the whys and hows of this country's laws. Many Vietnamese refugees have tried to educate themselves, but often don't understand what they see or read, or don't know where to go to obtain the proper information.

"We read the newspapers, but we find many things strange," he said.

Refugees have been disillusioned by a justice system that they see as weak and inconsistent and an encouragement to people who view crime as a safe and easy way to make a living.

"You have freedom over here, but the freedom is too large," one refugee said, trying to explain why Vietnamese refugees can't understand criminal justice in the United States.

* Jerry King, president of Jamstone Records, thinks he can get Houston out of its economic doldrums.

From Patricia Smith Prather's Jan. 28, 1987, article about the black recording industry in Houston:

King, president of Jamstone Records, believes a strong record industry in Houston could help cure some of the city's economic ills.

"The record industry supports a lot of other businesses, including oil," he said. What does oil have to do with records? "Records are made from petroleum products, and strong record sales mean profits for the oil business."

But a lot of other businesses would prosper, too, King says, continuing his scenario. "Let's say a local performer's records become a top hit. Nightclubs will book the act, which will boost their profits, as well as sales of soft drinks, liquor, cigarettes, peanuts, potato chips and other snacks. Record shops will prosper. Printing companies will produce record labels, album covers, advertising posters and fliers. Photographers and artists will also help create albums and promotional materials."

Add to that the fashion designers who make costumes for performers, hair stylists, booking agents, distributors and other businesses, and a vision of economic advancement appears, King theorizes.

But it's not a yellow-brick road to success - in some cases the road isn't even paved - for local black-owned record companies looking for the veritable Land of Oz.

This specialized group of Houston entrepreneurs has been around since 1949 when the first black-owned record company in the South began operating on Lyons Avenue just east of downtown. Peacock Recording Co. and its owner, Don Robey, created jobs and hope for black artists who had been denied a chance up to that time.

When Peacock Recording Co. was launched just after World War II, blacks were segregated in all segments of society. Negro music - blues, gospel, jazz - was referred to as "race music," and its audiences were almost exclusively blacks. Race music was primarily played on jukeboxes and at nightclubs, churches and other places blacks frequented.

A black-owned, record-related business had the potential to thrive under such conditions, and Robey proved it could be done by building his Peacock empire.

Robey first owned the Bronze Peacock Club, a supper club on Lyons Avenue in Houston's Fifth Ward. The club featured black musicians, many of whom Robey promoted. To help ensure sales of the records, and hence attract supper club customers, he opened a record shop near the Bronze Peacock.

Evelyn Johnson, Robey's right-hand woman in the record business, says they put up a loudspeaker outside the Peacock Record Shop to advertise their records.

"We learned a lot about distribution when we opened the record shop," she said.

Robey's next step was to produce his own records. When Johnson asked Robey how he expected to go about making a record, his answer was, "I don't know, that's for you to find out."

Johnson researched every step it took to produce a record, including getting copyrights. In 1949, Peacock Recording Co. began its operations in the back of the Peacock Record Shop. "Louis Jordan was in town performing at the city auditorium, and he came out to cut the ribbon when we opened Peacock Recording Co.," Johnson recalled.

Not long after that Peacock followed yet another avenue into the record industry by purchasing the record printing press operations used to manufacture Peacock-labeled records. At the height of Peacock's businesses, hundreds of people were employed, including studio and road musicians, songwriters, producers, arrangers, technicians, distributors, accountants, attorneys and promotional people in key U.S. cities.

* Years before it moved out to the old Compaq Center (aka The Summit), the Lakewood Church campus was located out in northeast Houston. The Chronicle went out to photograph the Rev. John Osteen as the church was getting ready to break ground on a 8,000-seat sanctuary on its campus.

From Julia Dunn's Feb. 14, 1987, write-up:

Lakewood's fame as an integrated church (40 percent white, 30 percent black and 30 percent Hispanic) may be one of the secrets that has catapulted the church into a leading position on Houston's varied religious landscape. Church officials will break ground at 10:15 a.m.

Sunday for an 8,000-seat sanctuary that will be Houston's largest church when it is dedicated in the fall.

Purposely designed without columns so that no one's view of the stage will be restricted, the new brick and metal building will surpass First Baptist (4,000 seats), Second Baptist (6,000 seats) and First United Methodist (2,200 seats) in size.

The ground breaking will represent a personal triumph for Osteen, the Southern Baptist minister who founded Lakewood in 1959 after his involvement in the charismatic movement made him something of a pariah in Baptist circles.

Osteen, 65, almost didn't make it to this high point in his ministry. While undergoing a routine heart catharization Sept. 3 at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, he almost suffered a heart attack. Famed Houston heart surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley performed a quadruple bypass on the stricken pastor.

Ten days later, Osteen was at home. Three weeks later, he was back at Lakewood, and six weeks later he was preaching at his church, which is described as "the oasis of love."

"People have said to me that the reason they love this church is that (we) don't put a difference in the color of skin," said Osteen's wife, Dolores (Dodie). "What brings them here is that one little slogan, 'the oasis of love.' People are hurting no matter what color their skin is."

"My observation is that it is probably the most integrated church in town," said Houston City Councilman Anthony Hall, who has visited Lakewood several times. Hall, who is black, calls Lakewood's integration level "unusual," adding that, "When you go over there, you perceive that color doesn't matter."

Mayor Kathy Whitmire, who has also visited Lakewood several times, will be at Sunday's ground breaking.

"I was very impressed by the large congregation, their interest in extending their ministry around the world and how they draw people from all over Houston," Whitmire said. "A couple of my staff members go there."