Friday, October 21, 2011

Ridin' the rails to nowhere


In case you are one of those folks who are desperately in love with old train cars or never got over the tug at your heart over a toy train set, there's this fellow's post. He details some of the interesting homes people have made out of cabooses or other train cars long retired, but still serviceable from a domicile point of view.

I found the page while I was researching a scene from a 1973 trip across the Sierra Madres on a passenger train. It was the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad. Far up in the mountains, I saw families living in old boxcars on short sidings. They had cheery window boxes with flowers in them during the June trip. Children were at play outside of the several boxcars. They had cut doors and windows more suitable for a dwelling in the sides, with stairs leading up to the doors.

From the quick perspective of passing the homes out on a mountain siding, they looked very minimal and near infinitely remote. But think...they had company pass right by several times a week in the form of the train I was on.

Comments welcomed.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011


Today's Google logo has paid 90th birthday tribute to artist Art Clokey and his creation, Gumby In this tribute page, you can see Clokey's first clay film, done on his parent's table tennis table. It does not star Gumby, but it is a fun, early animation in modeled clay.