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.

50,000 hp in a used F-104 Starfighter body: Aiming for 800 mph on land!

When I used to take my mother's 1954 Plymouth out on the soon-to-open loop on the west side of San Angelo, Texas, I had nothing like this baby in mind. This fellow has lots of folks helping him get things lined up right, since there's not much margin for error at land vehicle velocity beyond the speed of sound. But the idea of cranking up 50,000 hp and lettin' 'er rip is somewhat attractive. The idea of death or months of hospital recovery if there's a mistake doesn't seem in the same breath, so to mentally speak. The subject says what happened and the plans for the future. Read the article for details.

Whoosh! Shazam!

Comments welcomed.