trains

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Art Design

Modern Ruins: An Artist’s Vehicle Designed to Traverse 9,000 Kilometers of Abandoned Railways in Mexico

What do you do with the abandoned railways that once held the promise of trans-continental linkage and progress? Some have converted them into tourist-friendly pathways. But Mexican artists and brothers Ivan Puig (previously) and Andrés Padilla Domene decided to traverse the nearly 9,000 km of railway in Mexico and Ecuador that, in 1995, was abandoned and left to decay. But they didn’t travel in any old fashion. In a project that ran from 2010 to 2012 the artists rode in a striking silver road-rail vehicle called SEFT-1, which they designed and built themselves so as to travel both on rail and road.

The multi-year journey, which was documented online, explored abandoned rail but also the notion of modern ruins, and “how the ideology of progress is imprinted onto historic landscapes.” (via Hyperallergic)

Art

Stainless: Hypnotizing Slow-Motion Footage from Trains Pulling into Stations

These videos by Adam Magyar are one of those things that are difficult to explain verbally, but as soon as you see it, you realize how completely amazing it is. Filmed in Tokyo, New York and Berlin, Magyar positioned himself on trains as they pulled into subway stops, filming the waiting crowds at 50 frames per second using a high speed camera. The resulting footage creates an uncanny feeling as the train is clearly moving quickly through the station, but the people seem to remain motionless. Any of these scenes wouldn’t seem out of place in a Ron Fricke film. To learn more about how Magyar filmed them, head on over to PetaPixel. (via The Fox is Black)

Update: There’s another great piece about Magyar’s work over on Medium.

Photography

Snake on a Train: A Long Exposure Photo of a Train Roaring through the Canadian Rockies

After spending a week photographing various areas of the Canadian Rockies, photographer Brian Donovan decided he wanted to focus on getting some interesting train shots against the wintry backdrop. Dovan shares via email that over the course of two days he endured nearly 13 hours of sitting by the train tracks, where he saw only 6 trains coming from the wrong (less scenic) direction. As the weather rapidly changed from better to worse a final train came roaring around the bend. Donovan quickly setup and captured the engine as it neared and then adjusted for a long exposure of the boxcars rushing by. The train was loaded with several long segments of different colored boxcars, each giving the shot a unique feel, but the red boxcars instantly stood out, resulting in the amazing image you see here. You can follow Donovan over on 500px.

Art

Olek Crochets an Entire Four-Car Locomotive in Lodz, Poland

Textile artist Olek has just completed work on what may be her largest piece ever, a four-car locomotive covered in crocheted technicolor camo in Lodz, Poland. The artist didn’t even stop to change out of a costume she wore at the Animal Ball in London before jumping on a plane to meet four assistants who began a four-day assault on the large train that was completed on July 19th. You may remember Olek’s work from just over a year ago here on Colossal when she crocheted an entire alligator-themed playground in São Paulo. The locomotive will be on view through August 19th, and you can see more over on Hi-Fructose.

Amazing

Hyper Drive Yurikamome: Mirrored Hyperlapse of Tokyo’s Automated Transit System

This fun hyperlapse video was shot on Tokyo’s fully-automated Yurikamome transit system by a photographer/filmmaker who goes by darwinfish105. The visuals in the video were achieved using an array of mirror and vertical flip effects in Adobe Premiere. You might remember similar videos shot by Daihei Shibata and Craig Shamala from back in 2010, however this new video seems to have been shot predominantly from the front/back of the train giving the video a somewhat different feel. If you liked this you might also enjoy these transit photos by Céline Ramoni, also taken on board the Yurikamome. (via faith is torment)

Photography

Long Exposure Photos of Yurikamome High Speed Rail Transit

Today I stumbled onto the Flickr stream of photographer Céline Ramoni based in Tokyo who for the last few years has been capturing these fantastic long exposure photos of the Yurikamome transit line that travels between the Japanese cities of Shimbashi and Toyosu. The rest of her photography is well worth your time including gems like this, and this, and oooh this.

Design

Tearable Envelopes Create Contrails and Exhaust Plumes

These fun envelopes by D-BROS have small tabs that after tearing create the effect of car exhaust, locomotive steam, or airplane contrails. Clever! (via matomeno)