Saturday, April 25, 2020

William Powell, 1934, on a MGM Property Dept bike


If you've never seen the series of movies he did with Myrna Loy, you're going to enjoy them.
The Thin Man, a comedy murder mystery, start with that

https://ridesabike.com/william-powell-rides-a-bike-2/

John Wayne on a Republic Pictures’ Transportation Department, Colson bicycle in 1945

Laurel and Hardy, 1943

things just don't get much zanier than Ann-Margret on a chopper Stingray in 1972

One of the escapees from the movie The Great Escape, James Coburn's character steals a bike to make his ride to freedom

a mountain bike, or quad, and this road.... that would be nice

Dozens of narrow gauge hopper cars, and US Army boxcars, sit and rust after being abandoned for nearly half a century in Pennsylvania



1890s German illustrations

yep, true, true

Hit by a landslide near Skagway Alaska, and abandoned for decades, until 1977 when Dolly Parton bought the engines and had them moved to Dollywood


#70 and #71 went to Tennessee in 1977. Both are owned by the Dollywood, Pigeon Forge, Gatlinsburg and Western

https://www.railpictures.net/photo/76503/


IH Sightliner colorized postcard


every time I see one of these Sightliners I'm reminded of the robot movie, Real Steel, and I hope the make a sequel


http://mylifeinpostcards.blogspot.com/2010/08/roadside-america-gas-station-wisconsin.html

the Lower Dells Filling Station, Wisconsin Dells, WI sporting a Phillips 66 sign.

a Bell Line Motor Coach providing interstate bus service up & down the West Coast. Just 30 1/2 hours between San Francisco, CA and Portland, OR

Horse Drawn Streetcar with Horse as Passenger, Denver, Colorado 1910


According to the history of the Cherrelyn horse drawn streetcar, the horse would pull the streetcar up an incline slope in Denver and would be placed on the platform at the end of the car for the ride back down on the return journey.

http://mylifeinpostcards.blogspot.com/2011/07/stop-horsing-around-cherrelyn-horse.html

a shot of a Scale Test Car in 1957, a rare part of railroading and not many of these are seen out on the mainlines.


with 80,000 lb weight, it was used for calibrating scales where necessary.

The car is set at the middle of the scale and if the scale doesn't read what it is supposed to read, repairs are in order.

http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=34289

Friday, April 24, 2020

a World War 2 railway train car turned tiny house

a 1952 double-decker bus parked alongside a lap pool, in a New Orleansback yard, bought with plans to get it water tight and eventually hook up electricity, air conditioning, and a sound system to make it a poolside cabana.

gravity racers in South America



the above is great for the first 8 minutes 2 seconds. As soon as they exist the highway, it gets boring fast, so skip to the next one




1885 steam locomotive recovered from a river bed in New Zealand, after 93 years of being used as Rip Rap (river bank erosion prevention material, usually junkyard cars) because after WW1, scrap metal was abundant, and there was no profit in trying to sell it as scrap




Anadol’s recent digital artwork, entitled Art of Perfection: Data Painting, used data sets relating to the colour of every Rolls-Royce motor car created at the Home of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood, England, over the last 10 years.

I'm telling you, I covered a lot of ground this week

from a Turkish artist doing weird digital art in Hollywood,
to French poster art from 100 years ago,
discovered the marvelous poster art of "Mich", Martin Dupin, and d'Ylen
to Argentine's destroyed railroad system
steam locomotives used as New Zealand river bed rip rap
the Roman road map
oil prices tanked,
Don Martin advertising BF Goodrich tires
unreal suspension rims from 1880s bicycles
and the history of the AMT model car kit company mascot

1254 bikes, an art piece by Ai Weiwei, at PROA in La Boca


The stainless steel monument of 1,254 bicycles refers to a more contemporary view of Chinese daily life, and can be construed as a comment on a common and every day urban Chinese setting, or as the monument that it is, illuminating its many spinning wheels in front of PROA’s façade in La Boca.




http://pensandolabronca.blogspot.com/2017/11/recorriendo-la-boca-barracas.html
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/culture/ai-weiwei-injects-activist-art-to-induce-social-change.phtml
https://fadmagazine.com/2018/01/25/234581/ai-weiwei-inoculation-exhibition-proa-argentina-gonzalo-viramonte-designboom-06/

Putin's trophy train of weapons and tanks taken from Syrian rebels during the civil war



This American-made Humvee was used by opposition forces, then captured by the Islamic State and later taken by the Syrian army.


The train, made up of 20 cars carrying captured tanks, rocket launchers, improvised explosive devices and other military hardware.... also known as the Syria Breakthrough Train, a travelling exhibit of captured equipment and other war souvenirs from Russia's five-year involvement in the Middle Eastern country, went on up an epic 20,000-kilometre, 61-city journey through Russia, from the Baltic to the Pacific in 2019.



https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6782423/Vladimir-Putin-sends-Syrian-victory-train-weapons-17-500-mile-tour-Russia.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/as-public-support-for-syrian-war-wanes-russia-hopes-trophy-train-inspires-patriotism-1.5125769

Mark Carleton made the complete Canadian, CP, CN, ONR and VIA Canadian railways locomotive graphically

Pensando La Bronco, a blog that is doing one amazing job of documenting what's left of the vast railroads of Argentina.








abandoned pivot bridge too




The writer of the blog points out that the corrupt greedy politicians bankrupted the country, and the moment no one paid the bills, the train system just stopped.

Also, politicians are always greedy, always corrupt, and never take public transportation, there fore - have zero interest in seeing it well run, or even run at all.

http://pensandolabronca.blogspot.com/2020/03/carga-transporte-economia.html