BAGDContext CSM

Lovely

Wonderful and terrifying…

Beautiful…and pin-sharp

How to travel in style…

I’m often a bit disappointed by the lettering and typographic design on vans, lorries and trains….so, I’m delighted by this. I love it. Click on the picture to see it bigger.

The democratic and republican origins of the US has tended towards a mythologising of ordinary people and the intrinsic dignity and heroism of blue-collar America. Nowadays, this is still evident in the RnB of Bruce Springsteen…and in the long tradition of US street photography.

Lewis Hine played an important role in developing the visual representation of ordinary life. He’s most famous for his iamges of steepljacks building NYC skyscrapers…and them having picnic lunches atop the scaffold…

Here are some of his railway pictures

Hine was a socioligist who used hos photographs as evidence for social reform. He played an important role in the the reform of child labour laws…

Upton Sinclair is anothe rfigure who s important in establishing an agenda for social reform. Sinclair famously wrote about the brutal working conditions in the livestock markets, yards and abattoirs of the Chicago railhead…the book is called, The Jungle (1906).

Sinclair also wrote about the adventures of Sergei Eisenstein in Hollywood and Mexico.

More recently, the British film director, Peter Greenaway, has made a film about Eisenstein in Mexico.

The government are considering ending the distinction between forst and second class on trains in the south-east…good idea, but why not all first class? Let’s elevate everyone; not drive them down…

The BBC website has a story about Geoff and Vicky, who are visiting every railway station in Britain.

There’s a little film, here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-40341771

The BBC website is showing a slideshow of john Sanderson’s photographs of empty rail tracks…strangely unsettling.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-40341771

Here are three lovely enamelled loco badges…