BAGDContext CSM

I found this in Japan…a hand-printed poster for some kind of railway event. The text seems to be the return ticket…who knows?

This is an image from a series of pictures of abandoned railway stations in Saudi Arabia…

The picture is by the German artist photographer, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, who headed to Saudi Arabia to photograph former railway stations the Ottoman empire, lost in the desert for decades.

You can see some of  the images, here

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/sep/16/ursula-schulz-dornburg-railway-stations-saudi-arabia#img-2

This is from a small collection of black and white commercial illustration from Britain after WW2…it’s the kind of thing that went into newspapers and magazines. Here’s an image of the Midland Pullman.

I’ve already posted about the Japanese fast trains of the 1950s with their punchy paint-jobs and sleek body-work. Here are some pictures of the train in Tokyo Railway Museum.

1950s Streamlining • Japan + USA

We purchased a couple of these water bottles at Tokyo station before setting off.

Here’s an idea for an invisible train…

The Japanese are at the forefront of tryig to develop technologies of opticl disturbance…in Star Trek, these would be called cloaking devices. It is literally the stuff of science-fiction, at the moment.

In practical terms, their most successful efforts are based on reflective surfaces and stealth geometry.

This is a computer generated image of an invisible train.

I guess they would tidy up the interface between track and carriage. All those boxes need hiding.

Personally, I like looking at trains. Making them invisible seems a bit pointless.

Still it does look pretty cool.

I recently posted a diagram of the Tokyo metro system…here’s an improved (eg rationalised) version. Still pretty amazing.

Actually, the reality is pretty straightforward.

We’ve just returned from a trip to Japan…amazing. Needless to say, the trains were terrific. At the Railway Museum, Tokyo, we saw the original model Shinkansen (1964).

Here are three lovely posters for LNER services to the Yprkshire Moors…ideal for hiking.

One of the things I like about railways is the specific typography associated with transport networks.

I love it all: road signs, underground posters, and railway architecture. I especially like the traditions of hand-painted lettering on old steam trains. I quite life the fabric on old buses too.

BBCTV repeated a short film about the recent restoration of the Flying Scotsman engine. The film had a number of lovely sequences that showed the effort that goes into painting it just right.

For most of the film, the engine is in war paint from WW2; that’s matt black all over. The picture, above, shows a detail of the numbers, painted with shadows and shading.

Lovely work.