Crossing Mexico in a home-made road-railer

[Shimbleshanks]

From the BBC website:
Two Mexican brothers explore Mexico's disused railways in a road-rail car they have made themselves.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27929846

Crossing Mexico in a home-made 'spacecraft'

20 June 2014 Last updated at 00:28 BST

In the second half of the 19th Century, the Mexican government partnered with British companies to build the railway line that would connect Mexico City with the Atlantic Ocean.

But over the past few decades, Mexico's railways have fallen out of use, leaving hundreds of miles of disused track snaking across the country and cutting rural communities off from the large cities.

Artists Ivan Puig and Andres Padilla Domene decided to build a car capable of travelling on train tracks and explored the country's abandoned railway lines.

Along the way they photographed hundreds of ruins and recorded the stories of the people that they met.

BBC News went to meet the pair as they brought an exhibition about their journey to the UK.

 

[JB_B]

This is a really lovely (and slightly bonkers) project.

The SEFT-1 itself is being exhibited in Finsbury Park, London (11–13 July, 18–20 July and 25–27 July only)

I trundled up on Sunday to have a closer look at how they put it together - there's also very interesting associated exhibition.

Details here : http://furtherfield.org/programmes/...-railways-exploration-probe-modern-ruins-1220

Ivan Puig and Andrés Padilla Domene (Los Ferronautas) built their striking silver road-rail SEFT-1 vehicle to explore the abandoned passenger railways of Mexico and Ecuador, capturing their journeys in videos, photographs and collected objects. In their first London exhibition, SEFT-1 Abandoned Railways Exploration Probe - Modern Ruins 1:220, commissioned by The Arts Catalyst and presented in partnership with Furtherfield in their gallery space in the heart of Finsbury Park, the artists explore how the ideology of progress is imprinted onto historic landscapes and reflect on the two poles of the social experience of technology - use and obsolescence.

 

[theageofthetra]

Well worth going to, plus if you go on the 12/13 July the massive Routemaster bus parade is in Finsbury Park that weekend.