New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority maintains a museum shop and small gallery in Grand Central Station. This year, I stopped in and checked out the annual train show, which continues through January 16, 2013. What can I say? It was awesome!
Geographically speaking, the scene covered everything from Swiss-style chalets on a mountain, to skyscrapers under a twinkling sky
to underground trains and a maintenance yard.
There were city trains, buses, and cars
trucks and taxis (but no traffic — small worlds get to be perfect!)
an old-style locomotive with a classic “cow-catcher”
more modern New York Central cars
and a marvelous hobby shop, with a revolving train display of its own
. . . and more, so much more! There was something intriguing to discover everywhere anyone looked.
There was no obvious adherence to a particular era in train history (other than general nostalgia, that is). The charming result was that all these transport modes moved through various land- and city-scapes and melded into a world all their own, undefined by a specific decade or chronological requirement. The result was a magical coherence that somehow managed to be traditional, peculiarly futuristic, and quaint, all at once.
But I saw no bicycles. What kind of world has no bicycles?