RAILROAD DINING, ART, AND CULTURE IN REVIEW BY JAMES D. PORTERFIELD A New Trick
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LONG-TIME RAILROAD ARTIST TEX WILSON has been working at the computer again. This time the result is a high-quality book that for the first time makes available his sig- nature series of montages, titled “Workin’ on th’ Railroad,” in a single source and on a grand scale. About Tex: Wilson grew up in Slaton,
Texas, then a division point on the Atchi- son, Topeka & Santa Fe. His father worked for the Santa Fe as a freight conductor. Tex, too, worked for the railroad, summers, in the roundhouse, on the bridge gang, and as an engine crew call boy, while attending Texas Tech College (now University) in Lubbock. His education was interrupted by a three- year stint in the U.S. Air Force, from which he returned to earn his degree in Commercial Art from Texas Tech. He then began a career as an artist in Milwaukee in 1954. Married now 61 years to Ausma Tuims, from Latvia, he is the father of three grown children. Tex began his freelance career as an il- lustrator and designer in 1976. By 1985 he and Ausma were empty nesters, and so they pulled up stakes and moved to Seattle, Wash., where he continued his career as an artist. When he retired in 1996 he used the opportu- nity to turn his attention to the art and poet- ry you will see on the pages of the book that shares the name of the series it captures. “My goal with the series,” he writes, was “to cap- ture the nostalgia and spirit of the times by focusing my art on the people who spent their lives on and around trains.” About The Book: Using Shutterfly, a web-based image publishing service, Wilson assembled what is a 20-page coffee table book that includes 15 carefully reproduced images. The 13 montages each measure 11"×14" (the originals are 16"×20"). Two additional works,
one depicting a station agent tapping out a message in the lonely quite of late night, and the other a steam locomotive engineer — the “hogger” — working among the pipes, levers, and gauges that made up his place of employ- ment, are accompanied by Tex’s poetry. “It took me about two weeks to design and assemble the book,” Wilson says. “I worked to insure the images are the right size and that the resolution is sharp. These are large im- ages.” The originals are line art hand-colored with watercolors. Additional time was devot- ed to designing the layout of the individual pages and the cover. “I wanted the presen- tation to be crisp, simple, and direct. I also wanted the art to have a strong impact on the viewer.” The ample trim size, with each image getting its own full page, achieves that goal. The purpose in creating the images in the
first place, Wilson notes, was to capture “the many thousands of individuals who contrib- uted to the significance of railroading, whose jobs were demanding and often dangerous.” Individual pages salute the locomotive engi- neer; the fireman; the freight conductor; the freight brakeman; the yardmaster, yard boy, call boy, and yard switchman; the dispatcher and telegraph operator; the passenger con- ductor; the passenger brakeman; the Pullman conductor and porter; the Harvey girls; the dining car steward, chef and waiters; and the roundhouse crew, including the boilermaker, the machinist, and the hostler. The piece re- printed above, “Maintenance of Way,” was created especially for the book and is intend- ed to complete the overview the series pres- ents of railroad labor. Wilson also created the Slaton (Texas) Her-
itage Mural, occupying the side of a building at 9th and Garza Streets in Slaton. Measur- ing 85 feet long by 26 feet high, its four in-
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