‘Railroad Stanchion’

Oil on Wood Rulers

25.5”x31”

1987

‍ ‍While parked along a roadside outside Castile, New York, I noticed the remains of a structure that once supported a railroad water tower.

The tower itself was gone, but its base remained — a quiet monument to the railroad industry’s past, when steam engines stopped to take on water and keep their engines cool.

The image stayed with me: a fragment of industrial history, still standing after its original purpose had disappeared.