Brooklyn sculpture is fantastic plastic water tower

image from Junk Culture

The BBC reports a Brooklyn-based artist Tom Fruin has used 1,000 pieces of transparent plastic scavenged from various parts of New York to create a sculpture of a water tower.

The artwork is open to the public and can be seen from the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges and from parts of lower Manhattan.


It is illuminated by the sun during the day and by Ardunio-controlled light sequences designed by Ryan Holsopple at night. It opened on June 7th and will be in place for one year with a light show beginning at dusk and continuing to morning.

Tom Santorelli reports

Inside the sculptor's workshop:

Tom Fruin - HEAT MARKS from Made-Up Language on Vimeo.

We know it's a load of scrap but is it art? Of course it is.

Castlethorpe Troughs Water Tower

There's a nice detailed site on the railway at Castlethorpe and the Wolverton Works near Milton Keynes.  http://www.mkheritage.co.uk/cv/docs/railway/railmain.html 

The London to Birmingham railway was opened in 1838. It passed near to the village of Castlethorpe cutting the outer earthworks of an 11th century castle from which it got its name. Castlethorpe station opened in 1882 and south of it were laid water troughs that steam locomotives on the West Coast Main Line could pass over to refill at speed. A scoop was lowered from the engine and this had to be timed very precisely in fog or in the dark. This stretch appears to have a high incidence of accidents either involving workmen on the track or mechanical failures at speed. Castlethorpe station was closed in 1964 despite protests organised by a prospective Labour MP named Robert Maxwell.

http://www.mkheritage.co.uk/cv/docs/railway/watertower.html

The Gas Works at Wolverton were reponsible for the maintenance of Castlethorpe troughs and its pump. 

crop of copyright image: click through  to view

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tunnel_one/5799800427/

crop of copyright image: click through to view

Britannia class 7MT 4-6-2 70046 "ANZAC" nears Castlethorpe troughs 9/61

Milton Keynes Borough Council provide directions to a walk to all of these sights.


A British Transport film shows the A4 locomotive Sir Nigel Gresley in service as the Elizabethan Express picking up water. Sir Nigel is now preserved.

They didn't just grow there

The recollections of an itinerant family of 'tankies' and their 284 water tower career in the postwar era.

download from 

http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/53/v53i04p130-141.pdf