The Bamboo Train

Just read this amazing article in the Smithsonian – ‘Catching the Bamboo Train’ about how villagers in rural Cambodia have repurposed an abandoned railroad and scrap machine parts to get from one village to the next. The solution is a simple bamboo platform that sits on metal wheels & an axle and is powered by a ‘motors ripped from broken motorbikes, rice harvesters and tractors’. The train called a ‘norrie’ runs on a roughly 300 mile stretch of abandoned tracks and seats everything from 10-30 passengers, livestock, vegetables – you name it! I have seen a number of articles in the past years about how architects and urban planners are trying to turn abandoned railroads into pedestrian/tourism corridors or simply preserve them as artsy relics. This story struck me for its simplicity yet immense ingenuity and purposefulness. In an area not served by good transportation, the villagers make great use of the tracks with simple materials, resulting in a low-cost solution that works so well, and most importantly serves real needs.  The article resonated with a recent book I came across ‘Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement’ chronicling 11 innovative projects across the globe that address local needs in economically depressed communities. The book is actually the monograph of an exhibition by the same name that just closed at MoMA in NYC. I couldn’t see the exhibition but was very impressed by the featured projects. While watching a movie about origami a while back I heard this quote

“Much of the beauty that arises in art comes from the struggle an artist wages with a limited medium”    ----Henri Matisse

I often feel the same about life in economically constrained environments – distilled to the very essential they often reflect the best human thinking and innovation.