About Rail Car

Set on train tracks with an idyllic view over the Château's vineyard, the repurposed freight car is as much a nod to the prominent motifs shown in Bob Dylan's art as it is to his grassroots past. "I’d seen and heard trains from my earliest childhood days and the sight and sound of them always made me feel secure," Dylan wrote in his memoir, Chronicles: Volume One. "The big boxcars, the iron ore cars, freight cars, passenger trains, Pullman cars. There was no place you could go in my hometown without at least some part of the day having to stop at intersections and wait for the long trains to pass."

Although Rail Car now finds its home in the South of France, its origins lie in the west coast of the United States. The sculpture is a WIIX 723 double-door boxcar which was used to transport paper rolls for Willamette Industries, a lumber company based in Oregon. Work on the sculpture started during summer 2019 in Los Angeles by engineering teams from both France and the US. It was later disassembled, crated and shipped to the Château, where it will reside permanently. 

Founder and owner of Château La Coste, Paddy McKillen, describes the new installation: "The car has been placed in the most magical setting on the old Roman road that meanders through the forest here [at Château La Coste]. It is incredibly moving that Bob personally chose the location for his masterpiece to be on this trail that was trodden for hundreds of years by weary travellers. When I first met him in Los Angeles something obviously clicked – perhaps it was because both of us love the unique Provencal landscape – or Bob wouldn’t have embarked on his incredible journey to create Rail Car. Since his piece is all about travel, Rail Car miraculously fuses road and rail into one."

Alongside the unveiling of Rail Car is an exhibition featuring 23 of Dylan's painting, titled Drawn Blank in Provence, which runs until 15 August in Château La Coste's Renzo-Piano-designed art gallery.