A Little Red Caboose bike rack is installed in a miniscule park at the western shore of Wickford Cove in Wickford, Rhode Island. Made of square metal stock, this four-foot tall rack has spaces for about ten bikes. It is mounted on one of two pieces of railroad tracks which are secured to four sets of wood railroad ties.
This creative bicycle tender is located on a small grassy area with a couple of trees at the northeast corner of a parking lot overlooking a small bay right near the heart of Wickford Village. Eclectic shops, restaurants, and public restrooms (in a stand-alone building behind Rite-Aid pharmacy) are steps away.
New bike rack honors North Kingstown’s railroad history
By James Bessette Staff Writer Jun 29, 2017
A year after the idea was first introduced to town officials, a new bicycle rack with ties to North Kingstown’s railroad history has been installed along the shores of Wickford Harbor.
The approximately 8-by-3-foot “Seaview Bike Rack,” created by North Kingstown-based metal sculptor Kenneth MacDonald, was put in the small anchor park at the rear of the town’s municipal parking lot on Brown Street during the weekend of June 17-18. The red-colored bike rack is designed as a stylized caboose to hold about eight to 10 bicycles while people spend time in and around the village, town historian and Independent columnist G. Timothy Cranston said in an interview Monday.
One of the rack’s unique features is that the “caboose” sits on old train rail from the former Newport/Wickford Rail and Steamship Line, which dates back to the Civil War era and was originally located near the old Town Hall building on Boston Neck Road.
“It’s kind of a neat way to remember the rail line and still have a nice bike rack back there [in the parking lot],” Cranston said. “It kind of looks like art, but it’s functional art. One of the things Ken [MacDonald] does well is that functional art.”
Cranston recalled that one day while driving near the rail crossings on Updike Avenue, he saw highway department workers pulling up the rails in order to repave that section of road. Knowing those rails were among the last remaining pieces left from the old train line, he asked the foreman to “save a couple large pieces” of the rail for a project.
Cranston said he then ran the idea of a railroad-themed bike rack by MacDonald, a longtime friend, for his thoughts, since MacDonald made a fish-themed bike rack for the North Kingstown Free Library.
“[MacDonald] thought it was a great idea,” Cranston said, which then prompted him and MacDonald to submit a formal proposal to the town to make the bike rack a reality.
On June 27, 2016, the Town Council approved allocating $1,400 for the project, which included costs for painting; new steel, hardware, wood and fasteners; and sandblasting. The money came from the council’s contingency fund.
“[MacDonald] kind of looked at this as a legacy project,” Cranston said. “He pretty much did it for next to nothing. It came out really nice. I think this will last forever.”
Cranston also said he plans to include signage at the bike rack offering thanks for MacDonald’s efforts and a backstory regarding its construction and what it signifies for the town.