Smiley Face Locomotive
Palestine, Texas
A big yellow Smiley Face ball-head creature waves to passers-by while driving a steam locomotive made of rusty train parts, including real train wheels on real train tracks, and a giant railroad spike for a headrest. The sculpture's title, "Chuggin'," emerges from the smokestack ("Choo Choo" on the flip side).
The train art was made by artist Dewane Hughes, a sculpture professor at the University of Texas in Tyler, to commemorate Palestine's railroad history. At its unveiling in 2020, Hughes said that the design changed many times during the five years he spent building it -- so was the Smiley head in the original idea, or a last-minute inspiration? Either way, it makes the piece memorable.
Hughes also said that Chuggin' wasn't his biggest sculpture, but it was definitely his heaviest.