Train Station

In "Hugo," Martin Scorsese's new 3-D film based on Brian Selznick's bestselling "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," London-based costume designer Sandy Powell helps create the storybook image of an orphan boy (played by Asa Butterfield) living inside a Parisian train station in the early 1930s. Her awards are many (she's won three Oscars in nine nominations — her second was with Scorsese for 2004's "The Aviator"), and she's a favored Scorsese collaborator ("Shutter Island," "The Gangs of New York")

Rick Vetter was rushing to board the Amtrak train in Charlotte, N.C., on a recent Sunday afternoon when a canine officer suddenly blocked the way. Three federal air marshals in bulletproof vests and two officers trained to spot suspicious behavior watched closely as Seiko, a German shepherd, nosed Vetter's trousers for chemical traces of a bomb. Radiation detectors carried by the marshals scanned the 57-year-old lawyer for concealed nuclear materials. When Seiko indicated a scent, his handler, Julian Swaringen, asked Vetter whether he had pets at home in Garner, N.C. Two mutts, Vetter replied.

Cue the flappers, the fringe, the beads and the bobs. The Roaring '20s are back in fashion — on the runways and on-screen. It started in September at the spring 2012 fashion shows, with Ralph Lauren's "Great Gatsby" gowns, Tory Burch's sportswear inspired by Coco Chanel and 1920s Deauville, and Frida Giannini's Art Deco black-and-gold fringed flapper dresses at Gucci. Those clothes won't be in stores for another month or so, and Baz Luhrmann's film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jazz Age novel "The Great Gatsby," sure to be a costume extravaganza, isn't due out until next Christmas.

A movie doesn't have to be jampacked with cinema style to have a memorable fashion moment or two, and in the course of screening the slate of holiday-season films, we found all kinds of clothes, accessories, hairstyles and makeup worth a mention. "Hugo" Yes, Martin Scorsese's "Hugo," based on a book by Brian Selznick, is a movie about an orphaned boy living in a Paris train station. But it's also a filmmaker's film about a filmmaker making films, and as such even the costumes and makeup (designed by Sandy Powell and Morag Ross respectively)

Heads up for those thinking about hopping on a train this weekend to go Christmas shopping in Orange and San Diego counties. Metrolink and Amtrak are canceling some rail service this weekend because construction crews will be installing a second main track and rail bridges along the L.A.-San Diego-San Luis Obispo rail corridor. Metrolink will cancel service on its Orange County and Inland Empire lines on Saturday and Sunday. It's also canceling trains 644 and 645 on Friday.

Surely, any author's dream is to be able to walk into the world they've created in their book. Plenty of writers have been afforded virtually that experience as their books have been adapted to film, but perhaps no one has realized this dream so intensely as Brian Selznick when he visited the set for the Nov. 23 release "Hugo," based on his 2007 book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret. " The film — director Martin Scorsese's first geared toward a young audience — was shot on a full-scale train station set built from scratch, directly inspired by Selznick's illustrations.

Luxury passenger rail company  Eastern & Oriental Express offers a seven-day trip from Singapore to Bangkok with some off-the-radar stops and excursions in Malaysia and Thailand. Fables of the Hills starts at Singapore's train station and includes visits to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), tea plantations in the Cameron Highlands (Malaysia), the island of Penang (Malaysia), the "monkey training college" in Surat Thani (Thailand), where monkeys learn how to pick coconuts, and the famed River Kwai bridge (Thailand)

The passengers from New Jersey spill out of the train station and across the blistering sidewalks of Lower Manhattan, oblivious to one another as they steamroll toward their destinations. One rider stands out from the pack: a broad-shouldered man wearing jeans, T-shirt and a baseball cap, a tattered gym bag slung over one shoulder. He takes in the scene outside the station, at the edge of the former World Trade Center, and homes in on a young couple. "Do you know the past? That's the question I ask!"

Law enforcement and transit officials shut down four downtown San Francisco train stations and closed a swath of busy Market Street during the height of the evening commute Monday in response to a noisy protest. Market Street was choked with hundreds of pedestrians struggling to get home, stopping at each successive Bay Area Rapid Transit station entrance only to be turned away. Helicopters lumbered overhead and police in riot gear followed protesters east toward the San Francisco Bay. The stations were closed for about two hours during a demonstration against alleged BART police brutality and a decision by agency officials last week to cut underground cellphone service in an effort to quell an earlier protest.