Graffiti and What's Being Done to Prevent It?

[Anonymous]

[soapbox]

About 10 months ago, there was a very long thread on this forum about graffiti. It started out by someone asking what everyone's favorite graffiti was.

I'm curious, what measures, if any, have the railroads come up with to reduce the amount of destructive painting that goes on their cars? I would think that given the amount of paint they have to use to paint over someone's so-called art, they would be happy to fund research on a coating that wouldn't accept paint such as is commonly available.

There have been several ways suggested to stop or at least reduce graffiti on railcars. Some have been pretty gruesome, such as painting a vandal caught between the rails and the flanges of the car, with all of the associated splatter.
The law that forbids anyone under 18 from buying spray paint is a joke. We don't need more laws, we need better enforcement of the ones we have. How about electric fences around the railyards? [}:)] You could use the resulting flares as yard lights. [:p]

I think that if a vandal is caught spraying on a railcar, that they should be prosecuted, and given 300 hours of service to the railroad, cleaning cars, removing paint, sweeping out the interiors of boxcars, etc.

I understand that these people believe they're doing some kind of "decoration" or art, but what it boils down to is vandalism. They probably wouldn't like it too much if I came over to their house and spray painted a bunch of crap all over their ride, would they? I know that in this day and age, it's just easier to ignore it and paint around the defacement. As long as that's the attitude, then graffiti vandals will have a field day with their spray cans.

[tree68]

The cost of the security to prevent the graffiti from occuring would probably outstrip the savings gained by not having to repaint the cars. Consider how may places have railcars sitting for periods that include no surveillance, for any number of reasons. I have little doubt that I could probably "tag" a car parked at a local feed mill, using the lights from the nearby county jail to ensure I didn't trip over the rails. Because of the lay of the land, you can't see the rails from the jail, by the way... Not that I'd do it, either.

Consider, too, that many of the graffiti "artists" really know their stuff and can probably tag a car stopped over a crossing before it moves again. May not be true for the really ornate stuff, but for a "Bozo Texino", no sweat.

I'm not sticking up for the "artists," by the way - Catch 'em, prosecute 'em. Odds are you can get them for both the vandalism and trespassing anyhow. The problem is their mindset. You can bet that the first car they tag after they fini***heir sentence will be grander than anything they did before. At least it's superficial. They could be doing things that get people killed.

[TH&B]

I think the railroads are saving money on paint, I mean many of the cars are so rusty looking and need to be painted, only the graffitti artist is covering the rusty sides with paint. I believe most graffitti vandals steal thier paint, I doubt they buy it. I think a bigger problem is theft, tresspassing, tampering and dumping garbage and even dead bodies. It may be the same people or not but I can't asume that.

[UPTRAIN]

There are some types of paint that you can't paint graffiti on...it absorbs it or something...also I hate those retards that go down in the yards and paint on rolling stock...electric fence not a bad idea...I don't know how many times I have called the special agent (railroad cop) to report some *** "creating art" on some car. Although some of the "art" can be kinda neat, however no matter how "pretty" it is, it's all vandalism. Good thread joekc6nlx, thanx for reviving this interesting topic.

[Anonymous]

Well, What can you do?

You can't post a police officer at every single car, that would Bankrupt the Railroad, Nor can the Patrollers carry Elephant Rifles and blast people for doing so. The punishment is very minimal for this crime.. Don't look at me like i've done this.. I havn't.. The point is, it is done in the dark.. All it really requires is a train to stop at an absolute signal for more then 10 minutes and boom.. All muddled up.

It's hard to catcxh people in the act, If it wasn't hard, there would be very little Grafiti.

[ironhorseman]

The motives of graffiti is being misunderstood here. Vandals don't do it because they think it's pretty. They do it for recognition, pride, and to mark their territory. L.A. has a terrible gang problem. Other cities do, too, but not as big as L. A.'s. There are gang members and gang wannabes. They all deface property to impress their fellow members, show up their rivals, or get initiated into the gang. Being part of a gang is all about breaking the law and killing other people and protection from those who would kill you.

Gang members contribute to most of the graffiti but there are a few rouge markers out there. But of course they wouldn't like it if you went and sprayed "their ride" with paint. That'd be enough to start a war with them.

But other reason railcars are targets has to do a little bit with psychology. Let me give you a quick lesson in crime prevention. People who commit crimes need 3 things present: 1 the willingness to commit a crime, 2 the opportunity to commit a crime and 3 the lack of guardings present. Let's say you leave your bicycle out not locked up. Say you leave it unguarded. And say someone comes along who want's to steal your bike. No lock, no one to watch it or stop someone, the perfect opportunity for a crime to be committed.

Now, property: we have private areas, semi-private areas, semi-public areas, and public areas. Private areas: a house, semi-private: a duplex or quadplex home, semi-public: apartments, high rises, public: librarys, stores, offices, etc.

The closer you get to the public level the more crime is committed. Why? because ownership is not clearly defined. In a high-rise apartment building no one really owns the parking lot, the courtyards, the hallways, and these are high crime areas especially in inner-city areas. Criminals feel like they can walk right up to these places and commit their crimes because no one will see them or care. They have access to these semi-public areas because they have a feeling they're allowed to be there. But as in the case of a private home it's obvious you don't have a right to be there and if caught you get in trouble.

This brings me to the railroads. These vandals that spray the cars don't see or don't know when they're in the yards on the tracks that they're on private property and they don't care. They don't see any ownership of they rail cars. All they see are nameless, faceless companies, where nobody's gonna care if they spray the cars. They have a general disregard for private property to begin with.

This leads me to my idea. You put 14-inch iron spikes on all the railcars at about 6-inches apart. When people spaypaint graffiti they hold the can nozzle about 1cm above the surface to get those clean, sharp lines. You put spikes on the railcars and you can spraypaint art on the cars anymore. But then again, this might be a disadvantage causing injury to train crews.

But seriously, there is a paint out there designed to stop graffiti. It doesn't absorb it. It's designed not to allow anything to stick to whether it's other paint or glue or whatever. But I don't know if this works for railcars. It was designed more for buidings than rail equipment.

But there's nothing you can do to stop it. We'll just have to puni***hose who get caught.

[zardoz]

How about moving all the car information (wt cap, ld lmt, etc) to one or both ends of the cars (where noone 'tags'). Move the car number about 5' higher. Then build a paint booth (similar to washers) to run each tagged car through, and have the booth paint the bottom half of each car black, thereby covering all graffiti. The booth could be built on a rip-track, where the cars could just be pulled through.

Of course, that would just present an clean pallet for the next 'artist'.

[dharmon]

I guess placing snipers on the rooftops around railyards is probably cost prohibitive.......now if you put a bounty on taggers my guess is that it would end in a couple of weeks....


just kidding.

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by zardoz

How about moving all the car information (wt cap, ld lmt, etc) to one or both ends of the cars (where noone 'tags'). Move the car number about 5' higher. Then build a paint booth (similar to washers) to run each tagged car through, and have the booth paint the bottom half of each car black, thereby covering all graffiti. The booth could be built on a rip-track, where the cars could just be pulled through.

Of course, that would just present an clean pallet for the next 'artist'.

Remarkably, I recall seeing tagged cars that had all or part of the data still visible - particularly the reporting marks. It was obvious that the marks were left - not repainted by the RR... They DO have a conscience!

[dekemd]

I've seen several cars that had pretty elaborate grafitti on it, but the tagger avoided everything that was stenciled on the cars. Even the little things like "Do not hammer" etc. Still others paint over everything. As far as stopping it, it's not going to happen. Courts are so overloaded now that, things like simple drug possession, some traffic violations, and even some simple assaults are being dropped or dismissed. Simple vandalism like grafitti is likely to be either dismissed outright or the punishment will be a small fine maybe $25 and court costs.

[corwinda]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tree68
Remarkably, I recall seeing tagged cars that had all or part of the data still visible - particularly the reporting marks. It was obvious that the marks were left - not repainted by the RR... They DO have a conscience!

Actually I think leaving the reporting marks etc visible used to be a lot more common than it is now. [:(]

[JoeKoh]

You cant do much to prevent it.the railroad is just wide open.It might take commuinity involvement.some (artists) decided to spray paint a viaduct where little kids come by going to school. Very inappropiate language etc. the commuinity came together and painted a school themed mural on it.it hasnt been touched since.
stay safe
joe

[Anonymous]

I saw a thing on the news a while ago about the big grafitti problem in Saskatoon. They interviewed on guy who probably was a grafitti artist (of course he didn't admit it) and he said that no one will put grafitti over top of someone else's unless they can do better. That probably explains why your mural hasn't been touched, Joe.

In any case, I hate these guys and think that there should be stiff penalties for people who are caught! Repainting rolling stock would be nice, but there is a down side to it. If the railroads started rapainting all their old cars, we'd lose a lot of old logos from fallen flags that are still around today. The reason we still see fallen flags is because the railroads often leave cars without any repainting for 25-30+ years. I'd sooner see grafitti and fallen flags than no grafitti and no fallen flags. I do still think that some effort should be made to at least block out any offensive or dirty words.

[TH&B]

If a kid gets caught painting a fallen flag car it should be punishable by DEATH. Even if it was very rusty or faded, ya gotta be able to see the fallen flags. Other cars, well that don't matter, bust them if you catch them but it's hardly worth the effort to realy try.
People who design those shrink-wrap advertising on passenger cars and cover the windows should be charged even more so than graffitti artists because its just as ugly, obstructs the view out the window and someone makes money on it too boot.... I still call it graffitti. Just because they found a legal loophole, it is still graffitti. As long as they allow it for advertising in my face, I wouldn't condem a graffitti kid if I saw one. Unless it's a fallen flag, fallen flags can't be replaced, graffitti kids can.

[zardoz]

Actually, word has spread amongst the 'taggers' that if you leave the reporting marks alone, the railroad is not likely to repaint. But if the marks are covered, they must repaint, at least enough to make the marks visible, thereby ruining the 'artwork'.

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by zardoz

Actually, word has spread amongst the 'taggers' that if you leave the reporting marks alone, the railroad is not likely to repaint. But if the marks are covered, they must repaint, at least enough to make the marks visible, thereby ruining the 'artwork'.

Thanks for the info, I was wondering why I'd been seeing cars with the "art" designed to not cover them.

[Supermicha]

The western german railroad intruduced a commuter car in the late 60s, called silverliner. It was an unpainted car, so what you see is the silver finish of chrome-nickel-steel. on this cars, graffiti removal was very easy, just take a sheet of sandpaper and smooth over the surface. today, german railroad painted all there cars. to remove graffitis, they use an aggrassive cleaning solvent which does not only remove the graffiti, also the paint of the car, so it needs a repaint after that. very expensive, but you know, all old ideas are bad [;)]