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Well, for those that care for a bit of enlightenment on the subject of trains and the graffiti that covers them, otherwise you can skip past this explanation and dwell within the comforts of your own ignorance and prejudices. But, lets just say i know a guy who knows a guy who is an expert in the subject. First of all, the graffiti that you are seeing on trains have absolutely nothing to do with gangs. Perhaps 2% of the graffiti you see is from gang members, and THAT gang graffiti is indeed trash. A way you can tell the difference is gang graffiti is usually only one color, is not "filled-in" and usually can be described as "old english stick letters". The graffiti on the Enamolized models, and most the graffiti you see, is done by "graffiti writers". Fellows that engage in the underground culture of graffiti which started on new york city passenger trains in the late 70's and early 80's. As silly and blatantly egotistical of a motive it may seem, the goal of graffiti was (and is) to become famous by forcing your alias in front of the face of the public over and over again, until, like paris hilton, rather you like it or not, you know their name. As the streets of NYC became saturated, and well... pissing people off... the general public was repulsed and the only people that seemed to like it where other writers and influential kids "thought it was cool", thus a small group of mostly nerdy guys (much like you rail fans *wink) began to "geek-out" on things like letter structure, color schemes, how well rounded a writer was, how much he was up, etc... and rather you agree with it, accept it, hate it... a culture was started. The nature of the culture is of course illegal... some writers have personal rules about what they will and wont paint, but for the most part, it is indeed anti-social and rebellious by nature. So I understand why "the world" doesn't like it... and if they did... well... it wouldn't be near as cool ;) Oh yes, back to train graffiti 101 In the 80's, the fascination with subway trains was that your "name" could become mobil and travel from one side of the city to the other, thus reaching a wider audience. The goal was to go "all city", to have your name... well everywhere. Then, Ed Koch basically made the passenger trains in NYC unpaintable, had guard dogs, wouldn't run trains with graffiti on them, etc. To this day, no graff runs on NYC subway trains. The next natural step was to start hitting freights. Around the early nineties, underground cultures of underground hiphop, punk rock, rave (yuck), skateboarding, and all the other sub-cultures that parents love to see their kids involved in, graffiti made a come back and to try to go "all nation" was the next step. And believe me, there are plenty of writers who have done it. Painting thousands of trains and becoming extremely famous... such as the artist "Enamulized" has featured. Jase alone has as many as in the tens if not hundreds of thousands... his graff alone has more than likely passed in front of all of our eyes in person, which to me, is simply an amazing concept. Again, i know most of you could care less... and dont like it... but I just felt obligated to clear up a few of the harsh criticisms I was hearing. I know personally that serious train writers are more than safe, they have a heightened sense of respect for the train industry, if for no other reason, to keep the heat off themselves. They don't paint over numbers (often masking them out with tape... again for the self serving reason of avoiding "the stamp"), they stay out of active yards (train cops), they dont litter (dont want to give away their spots), they dont paint on walls or anywhere near the yard they paint in, they wear respirators (toxins), they have as much knowledge about trains as most rail fans (you want your art to travel!). They are perfectly safe and for the most part stay out of site and away from moving trains. Most serious train writers are older men with careers, families, and have perfectly decent lives just like any of you. Of course, being on the other side of the coin, I think the little models are neat... I broke my own principal of not shopping at walmart, and bought 3 today, and i intend on collecting them all... I just hope they feature more writers and keep em' coming.
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