America's railroads: The "poster boy" for graffiti vandalism.

[gardendance]

tree68

Remember, too, the problem the railroads have had in the southwestern desert.  Organized criminals, knowing exactly which container to raid, cause a train to go into emergency in the middle of nowhere.  By the time anyone can reach the location (5000' is a 15-20 minute walk on good surfaces), the container is cleaned out, they're gone, and there's nothing left but some footprints and tire tracks.  They may even close the container back up and hang the broken seal back in place to minimize chances of detection at oh-dark-thirty in the morning.

If it's the incident I remember seeing on TV, it was in New Mexico, they stalled a dumptruck on the grade crossing, they pumped a chemical out of a tank car into a buried and camoflaged tank, and pumped an equal volume of water back into the tank car. The criminal beneath the tank car was not able to get out before the train started to move, but luckily for him there was enough clearance for the rest of the train to pass over.

Very sadly however a teenager on a dirt bike witnessed the theft, and one of the newer, hotheaded criminals shot the kid.

They used the chemical they stole for their methamphetamine lab, which they moved from one house to another using a pesticide tenting company as a front.

[tree68]

gardendance

If it's the incident I remember seeing on TV, it was in New Mexico, they stalled a dumptruck on the grade crossing, they pumped a chemical out of a tank car into a buried and camoflaged tank, and pumped an equal volume of water back into the tank car.

What I read had to do with raiding intermodal containers, probably for TV's or the like.  It is apparently usually an "inside" job, with someone with access to the shipping documents cluing the "raiding party" in on exactly which container to hit.

[Euclid]

Regarding the cost/benefit analysis:

I think the benefit of controlling graffiti would be worth the cost.  It is just that much of the industry has not realized that yet.  However, I suspect that they are beginning to realize it, and we will soon see a major effort underway to clean up graffiti and prevent it from happening throughout the railroad industry.  As has been pointed out, there are costs resulting from graffiti beyond the simple issue of whether it interferes with the railcars’ ability to haul loads.  Eliminating those more hidden costs to graffiti is likely to be worth the cost of removing graffiti.

The solution to the graffiti problem need not be in simply providing enough security to prevent it, making cars incapable of holding graffiti, or banning spray paint. 

Getting tagged is like being bullied.  The way to stop the bully is to stand up to him.  Likewise, the way to stop graffiti is to stand up to it.  That means remove it.  There may be a cynical, victimized attitude that says removing graffiti just encourages more graffiti.  That is equal to the new, modern attitude about bullying; that is that if you are bullied, just slowly move away from the bully.  Don’t do anything that will make the bully mad.  Yet, this is wrongheaded nonsense because bullies thrive on victims worried about making bullies mad.   

So I think the railroads will soon learn that the way to fight graffiti is to stand up to it, and stop being bullied by it. 

[zugmann]

Euclid

So I think the railroads will soon learn that the way to fight graffiti is to stand up to it, and stop being bullied by it. 

Who pays for it?  Is Bungee going to reimburse UP for patching their hoppers? 

[Euclid]

They can work out a payment arrangement for all the stakeholders.

[jimnorton]

Euclid is making great sense here.  Another profound post!

[jimnorton]

As far as cost being a factor in fighting graffiti how can CSX justify painting murals and planting trees?

  Today, on Trains Newswire, is another story about CSX being "committed to continually improving our environment and helping to make the communities we serve cleaner and greener...."

This is hypocrisy at its best.  Create a marketing campaign to make the communities served "cleaner" all the while maintaining a brand covered in graffiti.  CSX can do this all they want.  But the second they spot a cut of CSX boxcars in any of these communities the cat is out of the bag!

[Kyle]

Murphy Siding

Kyle

How about mounting a few high pressure water cannons to highrailers and have someone go round and spray the graffiti off the cars and vandals if they are seen.  Also give them some spray can to jut paint over the graffiti that doesn't come off.  Personally I think and slightly off color patch is better than a tag.

  And now you're back to violence against people again.

What kind of high pressure water cannon takes off graffiti, but not the layer of paint underneath it?

The water cannon would take off recently painted graffiti, or poor quality paint.  And since when is getting someone wet violence?  If getting someone wet is violent, then most people are violent people, and kids are the most violent of them all, using your logic.

[Deggesty]

Kyle

Murphy Siding

Kyle

How about mounting a few high pressure water cannons to highrailers and have someone go round and spray the graffiti off the cars and vandals if they are seen.  Also give them some spray can to jut paint over the graffiti that doesn't come off.  Personally I think and slightly off color patch is better than a tag.

  And now you're back to violence against people again.

What kind of high pressure water cannon takes off graffiti, but not the layer of paint underneath it?

The water cannon would take off recently painted graffiti, or poor quality paint.  And since when is getting someone wet violence?  If getting someone wet is violent, then most people are violent people, and kids are the most violent of them all, using your logic.

From Wikipedia:On 30 September 2010, during a protest demonstration against the Stuttgart 21 project in Germany, a demonstrator was hit in the face by a water cannon.^[6] Dietrich Wagner, a retired engineer, suffered from the damage to his eyelids, a fracturing of a portion of the retinal bone, and damage to the retinas.^[7] The eye injuries thus inflicted on the man resulted in near-complete loss of eyesight.

I would say that this is violence.  Or, were you referring to the toys that children use in their play? Granted, there is quite a variety in water cannons, ranging from the toys through those used for washing to those used for crowd control.

[Norm48327]

Kyle

How about mounting a few high pressure water cannons to highrailers and have someone go round and spray the graffiti off the cars and vandals if they are seen.  Also give them some spray can to jut paint over the graffiti that doesn't come off.  Personally I think and slightly off color patch is better than a tag.

Let us know when you have a practical solution that doesn't open the railroads to liability suits.

[Euclid]

Norm48327

Let us know when you have a practical solution that doesn't open the railroads to liability suits.

Clean off the graffiti and step up patrolling.  Push back.  Forget about the water cannon. 

[tree68]

Euclid

They can work out a payment arrangement for all the stakeholders.

In other words, you and I, who will ultimately pay for it.

[tree68]

Kyle

And since when is getting someone wet violence?

If someone is hit with water that has enough force to take the graffiti off a railroad car, I can guarantee that they will be injured.  Garden hose flows with garden hose pressures aren't going to do anything to that spray paint.

High pressure (as from a pressure washer - 1500PSI) will be required, and at relatively close range, as anyone who has used a pressure washer can tell you.

High flows at firefighting pressures can knock you down, over, or into other objects.  Even a 13/16" straight tip nozzle (~150-200 gallons per minute) has a mighty kick to it.  Plus you have to have a decent water source.

Given that the average citizen's knowledge of trains is more in the line of Thomas than UP, NS, CSX, or anyone else, and that the only time they even notice trains is if they get delayed at a crossing, graffiti, as undesirable as it is, is a minor issue.

[zugmann]

jimnorton

As far as cost being a factor in fighting graffiti how can CSX justify painting murals and planting trees?

There's a big difference between a couple community service projects and keeping graffiti off of thousands of railcars (with all associated materials, manpower, loss of revenue, billing, building facilities to paint,  loss of customers when their cars keep getting home shopped, etc.).

[Kyle]

How about the railroads would require sidings to be lit at night.  Not huge flood lights, but cheap LED lights that would only cost a hundred dollars, only one or two would be required for a small siding.  The lighting should help prevent people vandalising the cars at these locations, it wouldn't stop graffiti completely but should help. 

[dakotafred]

Kyle

How about the railroads would require sidings to be lit at night.  Not huge flood lights, but cheap LED lights that would only cost a hundred dollars, only one or two would be required for a small siding.  The lighting should help prevent people vandalising the cars at these locations, it wouldn't stop graffiti completely but should help. 

 

Lights would surely make it easier for the artists to do their work.

 

To be an effective anti-graffiti tool, the lights would require cinder dicks on the ground at each siding, an expensive proposition.

[dehusman]

Kyle

How about the railroads would require sidings to be lit at night.  Not huge flood lights, but cheap LED lights that would only cost a hundred dollars, only one or two would be required for a small siding.  The lighting should help prevent people vandalising the cars at these locations, it wouldn't stop graffiti completely but should help. 

 

Part of the problem here is that people throw out "solutions", but they don't actually do any thought about what it actually takes to execute the "solution".

 

To put up lights, you first have to have electricity and enough of it to support the draw of the lamps.  Electrical access at a siding is not universal.  Then if you want a light you have to hang it on something so that means you have to have a pole (or more correctly, a pole line).  In order to plant a pole you have to have property to plant the pole which means you have to own property beyond the clearance lines of the track.  Since railcars are physical objects, they have two sides, that means that you need TWO pole lines and sets of lights, one to light each side of the car.

 

I won't even touch whether or not there is an LED bulb that is suited for industrial floodlighting.

 

Sure, given enough money and time, one could do that, but I don't think the people proposing these "solutions" have given any real thought to the real costs to implementing them and don't have any real information on the cost of NOT doing it other than it offends their sensibilities.

 

Is it really worth the railroads and industries spending millions or billions of dollars so they can watch pristine railcars roll by them at a grade crossing?

[Paul of Covington]

   All these solutions that "require the railroad to...." ignore facts that have been repeated over and over in this thread:

  many of the cars are not owned by the railroad;

  many cars spend a lot of time sitting on property that is not railroad property.

[jimnorton]

Had this thread been started suggesting that America's railroad should be doing community service by painting murals and planting trees the "who's going to pay for that?" question would dominate the thread.

 

I would go as far to say that many would find this suggestion utterly ridiculous.  Yet, here is CSX painting murals and planting trees.  

 

[gardendance]

It makes more sense than planting murals and painting trees.

[tree68]

dehusman

I won't even touch whether or not there is an LED bulb that is suited for industrial floodlighting.

LED lighting for parking lots is already in use.  Those I find on-line run from $500-900 per, depending on brightness, etc.  How many it would take to light a mile-long siding is up to the lighting engineers.

As Dehusman points out, however, this is chiefly an aesthetics issue - not an operational one.  I won't discount the security aspect, but I suspect that crossing incursions are a much larger problem than terrorism.  And people seem to find a way to get around the existing protections there.  Someone bent on attacking a train will find a way to do it, barring a shoulder-to-shoulder presence of security personnel.  

As for the mural and shrubbery thing - I suspect that more people see, and notice, that neighborly contribution to that community than notice the graffiti on the sides of freight cars.

[YoHo1975]

jimnorton

Had this thread been started suggesting that America's railroad should be doing community service by painting murals and planting trees the "who's going to pay for that?" question would dominate the thread.

 

I would go as far to say that many would find this suggestion utterly ridiculous.  Yet, here is CSX painting murals and planting trees.  

But the tangible benefits of being a good corporate citizen and fostering good will in the communities you serve is easily calculated. Especially when part of your job is to transport dangerous chemicals and flammable liquids through cities and towns across the country. The tangible benefits of an untagged fleet of cars you don't own is not easily calculated especially since any given car is not a permanent part of a community and the effort involved is far more significant.

[jimnorton]

Granted, the railroads do not own the vast majority tanks and covered hoppers.  But CSX owns all those blue CSX boxcars plastered in graffiti......As does BNSF, UP, CP, CN, KCS and NS with their boxcars.  And, it is safe to assume that upwards of 90% of these cars are vandalized.

There is no doubt who the owner is of a 1,500 car fleet of state of the art white refrigerator cars that proudly proclaim "Building America."  With literally ever one of these cars tagged with graffiti the message conveyed is not "building" but vandalizing America.

 

The vandal's message trumps the car owners as Union Pacific appears nothing other than a helpless spectator.  I can't imagine the leadership of any company being content with this.

   

[Euclid]

Ending graffiti will have a cost shared by railroad companies, car owners, and shippers, according to a complex formula.  The way to accomplish the task is to profile the sources of graffiti, and target those areas with security.  The cost may or may not get passed on to the public, depending on rate regulation.  The cost pass-through may also vary according to the distribution of graffiti and the cars affected.  Once graffiti has been largely eliminated, there may not be any net cost to the prevention effort. 

How much does CSX and UP spend telling the world how green they are?  Where is the payoff there?   

[Paul of Covington]

   We keep talking about the cost of preventing or removing graffiti.   The railroads don't seem to be very concerned about it, but some railfans are.   How about somebody setting up a fund that railfans can contribute to that would be used to provide security at remote sidings and to pay for removal or paint-over?   I'll leave the legal and financial details to someone else.   I'll also leave the contributions to someone else.

[YoHo1975]

I can just see Foamers patrolling remote sidings, like those citizens standing about in the desert along the international border. Impotent wast of time for both. 

[dehusman]

Euclid

Once graffiti has been largely eliminated, there may not be any net cost to the prevention effort. 

How do you end something that you don't have control over?  If you repainted every single railcar in America overnight it wouldn't end the problem, it would just give the taggers 300,000 new canvases.

How much does CSX and UP spend telling the world how green they are?  Where is the payoff there?   

 

That's easy to calculate in terms of fuel and carbon emissions.  Railroads are some multiplier more efficient than trucks in hauling stuff.  So every ton that moves by rail instead of truck means that less fuel will be burned and there will be less carbon emissions.   The newer locomotives generate the same horsepower with less fuel. That's green.

 

On the other hand all the ideas to spray paint the cars and increase the lighting are definately NOT green.  Spray cans emit gases and volitile hydrocarbons into the air, contributing to air pollution.  Adding as much lighting as the interstate highway system on the rail network consumes electricity which means that, at least for now, more fossil fuels are burned to generate that electricity.  In addition, all those floodlights for general area lighting creates "light pollution".  Washing the paint of the cars uses a lot of water, requires adding soaps into the water and contaminates the ground and water with the removed paint.  Increasing the "roughness" of the cars to make them less attractive to taggers, increases the coefficient of drag on the cars making them harder to pull and more suseptible to drag from crosswinds, increasing the fuel consumption of the engines pulling the train, increasing fuel consumption.

 

There is no free lunch.

 

If you are talking green, the actual greenest solution to grafitti is to let it be.  When the cars are eventually painted in a railroad or car shop facility, the removed paint is contained and responsibly disposed of, the new coat of paint is sprayed on an environmentally controlled facility to limit VOC's and control emissions.

 

And planting trees is by definition, green.

[Norm48327]

Graffiti has been, and will be, around forever. Nothing we post in this thread will change that.

Twenty pages of wasted space.

[Euclid]

dehusman

 Spray cans emit gases and volitile hydrocarbons into the air, contributing to air pollution. 

Wouldn’t that therefore be a good reason to eliminate graffiti?  How can railroads claim to be green when they allow all this spray painting graffiti to go on?

[YoHo1975]

Euclid

dehusman

 Spray cans emit gases and volitile hydrocarbons into the air, contributing to air pollution. 

Wouldn’t that therefore be a good reason to eliminate graffiti?  How can railroads claim to be green when they allow all this spray painting graffiti to go on?

Because the impact of removing said paint is also environmentally hazardous perhaps even moreso. 

Are you honestly suggesting that Railroad efforts to reduce Graffiti would reduce the use of spraypaint in the world to a significant degree?