Check out this work of a graffiti “artist” that I took this morning near my home. I don’t like to see rail cars or anything defaced with graffiti, and wonder how these guys get their kicks:
(click on photo to enlarge)
Imagine the amount of time, effort and money for paint that was spent coating most of the side of this car! He’d need a big ladder or scaffolding to cover so much of the car, and how many cans of spray paint? Or are they hauling around air compressors with huge reservoirs of paint? I see this guy has found out if you cover the car reporting marks, the area will most likely be repainted. So he did them over himself.
I would be willing to bet that the reporting marks were painted by the railroad, along with what looks to be yellow “dashes” along the bottom of the car and at the ladders.
Just imagine the amount of model train related stuff that could’ve been bought with the money this fool spent on all that paint…unless, of course, the paint was stolen…!
Its scenes like this that keeps me from modeling today’s railroads. I think it’s a shame that some people get thier kicks de-facing property like that. Some people see this as art. IMO, I see it as ugly and offensive.
We don’t like it much. If we find a hot spot, our Special Agents stake that area out, and try and apprehend the suspects. For the most part though, Local Law Enforcement is apathic to grafitti, so even if we do catch someone, the LEOs are likely let them go with a slap on the wrist.
And somebody told me billboard railcars had been outlawed 70 years ago! LOL
Whoever painted that car had some artistic talent. Too bad he’s letting it go to waste! Not exactly the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, is he? LOL
Of course, people like that will go to many extremes to ‘express’ themselves, but will never make the effort to do it legitimately!
Now, the monkey (?) painting the hopper is pure genius! Still vandalism, but makes a funny statement.
FWIW, here in Sin City the authorities DO take defacing peoples’ (and public) property seriously. In fact, Hizzonner Oscar Goodman has suggested putting captured graffitists in stocks in the public square, where passersby would be encouraged to practice their painting skills on the miscreants’ faces. (I personally think it would be more fun to fill their jeans with turps, but then, I’m mean!)
As you might expect, all of the usual suspects crawled out of the woodwork and screamed! Funny - I’ve never seen any of those people out painting over gang tags on fences and building walls; but God help us if we try to stop the people who put them there.
This is why I am modeling a modern railroad. My wife works in a school that is gang infested, and has some incredible grafiti artists. (if you can call them “artistits”) I used to work at the school as security and would catch the kids tagging all over the place. I am going to send a few cars with my wife to school, with a height line marked for about a 6’ tall person, and have the kids tag the car for me.
thats a great idea! id mark the car about a scale 8 feet, as if the person reached up some. i see “grafiti” on the desks where i go to school(just drawn on in pencil usually) and i sort of copy it down in my notebooks when i get a moment, and ill eventually have enough to tag some models. the ortner hoppers i see around here are usually tagged like crazy. theres a platform on the ends of the car and the end of the hopper part is just one big peice of metal with no real obstructions. ive seen some amazing work on these cars. i saw one that looked like a portrait of my grandfather. i found a website, grafiticreator.net i think, that lets you type something and it makes it into a grafiti thing.
i think that people grafiti on rail cars because they like to draw really REALLY BIG!
while it is vandilisim, obvously, its just the wrong canvas. its sort of fun to model it, because it adds to the intrest of a car, as well as some varitey if your modeling a train with just one type of car. the monkey painting the car is clever, and the offending artist had the curtesey not to cover anything important on the car.
GEARHEAD426
