I’ll be over to your house tonight. Will a case of spray paint pretty well cover the front?
Be careful Larry, he might live in a box car.[:0][:p][:-,][(-D][(-D][(-D]
Methinks this topic will go downhill faster than a Cadillac on skis…
Yep, it has.
Plenty to go around.
MY question would be: If they have no respect for the property of another [Railroads, Buildings, Bridges]… Can it be too far removed that they will make the jump and start “Tagging” prvate home in suburbia? Wouldn’t that be creative?
James, that’s not downhill. Just a small dip in the road.
The poke got both sides of the issue in a single shot, but I still respect Larry’s opinion.[:)]
Well, yes, a lot of the paint is stolen. If the paint is not stolen then the canvas certainly is. Graffiti vandals are a scourge upon society. Those that might have talent are wasting it and making other people’s lives more difficult and expensive. Offer me one redeeming social value tagging offers civilization? Just come up with one. Please, just one we can agree upon.
Paint is not stolen, and I would sincerely like to know the basis you have for this assumption. Go for it, I want to know.
As for the society, does it not offer jobs? I’m not saying its right, You all are right, It isnt their property, not in any sense. But, it does offer jobs for society, just as crime in any sense gives a society jobs, its a well balanced wheel.
These people dont generally paint poeples houses, they do have some respect, but like every hobby, some bad eggs, what can ya do. Ya’ll are all stuck on one thing, which I’m not trying to change, just give you a light from the other side.
I wonder if the Metropolitan Museum of Art has any openings???
Grant the “artist” who are doing this are invading private property to paint.But I agree that ,if the paint isn’t stolen,or the graffti isn’t nasty,it is art by expression,without permission.What would railroading be without graffti…dull monoindustrial blocks going down the tracks.Maybe if the railroads would encourage some of these guys to paint murals on some say,grain hoppers,to make them more eye catching.it would kill some of the negativity that railroads produce.I’ve really seen some nice graffti in my 16 years working for the R.R.I think some people are to uptight about this tipe of thing.Heck where I live in along the Ohiio river,cities commission artist to paint murals on the floodwalls.
Onesecondpie’
Graffiti creates jobs in society? This alleged job creation makes it “a well balanced Wheel”? Have you been smelling the fumes from the cans again? Business should be happy their property gets vandalized forcing them to hire more people? What planet are you recently from? If the graffiti vandals want to do something for their art, I suggest they go to the local newspapers and buy the end of the rolls of newsprint. Then go rent a nice billboard and when you fini***he latest piece of art, hang it on the billboard for all to see. Perhaps some truely talented individuals will get jobs out of this. That way you can use all the paint you can buy and no one else will have to expend time, effort and money trying to erase your prior efforts. I doubt the unemployment rate in the US will sky rocket account the well balanced wheel is thrown out of synch with your point of view.
Be assured if I see any of your friends tagging or artistically modifying freight cars or sturctures at my place of employment, I will report the activity, photograph the activity and happily testify in court if needed. The last idiots brought up in front of the judge for trespassing on railroad property paid $350 plus court costs as a result. Hopefully vandalls will be assessed even more.
Perhaps a little Islamic justice might be brought to bear. Imagine how hard it would be to operate a can of spray paint if the miscreants’ thumbs were publicly removed with a scimitar.
I see your point Larry. That makes box cars and hoppers seem like more reasonable alternatives.[;)]
I don’t condone or encourage graffiti, railroad or otherwise, but I don’t despise it either. I accept the fact that I have no control over it. I try to understand it, and appreciate it for what it is, leaving legality and morality out of the interpretation. Some of it is political, some of it is art, and some of it is crap. Often what you find in museums is no different, except that the venue is socially acceptable.
I suppose if I was to run across someone in the act of tagging something, again railroad or otherwise, I would ask them in a nonjudgemental way, “what are you doing?” I would be genuinely curious to hear the response.
I would probably follow their reply with something like, “don’t you have anything better to do?” The goal being to convince them to find an alternative form of expression that isn’t illegal. I would not be hasty to call the police, in the hopes that the calm confrontation would give them pause to see the error of their actions. It is not about turning a blind
Here some examples of Railroad Graffitti, these cars are typically seen down at the Milwaukee Harbor in cement service. That is where all of them were photographed. I understand that the artist on the 2-bay Cement Hoppers maybe from the Madison, WI area. Due to the (608) area code on the car. Now there photos are 2-3 years old, but they are still around. I did hear that the owner of the hoppers was actually looking for the artist to have him do some more art, with his blessing. I don’t know if that is true or not.
Note - The former Milw Road passenger car in the 3rd photo is no longer there it was scrapped earlier this year, unfortunately.
Keith
Keith, I saw those on your website a while back, and was naughty and copied them. I started working to isolate the images so they could be made into decals and transfered to models. Those are some big murals. Must have taken a long time and a lot of paint to do. A big ladder too. They certainly are more interesting than a plain gray car.
It sort of raises an odd and awkward question. If I was to do the isolation work and try to sell decals, you took the photo, and whoever did the painting, who holds the copyright? The answer has to be probably not me. For now any decals are for my own use only.[;)]
Bummer about the passenger car, the 261 could have used another coach. Must have been too far gone.
Our of curiosity, are those heading over to Medusa? I always loved that company’s name, Medusa Cement. I think Walthers finally made a kit.[;)]
So as OneSecondPl espouses, graffiti vandalls create jobs in the rail industry for people who have to repaint the cars and refre***he reporting marks and light weight data as required by the AAR. I wonder if he has noticed this work is done by railroad carpersons either out in the yard or when the cars come into the rip tracks. I also wonder if he as noticed the numbers of carpersons employed by the railroads has dwindled over the last two decades. So now these maintenance workers who will have a limited amount of time with any given freight car will be focused upon repainting the vandall’s handiwork instead of looking more closely for broken or bent handrails, grabirons, stirrup steps and other safety appliances as well as thermally cracked wheels, worn brake beams, cracked draft gear, center sills and bolster plates.
So instead of creating more jobs, which is patently false, these insensitive vandalls are creating safety concerns for the railroad inudstry and it’s employees. The public may well be endangered should a crack in a car part is painted to satisfy someone’s artistic inclination and a safety inspector is unable to view this crack account unnecessarily thick coats of paint over the defect.
Yes, a scourge upon society. Absolutely NO redeeming social values here. Have you ever been to a hardware store where all the spray cans of paint are locked behind a cage? Tell me the store owner doesn’t do that account paint losses due to theft.
Greetings,
Actually the “Halloween Hopper Car” is/was available from Graffitti Collectors Series in N-scale. I believe it is out of print, you might catch one on E-bay but be ready to pay $$$. I sent the photo of the “Monster” Hopper to the Graffiti Collector Series, he said he was going to make a set of Hoppers, haven’t seen that yet. “Scale Rail Graphics” has a complete set for the “Fathers Day” hopper, all the decals to make the entire car both sides are in the set.
Yes the cars are there for Medusa - now LaFarge cement. I believe Walthers based there Medusa Cement on the Cement Silos located a bit farther west of the Jones Island, but it is still a Milwaukee prototype.
Yes it was unfortunate about the Milwaukee Road Touralux car, a Milwaukee Road group in Sturtevant was trying to get the car down there, but it was in no condition to run over the rails, and the cost to truck was just to much, so the Port of Milwaukee had it scrapped.
If you want full size copies of the hopper cars let me know via email I can send them to you.
Keith
Dont they bother to move these cars? or at least patrol the area?
These took several day, and ladders to do.
Actually like I mentioned the Hopper cars, I have it on some pretty good sources, Law Enforcement type that they were painted in Madison, WI, not here in Milwaukee. These cars are moved quite often in Milwaukee, also both the UP and CP switch on Jones Island, so there are people down there from 6am to 12 midnight at least. They just occasionally visit Milwaukee.
Also from what I have been told these large murals are painted by groups of taggers and they are very well prepared, including drawings of the work and assignments for certain people, so they can be done quite quickly.
I also don’t condone the graffiti on railcars, as a law enforcement officer if I saw someone committing the crime I would take action and arrest the offenders. However some of the work is quite impressive, unfortunately it is not legal.
Keith Schmidt
That’s what happened here. A large group of people showed up, with ladders and assignments and donated paint, and painted the house of a fellow who had recently been diagnosed with cancer.
If we could get the taggers to use their energy on stuff like this, they wouldn’t be vandals, they’d be good Samaritans.
Thanks Keith, actually I’m in 3 rail O, so N isn’t even a good flat car load for me.[;)] The copies I mooched are just fine, you took gerat photos, nice and square. Lionel makes the perfect car body to complete the project, whenever I get around to it. I have a lot of layout to build before rolling stock embelishments become a priority. I have a topic running over on the MR forum if you are interested in seeing the layout.
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=50067
Larry, I can’t argue that that house painting project isn’t 10,000 times more constructive than tagging. The truth is community service of that type would be a very fitting sentence for those caught.
They don’t need to have their thumbs cut off, or be thrown in jail. Five minutes in front
One of my co-workers (an anonymous conductor) got into the railroad business because he was a former RR graffiti artist and that got him intrigued in trains… yes, twisted I know…[%-)]