# New type of Graffitti



## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

Saw this on a UP train yesterday here in Nebraska. Never seen pictures before, just words/letters/or what? 

















Note how they went around the train markings.


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

SOMEBODY has an amazingly large budget for paint!! 

The art work is none too bad either.


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

I have a number of photos of pictures, almost looks like choke drawings.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

I have seen a few that were near photo quality on the side of a covered hopper car... I was so dumbfounded I could not get my camera up to take a photo... it was not so much the astonishment at seeing the image, as it was total astonishment at the content of the image, such that if I had taken a photo, it would not be allowed on this web site anyway.


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

I am wondering how much time they must have to paint something like that. I assume it is against the law and there are probably security guards roaming around the freight yards.


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## bnsfconductor (Jan 3, 2008)

A rail in Seattle found this one the other day.


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By bnsfconductor on 07 Jul 2013 06:16 PM 
A rail in Seattle found this one the other day. 









HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks people are looking at me wondering why I am laughing hysterically.


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

But foamers think graffiti is cool..so it doesn't make them mad, they like it! 
And graffiti artists have gotten smart about the reporting marks and other important data on the cars.. 
they know if they leave it intact, their "art" will live a lot longer! 
(if they covered it up, the railroad would be forced to spray over, and re-letter the car a lot sooner, to get all those marks back..) 

my opinion: graffiti "artists" are vandals, defacing private property..causing property damage which the property 
owners then have to spend a lot of money to fix..they should be arrested and fined and/or jailed 
as often as possible..the quality of the art is irrelevant.. 

every time you see "cool" graffiti on a freight car, imagine if the same "cool" art appeared on the side of your house one night.. 
or on the side of your car.. 
you wouldn't be so pleased about it then..its the exact same thing on freight cars, for the cars owners.. 

Scot


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

I actually have some of these on my "Lowrider train." 

Art Crimes on Trains


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

I agree it is vandalism. I am still curious about how they can do it so quickly and not get caught . All most every freight car I see has at least some on it. You would think there would be a higher level of security.


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## aopagary (Jun 30, 2008)

congratulations, ...now that you have posted pictures to this public forum along with the keywords "train" and "graffiti", Google's picture search engine will shortly pick up these images. these so-called artists are eating up the fact you think their work deserves any attention and you are feeding their egos by posting pictures which will only lead to more vandalism. the reason these guys can get away with this stuff is that it takes no time at all to spray up a 2-dimentional cartoon character and some letters. i used to do this sort of "art work" in grammar school on notebook covers and i know i have little to no artistic talent. the best thing you can do to defeat this garbage is to ignore it.


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

I'm sorry but you can't ignore that some of these street artists are truly ARTISTS, I hate taggers but their are a handful of very talented artists who for reasons of social commentary have chosen the public realm as their canvas, the British street artists known as Banksy has created over the years several eye popping art works that just happen to be on other peoples walls. This is not cartoon art;







































This is very clever witty social commentary, certainly "art" by any modern definition and better than alot of the clap-trap I see in galleries being sold as "art" today. 

Back you tour regularly scheduled topic.


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## Dick413 (Jan 7, 2008)

It would make my car look a lot better 
Dick


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

The "Graffiti vs. Art" debate comes up fairly regularly, never with any resolution. Art--in whatever form, wherever displayed--is designed to ignite the emotions, and by the tone of these discussions, the graffiti on trains certainly does that well. We at MLS are not going to say "don't post photos of graffiti on trains." In the modern era, graffiti on rolling stock is as much part of the prototype as rust and mud splatter. (Just the other day, I saw a 20-or-so-car freight train switching industries over by the Coors Brewery--each car was "tagged" to some degree or another.) As such, discussions about it (along with photos) are certainly fair game for the forums. Railroading has its ugly side. Always has. The scorn which some of us heap upon today's graffiti artists used to be cast upon hobos 80 years ago. They were vermin in the eyes of the public and the railroad police. Today, we glorify them with hobo camp scenes on our railroads--even us narrow gauge modelers whose railroads never really _had_ hobos. (Hobos are historically viewed as the "original" graffiti artists; their graffiti was often coded messages--pictograms--for other hobos.) 

Later, 

K


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By jbwilcox on 07 Jul 2013 09:16 PM 
I agree it is vandalism. I am still curious about how they can do it so quickly and not get caught . All most every freight car I see has at least some on it. You would think there would be a higher level of security.


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

Can someone please answer my question?


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

John, I can't answer your question. It is something I have also wondered about for a long time. Chuck


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## bnsfconductor (Jan 3, 2008)

How do they not get caught? Trains are stopped and stored for long periods of time out in the middle of nowhere. I've never seen a tagger in the city or yards, so I would suspect that they find some isolated industry, or siding to do the paint job. kind of like wondering how bridges over interstates get tagged? One day nothing is there, the next day something is. The railroads own miles and miles of tracks. Very little have fences surrounding them. Railroad right of way is really easy to access (not encouraging you). 
Craig


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

Craig, thanks for the clarification. I had always assumed the it was an urban problem. When we drive out to Arizona every winter, 5 day trip, I occasionally see strings of cars parked out in the middle of nowhere. Chuck


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks Craig,

Your explanation makes sense. It looks like a lot of this art work must take a long time to complete. I have also seen strings of cars out in the country where I guess there would be plenty of time.


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

A lot of the more elaborate works are pre-planned well in advance, with multiple cutout cardboard stencils to allow quick installations, thats how some of these can "magically" appear overnight. 

Freight car graffiti is more often a result of cars being parked for a long time in not necessarily remote, but in an area isolated from general view, believe me there are plenty of these guys in the cities. All thats necessary is time and enough light to see what you are doing. I dont suppose anyone noticed a recent trend illustrated by the "HBAK" pic above, graffitists have realized there works will last alot longer unmarred if they leave the classification markings intact and paint around them, if they are painted over the RRs are required by law to reinstall those markings but will NOT repaint the entire car, just the classification marking and will intentionally do so in the most unflattering way to the graffitists work, so the smart ones realized this and now leave those markings alone and work around them, to these guys the biggest threat now is not the RRs, its the dillweed gang-banging taggers with no talent and no imagination who just want to deface the world with there illiterate chicken scralls, these are the guys need to be eradicated. 

I have to admit I am very much at mixed opinions about graffiti art, some of it is very compelling and makes the world a more colorful place but most of it around here is just brainless tagging, which does nothing but make an area uglier.


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

And getting back to the original post..no, this is not at all a "new" type of graffiti.. 
drawings have been a part of graffiti since forever.. 

Drawings are less common than "just words"..because the average graffiti "artist" isnt actually a talented artist at all, 
and most have zero artistic skill, so they just write in ugly letters...but artwork, in addition to letters, has always been out there.. 

Scot


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

I have often seen Graffiti in some of the most odd places. 


Then I ask " How did they get up there and why didn't anybody see them 

A lot of people saw them but did nothing about it.

No one called the police 

JJ


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By John J on 12 Jul 2013 04:45 AM 
I have often seen Graffiti in some of the most odd places. 


Then I ask " How did they get up there and why didn't anybody see them 

A lot of people saw them but did nothing about it.

No one called the police 

JJ


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