Graffiti Overload

Personally I am really sick and tired seeing all of the ridiculous graffiti plastered on just about every railcar out there. Trains have become a real eyesore. There are anti-graffiti products out there and I have to ask if any railroad or car builder is using anything to help with the situation. It's getting out of hand.

https://www.sherwin-williams.com/painti ... raffiticoa

Maybe with a product like this a pressure washer spray could be applied to cars as they leave yards? Maybe a good rain would help too? Just wondering if there is any effort being addressed to this problem.

Finally someone I can agree with! It's about time this graffiti fad died out, it's ugly as hell and makes the trains look ghetto, which in turn makes the neighborhoods those trains pass through look intimidating and less desirable. Unfortunately, I don't think the freight railroads are doing much to remove it, where I live we see tank cars everyday, and 3/4 of them are covered all over with it. Hopefully this will change

Anybody have a feel for how much of this defacement takes place on railroad property vs. on shippers' sidings? And would a hedge fund care?

Let's take a look at the Juice Train. Probably not done at Tropicana or distribution facility which I would think are secured facilities. So probably done in yards along the way? This may give some idea but anecdotal. A nice white "canvas" would seem irresistible.

The way it used to be:



And now:

ExCon90 wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 11:14 pm Anybody have a feel for how much of this defacement takes place on railroad property vs. on shippers' sidings? And would a hedge fund care?

I know Graffiti happens all over europe, too.
I do wonder, at which point would someone get access to the railcars?
I thought PSR meant they wouldn't be sitting that long.

i argue; how many of you would take a second glance at a "clean" covered hopper or gondola?

There are so few clean cars left that they immediately get my attention.

Taggers have also expanded to locomotives... I've seen UP units with, ahem, additional decoration.

It would be interesting to see a photo timeline of grafitti on rolling stock, extending back from today's ubiquitous tagging to...the 1960s when "it started"? Or before....in certain areas or yards? When did the RR police give up on this? Old timers reading this...When did the era of clean cars end?

bostontrainguy wrote: ↑Fri May 27, 2022 8:37 am Let's take a look at the Juice Train. Probably not done at Tropicana or distribution facility which I would think are secured facilities. So probably done in yards along the way? This may give some idea but anecdotal. A nice white "canvas" would seem irresistible.

The way it used to be:



And now:

That's an interesting point. The whole object of the OJ train was to keep it moving; the cars were cooled only by an outside power source at the origin terminal, and once the landlines were unplugged just prior to departure the temperature in the cars would hold for 48 hours. The scheduled transit time was 36 hours, with no intermediate yarding, and everybody understood that this train had to make schedule every time. (I wasn't in the group that set it up, but I understand that a significant factor in the economics was that the cars only had to be insulated, not equipped with conventional diesel refrigeration equipment.) I did hear that in later years the empties would be released as they were unloaded and moved in regular freight service back to the origin to be reassembled into a train for cooling and reloading.

Goodness knows freight cars are "motionless in transit" often enough for the vandals to get at them, but it's surprising that the OJ train was victimized.

hrsn wrote: ↑Mon May 30, 2022 6:21 pm It would be interesting to see a photo timeline of grafitti on rolling stock, extending back from today's ubiquitous tagging to...the 1960s when "it started"? Or before....in certain areas or yards? When did the RR police give up on this? Old timers reading this...When did the era of clean cars end?

The aerosol paint can dates to 1949, but it took about 25 years for it to become cheap enough and widely available to the average person.

This happened in the mid 1970's, and the nature of the aerosol paint made it easy to make huge murals quickly, and that's why you still see it today.

It has nothing to do with any kind of social decay, graffiti has been around since ancient times, it's technology that has made it so pervasive today. You can be sure that if spray paint cans were widely available in 1955 instead of chalk or rollers freight cars would be tagged just as much, although the style would surely be different.

Found this the other day:

A Cost-Effective & Sustainable Way of Battling Graffiti
One of the best ways to combating vandalism and graffiti is by utilizing durable materials that can actually resist the paint or marker that’s being used. HDPE (high-density polyethylene) is a solid plastic that can stand up to graffiti. Due to its homogenous coloring, it doesn’t absorb the paint, and any graffiti can simply be wiped away without having to paint over it.

HDPE offers strength and rigidity for a wide variety of applications requiring basic engineering plastic performance. In all its forms, HDPE is highly processable and can be worked by cutting, deep drawing, riveting, milling, hot and cold forming, drilling, laser cutting, die cutting, welding, and routing. It displays high chemical resistance against many basic solvents, greases, waxes, and acids

I have no idea if this stuff could be used somehow in railcar manufacturing but maybe a thin sheet could be fused to the outside walls of a railcar? Maybe worth an experiment.

UPDATE: After doing some research I do think it is certainly possible to use this material in a railcar. See article below:



https://www.compositesworld.com/article ... s-horizons

This happened in the mid 1970's, and the nature of the aerosol paint made it easy to make huge murals quickly, and that's why you still see it today.

The 1970s sounds right, the era of over-graffitied subway cars in NYC. What a mess they were!

With no practical solution to fight tagging or clean affected equipment, car owners are resorting to adapting a damage mitigation measure in the form of moving marks and numbers higher to avoid most taggers.

"Tagging" is also prevalent overseas, lest one think it is a North American phenomenon.

But as Mr. Cowford notes, it is simply unreasonable for the Class I industry to be aggressive in the prevention - and prosecution of "perps" - of such. It is all part of the "dirty diesels pull as much as clean ones" philosophy.

From Imlauer Pitter Hotel Salzburg--

You should have seen the "artistic expression" on the outside of an S-Bahn train in Munich I rode yesterday.