Since the last graffitti discussion, I have been paying a litle more attentionto the finer details of the trains running through Tucson on the Mainline, and I will say it has been eye opening. At least 80% of all cars have graffitti. Over 40% of those have graffitti on over 80% of the sides up to about 3 feet. The locomotives are not spared. Today i saw something I wish I had a camera to snap a couple of pictures. Old Espee unit #7633 has been completely renamed in graffitti. The old name boards on the hoods on at least one sides are completely gone, and in their place, are two words that I cannot decifer, in lime green and white (maybe even pink) paint, and this runs a good twenty feet of the hood. If anyone can run out and get a picture, good luck. The grafitti is on the West side of the locomotive, if the cab is facing north. It will certianly give this unit character. The containers seem to be pretty free of graffitti...they also spend a lot of time with shippers, so less opportunity there for taggers. In the same train, there was a mixture of 2o footers from K-Line that looked like they had just cameoff the LHS shelfs, right along side some that looked almost pink...that sun is killer. For all of those that are missing the old SP rust buckets, they might not have to wait too long before hey start seeing the rust buckets again. All the fresh paint looks real sharp, LHS shelf clean, but the older stuff is starting to get the same desert fatigue sickness that attached itself to most of the SP power. The opaint is rather faded, and the gray area up by the vents is starting to get a bit of rust in some areas. This could almost be expected. The only way to keep any paint job in this sun is lots of washing and waxing. Otherwise, the sun eats up everything that isn't a dirt pile or a mesuite tree in seconds flat. A lot of older vehicles show their desert age. And is the sun doesn't get it, the the wind comes along, picks up the sun leached remains of dust, and sand blasts anything that gets too near. Now take something that endures this on a constant basis, and submit it to the Moist air of california every couple of runs, and it won't take long for one of the two to beat the heck out of the paint. Guess that is one thing the old Espee had to learnfrom when they finally decided to do new paint only in extreme cases...the rust won't hurt too much right away. Those units with the flags look pretty, pretty, and cool. So how do the roads look elsewhere right now?
I have to totally agree with you about the graffiti, it seems that this attack on our nation's railroads is becoming an enormous headache. Here in Texas, I'm an engineer watching other trains pass daily, and it seems that at least 70 percent of freight cars have some graffiti of one kind or another. I'm sure that this graffiti is applied in certain cities at certain yards and industrial parks and until some people go to jail this is not going to stop. No company is immune, even Amtrak's express boxes have been tagged. About 1 in twenty now have some graffiti. And once I even saw a small tag on a Superliner! I personally have never seen anyone tag a piece of equipment, and I work in a rundown part of the city, but then again, I work the day shift, maybe this happens at night! All in all, it's just plain disgusting!!!!!
My mind has changed on graffitti. It costs all of us money, and as modeler's we should not encourage it by having graffitti modeled on our rolling stock or modules that we show to the public. Why encourage it? Maybe I am living in a dream world, but why plant the seeds of vandalism in some young child's mind who sees the graffitti modeled on a layout. What changed my mind was an article about the rr police, I read in old rr magazine. Graffitti costs money to clean up and prevent. Why the effort you say. Well, graffitti makes people feel intimidated and uncomfortable. Which I believe is what the vandal intended. If you were a shipper, would you feel comfortable about your shipment going by rail, if the railcar showed up all covered in graffitti. The shipper might think: "How safe is my shipment if a person has this amount of time to paint stuff on this car, they could also use this time to break-in and damage or steal my shipment?" Think about it. How pays for the graffitti, well that is passed on to you and me in higher shipping and product costs. As for me? If I model a graffitti scene on my layout, I am going to include a couple of vandals in prison overalls cleaning it up, under the supervision of law enforcement. 'nuff said. [ 14. August 2002, 23:09: Message edited by: ajy6b ]
all U would normally see here are Coal Hoppers on the CSX about 1 in 25 or 30 (per 80 car train) have some graffitti, and usually pretty heavy. There is a train consisting of 20 boxcars 8-10 tankcars 10-15 cov'd hoppers and 20-30 retired intramodel flatcars (headed to storage in Gassaway, WV) 2 times a week. only the boxcars have been tagged. [ 29. August 2002, 02:34: Message edited by: A&A 6183 ]
