Freight train graffiti: love it or hate it?

[Gumboots]

Just wondering what people think about freight car graffiti. Apparently some train enthusiasts hate it. I can see why they wouldn't like some of it, but OTOH there's some that I think is genuinely artistic and looks a heck of a lot better than grotty old boxcars.

[Hawk]

Yep, some of it is pretty artistic. I don't really care for the gang markers though.

[obertran]

They can be artistic, the problem is when they do it to new cars and waggons, which are pretty as they are with its original colors. The worst ones are the ones that they stop the train with the alarm on a station to do them in seconds.

[Gumboots]

Yes setting off fake alarms is not a good thing. Anyone who does that should definitely be prosecuted if they're caught. And I agree that new or well-maintained passenger stock should be left alone.

I don't see much harm in painting old freight stock in a yard though. The sanest of the graffiti artists seem to have a sort of informal understanding with the railroad, and leave all the reporting marks uncovered so the company doesn't have to clean off graffiti to keep track of their cars. Some of them will actually mask the reporting marks before spraying. This works to their advantage, because with little incentive to clean it off their work stays on the cars longer.

[CeeBee]

Guess I'm the lone wolf but in my world mother nature is supposed to do the weathering, not some grade school dropout with a spray can. Yeah, I'm old school. :)

[Gumboots]

Graffiti is not weathering. They still weather the same as any other car.

[Gumboots]

CeeBee: take a look at the examples here: http://www.ekosystem.org/tag_big/aris/page/1

These are by an Italian graffiti artist who goes by the nickname of Aris. Nothing like the gang tag style, and IMO would not be out of place on the walls of a gallery.

[CeeBee]

Just doesn't belong on a RR car. Don't remember ever seeing graffiti back when I was a kid. Don't like it when it started, don't like it now. But to each their own I guess.

[CeeBee]

As to the weathering comment I made..... I was being facetious :) I think anyway

[Gumboots]

Hey this just turned up in the news over here. The artist in this case approached the train's owners first, and they were keen for him to do it.

Moveable art: Guido Van Helten paints train wagons with portraits of rural life



Before he approached the rail company, he had already done some work on some abandoned silos.

Brim silo artwork: the tall tales and colourful characters behind Guido van Helten's paintings

[Hawk]

Wow! He's good.

[RulerofRails]

I don't think that what this guy did is technically "graffiti". He knows that his work wont be wasted since he asked permission. Reminds me of this paint job: http://www.tomcosicart.com.au/tom-cosic ... omotiveart.

Personally, I feel that most graffiti lacks class. Maybe it's down to personal taste though.

In terms of RT3, whether I like the style or not, graffiti exists in real life, so it is realistic (I didn't vote). The way I play the game, I often see multiples of a car type on the same train. After some tests, we will have more info, but planning to have a clean copy available as an option will work for me.

I have explained before that my style is loose, work with the game's natural resource flow and try to expediate it. If resource distribution isn't scattered I will try to concentrate production in one area. The reasoning is that I will get better price differentials more frequently as two or three loads of cargo get dropped in one town, depress the price there in preparation for the next "re-haul" shipment.

This re-haul process is a cycle, it occurs naturally. By concentrating production, I just expediate it. The cycle is shorter, meaning more hauls, and the price differential is greater (more profit) thanks to quicker overwhelming of demand.

When doing this, it's true that concentrated production will mean lower profits for the producing industries. However, the industry must pay overhead and labor costs, akin to train running costs. I haven't done the math with absolute certainty, but I'm pretty sure that by using efficient engines, the cost for trains can turn out lower than the industry will pay for overhead and labor. This is not a short term strategy, building industries on top of stacks of $0 resources is very likely to outperform in the short term.

Note: main requirment for this "strategy": a large demand area (a collection of decent-sized cities spaced normally, away from the edges of the map) preferably on flattish plain. In abnormal conditions, start with the basics and adapt.

[Gumboots]

I don't think that what this guy did is technically "graffiti". He knows that his work wont be wasted since he asked permission. Reminds me of this paint job: http://www.tomcosicart.com.au/tom-cosic ... omotiveart.

Personally, I feel that most graffiti lacks class. Maybe it's down to personal taste though.

I agree with the lack of class for a lot of it, but I am quite amazed at the range of styles and the quality of some of the work.

The other thing, from my perspective, is that it's often on things which literally cannot be made any uglier. Take autoracks as an example. They're ugly. Like serious warthog levels of ugly. Worrying about graffiti on autoracks not being classy is like worrying that painting stuff on a warthog wouldn't be classy. It's so ugly to start with that you have nothing to lose. You might as well go for it.

[CeeBee]

That last guy is good. Could live with that on modern equip.

[Just Crazy Jim]

I guess it depends on the scenario. Out here in the boonies, I rarely see graffiti on freight cars, but it was a fixture of daily life when I lived in New England in the 1980s. I think part the reason I don't see much graffiti these days is that kids seem to never leave the house and all have their faces constantly aimed at a smart phone instead of seeking new and inventive ways to rebel against the system.

[AMD 103]

I'm not a fan of graffiti to be honest, but I'm also not a fan of the super-boring cars roaming around the rails these days.

I want to see freight cars return to the rolling billboard era of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, in a dazzling array of colors, with big slogans on the side such as "Automated Railway", "Super Shock Control", "The Right Way", "Mainline of Mid-America", you get the idea.

So much better than either graffiti or boring brown.