I think any train on the mainline HAS to have a caboose.

   Most graffiti is appropriate for post caboose era so I wouldn't worry about adding it. I recall seeing a few chalked tags in the old days but none of the larger colorful graffiti that's common now.  I think the tagging has made the modern cars a lot more visually interesting than they would be now days given the small number or surviving roads. I guess the taggers in a way have filled the diversity void left by the demise of all the fallen flags :> ) You might also consider the difference in weathering on modern cars versus cars of the caboose era.The railroads had different maintenance philosophies in those days so cars were generally not as rusty or weathered as later eras. ....DaveB

I, too, am old...

...and I freelance a Class 1 transcontinental railroad,

Part of my “alternate history” is that railroads still take pride in their image and equipment, keeping it clean and well maintained... including paint. No weathering, and absolutely no graffiti. Getting ready to build a couple of yard modules soon, and there’s going to be a string of car washers on the outbound track.  I CAN weather models, and used to do it to my BattleTech miniatures, but I’ve CHOSEN not to with my trains..

Really  this flogging of a

Really  this flogging of a dead horse again.

If a train is still running with a caboose it means its set in that particular time frame era when graffiti was limited to chalk marks or the likes. If doing more recent times then graffiti is part of it. But comes down to said owner if they include it so be it, if they don't that's fine as well.

Phil

Bozo Texino / Kilroy

Hi Oldline1,

For those of us in the caboose generation, "Bozo Texino", "Kilroy" and chalk reporting marks are about the extent of graffiti.

Graffiti was more likely to be found on run down buildings and vacant factories.

1997

The current wave of "tagging", as modern spray painted graffiti is known, hit railroad equipment in a big way starting around 1997.  By 2000 it was a big problem.  One of several reasons why my modeling stops in 1994.

Scott Chatfield

You answered your own question...

So, if your prototype has graffiti, you have it. If your prototype doesn't, you don't have it. 

Randy 

Old Subject

Having had to deal with graffiti during the last years of railroading I promise I won't vent this time.

That said, I'm glad I model era's that don't have to deal with contemporary graffiti.

Andre

Start of graffiti

I read a lot about graffiti starting in a big way pre-2000, but I think that depends on your prototype.  A friend of mine shot about 8 hours of video of my prototype in the spring of 2005 (I model May of that year), and one of the many times I watched it, I did so for the sole purpose of determining the percentage of tagged cars.  Surprisingly, they only worked out to about 5% of the total.

My theories on the reason for that:

• IAIS's only revenue car types at that time were covered hoppers, intermodal well cars and flats, and gondolas.  The covered hoppers tended to ping-pong between Iowa elevators and either ethanol plants in Iowa and Illinois, or feed lots in the south.  As such, they largely steered clear of larger cities other than KC.
• 89' pig flats that made up the bulk of IAIS's on-line intermodal fleet made undesirable targets for taggers
• 53' IAIS and IAIS-assigned AOK 3-wells roamed the country earning their owner/leaser money.  Because they brought the IAIS such a healthy return, the railroad did everything possible to keep them off of home rails.  So while they were likely tagged more heavily due to their travels, they didn't dare show their ugly faces back in Iowa.
• IAIS gons spent a lot of their time in the Midwest, but even though they passed through bigger cities, most avoided tags for much longer than I would have expected.  Even in 2007-2008 when friends and I were shooting the entire fleet, most were completely free of tags.  Perhaps because the customers they served were secured to the extent that trespassing was rare?

I don't doubt that that number would be much higher on the coasts, but at least on my prototype, graffiti just wasn't there to the same extent.  I plan to model it where I have photos showing it on that particular car during my era, but the vast majority of my rolling stock will be untagged or have very simple little scribbles as was more common with some of the earlier stuff.

You ask if graffiti is weathering or vandalism?

Hi Oldline1,

 Graffiti is vandalism. However, if you want to be prototypically accurate modeling modern-era trains you will need to reproduce it just like reproducing your prototypes weathering. You can pick prototypes that have minimal (if any) graffiti though and keep it to a minimum. I model mostly graffiti-era trains so a lot of mine have it. However, I hand paint the graffiti so I match it faithfully to the prototype. I would never use graffiti decals and not because they aren't good but because I've never seen any with the same graphics as the prototypes I've modeled. In the end, it's YOUR railroad...do what you want to do, please yourself.

Nick Campbell

Here in the Wild, Wild West

When it comes to Boxcars, Reefers and high side Gons (which happen to comprise 90% of the traffic on the prototype I model) it is rare to see rolling stock that isn't a billboard. 

Photographed about 5 days before covid shutdown in California. Location Goshen and Lemoore / San Joaquin Valley Railroad.

"How do you feel about

"How do you feel about graffiti? Is that "weathering" or pure vandalism?"

Vandalism, pure and simple.
They ought to take those guys, line 'em up against a wall, and...

I had to look at that stuff for years when I worked on the rails.
Ain't no car on MY downstairs railroad that's gonna have any of it...!

The caboose is gone?

A few years back (sometime in this century) I was working in the South Seattle area (Renton) and noticed the UP train switching cars in the industrial/warehouse district still had a caboose.  So are they really gone?

As for graffiti, it's unfortunate. Some of it is interesting. Much of it is just bad bragging by someone with too much time on their hands (besides spray paint)

Technically, graffiti isn't weathering, unless we start calling human beings who are applying it part of the elements.

IMO, which may be wrong, when the railroads stopped (for various reasons) having to promote themselves to the public they also stopped producing paint jobs that were interesting to see, and went to bland.  The end of the passenger era and the age of the mega-mergers had a hand in it.

But hey, it's just an opinion.

Depends on the era

Personally I hate graffiti on train cars or anywhere else.  To me it’s not an artistic expression of “the poor starving street artist” but vandalism. 

However, if you are doing prototypical modeling of the late modern era, it would be very unusual not to have graffiti on some of your rolling stock.

Joe

Sorry!

Phil,

Sorry to have brought up this subject. I was curious about it and don't recall seeing it mentioned before. You should have just deleted it.

oldline1

Further reading...

Dear oldline,

FWIW, I plugged "graffiti" into the Search box at top right of this page, 
some related-reading for reference...

https://forum.mrhmag.com/magazine-feedback-was-ezines-891776

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/rolling-stock-graffiti-12192529

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/heavy-graffiti-12207616

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/two-prototype-questions-graffiti-and-pantographs-12210324

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/heres-one-you-dont-12210167

There are some good "development timeline" posts in there,
which might help put context on "when, where, and why graffiti appeared" in various RR locations...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

It Helped Me Define My Era

While I appreciate a well done modern freight car with appropriate graffiti (see the Weathering Shop website), I don't like graffiti. By not wanting any on my layout, it helped me pick late 70's / early 80's as my era.  Like the OP, I also like to see a caboose on a train.

Craig

Graffiti

12 years ago I took a holiday in Aus. We headed up into Queensland and realised that the best way to see it was with a campervan. We didn't know anything about them and called into a campervan shop. The guy there, Byron, booked us into "Wicked Campers". The next day we were driving along in our hired car when we saw this campervan ahead with the slogan "If you don't give a shit, you're constipated!" which I rather enjoyed till we overtook and saw that it was a Wicked Camper. That's what we're going to be driving tomorrow!

Well it wasn't that one. We started off with "Lilo and Stitch" which we eventually learned is Disney picture and later had "Infinite Hugs". We got used to saluting other Wicked Campers, there'd be two or three in any car park. After our trip we walked round a yard of about 100 of them and learned that because everyone heads North they needed to use a truck to move them back south again.

Any way the point is that it's an experience to be driving around in a vehicle covered with graffiti. I liked it.

Archie

Don't like; or, don't use weathering!

My chosen Era precludes the use of Graffiti; but, weathering is important to my thoughts on how I present my layout.  I remember the transition era; but, mostly the end of it with first generation diesels.  Railroad freight cars back then were for the most part fairly dirty.  I hear people state that they like to run their rolling stock, as well cared for.  The reality is that the rolling stock received the maintenance it needed to keep it moving on the rails; but, I don't recall a rail line going out of their way to keep them clean, so I'm stating that most freight cars had some dirt and grime on them and that is how I attempt to present my freight rolling stock. I'm sure that many people would consider my freight cars to be to weathered and that certainly might be.  However, it looks right to me.  I also don't have a problem with people wanting to keep their's cleaner.  This is after all a hobby we all do for enjoyment; so, enjoy!   

Time wise, I'm glad I don't need to add grafitti as I really don't like it!

To Each His Own

Hey GYZE! MR is fun. You do what you want to. I'll give you something to laugh at. I model PRR in 1952. But my layout is located in TX/where I live. So, the scenery will not be Eastern US. Now for the fun. Everyone knows that after WW2, almost all railroads were letting the equipment get "run down". PRR especially. So, on my layout, the PRR cars/locos will be brand shiny new. All other RR's will be dirty, grungy and look like some of the stuff that's been posted. No graffiti of course, but back in the 50's, clean was a very rare thing on RRs. So, the important thing here is to enjoy our hobby and do what pleases you. If it's a club, I have no ideas. Compromise?

The rollingstock, buildings,

The rollingstock, buildings, bridges and engines are NOT mine, I DO NOT OWN THEM so whatever is done to them is not affecting me nor going to make me hate or like it.  The FACT is it is there and I can choose to copy ir or not. Simple.  I am NOT afraid of reality and not easily offended so I choose to include it in my weathering.  Some sensitive guys out there are dead against it.  Aww well.  Fine. 

That’s the kind of comment that stirs the pot.

I’m not “afraid” of graffiti , I simply find it distasteful... and illegal... and don’t wish to support it in any way.if you want to be an artist, fine... buy your own ‘canvas’, or get permission. And if you want to support them, why don’t you buy them a canvas to work on? There’s a long history of patrons of the arts supporting individual artisrs.But if you’re not going to support them, don’t complain when others don’t, or object to their property being damaged or defaced. And especially, don’t try to put words in our mouths, especially words like “fear”, I can recognize the skill involved, But recognition doesn’t mean I want it on my railroad.

  " and don’t wish to

I don't think modeling it is supporting it? We model a lot worse stuff like Nazi war machines ,Jim Crow era railroad equipment and scenes, and "wrong" side of the tracks  blight.  Ignoring this kind of stuff doesn't make it go away and might even help it last longer. I find the mega mergers and the dismantling of the national rail network have been a lot more detrimental to my enjoyment of the modern rail scene than graffiti has.....DaveB 

And here is one of

And here is one of those sensitive guys that decry evil about graffiti I speak of.   LOL

@monsterrailroad

Why are you so vested in projecting your (erroneous) impression of personalities on this issue, instead of directing your comments to the actual issue? If you continue along this track, then it's obvious you have nothing to add to the conversation and there's no need to continue this with uou.