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Why do they do it?
I don't know, really. I guess it's challenging, satisfying, in some small way it makes someone feel a sense of purpose or fuels their self-esteem.
Living in Toronto, where we have long taken pride in the cleanliness of our public transit, there's a common wisdom : if you don't drop the first piece of litter, you don't get more. Drop that first piece, and more litter immediately appears.
My theory is that, where there is one tag, more appears. And
I blame the railroad industry in part for the problem. The industry has long lost its interest in keeping its equipment in proper order. Every day we see cars so rusty that they convey an. It's lousy PR, and it
It may be too late to turn the tide on grafitti. Perhaps one day people will bore of it. All of it will go to the scrapyard one day.
In the meanwhile, every passing train is a panoply of odd thought, and every new railcar is a field of opportunity.
- Paul
This one is interesting, because the painter used a roller brush instead of the usual spray can.....
This one is NOT graffitti. These chalk labels are scribbled by railroad workers to keep track of their work....
This is where things get interesting for the viewer, but annoying for the railroad. This ambitious artist has obliterated much of the important data which is stencilled onto the side of each car. The black rectangle with the "Plate data" has had to be restencilled - it's visible immediately above the axle truck at the lower right of the picture.
Painters seem to be obsessed with these 3-D letter styles that resemble jewelry or ironwork.
Now, this is classic. Some artists simply try to put their trademark on as many railcars as they can, patiently repeating their work for years on end. Under the last coat of paint, an earlier "Smokin' Joe" tag, number 10,428, is reappearing as the paint fades. And another tagger has signed number 1,018.
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Revised - July 3, 2005
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