Mr. Walker, I cannot overstate how much I enjoy your fine work (in particular your 1970s and 1980s images, some of which I revisit regularly), but I respectfully must take issue with your decision to submit, and RP's decision to accept, photos that legitimize graffiti. Thank you.
|
Understood, as I am no fan of graffiti, either. And I know a railroad special officer who has arrested taggers, laying to rest the false information that they worry about railfans more than morons with spray cans. Still, this is more than just ugly, senseless tagging, and it incorporates "Amtrak" as well, so I thought it was worth submitting. If this car, however, had just had some random tags that are, essentially, the equivalent of "marking their territory," but most of the original paint were still visible, I would have still photographed it. After all, these days it is nearly impossible to photograph a rail car without tagging on it, and many locomotives do as well. But I still photograph them, while pining for the old pre-tagging days, as I have no choice. (Then again, back in the 70s, we had Bozo Texino and Herbie, which were also graffiti, and no one seemed to mind.) I believe photographing, and posting, are not the same as condoning. Your opinion is fine, of course - please don't think I am saying that you are wrong, as you are not and I understand your point. I just wanted to have my say as well. And thanks for the compliments!
|
Former RR employee with a differing opinion. We had zero problem with taggers who applied their 'trade' in our yard. We weren't class 1, but these guys did a decent job, masked over reporting marks, didn't leave a mess, and respected us when we needed us to move cars. Fact that not a lot of railfan's will acknowledge is a lot of us workers were...how do I put this? Bent over..worse by our company's than we were by the nostalgia or the blankness of an anonymous boxcar with someone's 'tag' on it. I have, on my drive, pics of these guys 'working' on our cars. Some of them have images of them posing on our locomotives. It is what it is.
|
Tagging is illegal. To deface another's property is wrong. No one would want another to do the same to their vehicle, so why deface railroad equipment? I remember back when loading boxcars with brick some character had already used chalk to make his little picture of a guy sitting under a shade tree. We got several boxcars in having these features and no one seem to mind as Craig stated. But before that railroaders used chalk to write on rail cars with dates, or write "Out of Order" on their sides to be side tracked. But graffiti artists have went the extra mile with their freedom of speech.
|
| Posted by SES on April 30, 2021 | |
Finding any untagged equipment in LA area is pretty much impossible! Mr. Harris needs to look at images of the UP locals of the area. Those poor locomotives are just covered in it.
|
Nice photo. Love the Amtrak artwork. They were nice enough to put the BN number back in.
|
|