Sometime during the night on Saturday, Sept 26 criminals decided to graffiti one of our CNW Bi-Level cars. Volunteers are already working to remove the spray paint, and hopefully there will be minimal damage. Attached is a photo from Facebook of the vandalism to the car.

Stupidity at its finest… You would think with that kind of talent that they would want to go into graphic design (something useful and being a productive member of society). Sad. Is your mailing address on the website? I'd like to send a donation to help with the cleanup. Sorry to hear this happen to you guys.

I expect to see that vandalism in places like Los Angeles, CA where graffiti is a daily fact of life due to the massive demographic change there of the last 30 years, but that's really depressing to see it occurring in small town Union, IL and especially at a RR museum.

There are people who think that this type graffiti is "a work of art". NO! This is a criminal act and the perpetrators should be treated as law breakers and fined accordingly. Hope that IRM will be able to clean up the car and find a way to prevent this type of occurrence of happening in the future.


Les

Does anybody know about the graffiti resistant paints now used on buildings? I'm wondering about their applicability to our metal stuff, and tintability.

Yet another example of extreme stupidity by somebody's flawed spawn. I hope they are caught, prosecuted, fined and do some time. This has been a pet peeve of mine since it started and it is trespassing and a criminal offense.
In my fiendish mind, I would like to see electrically charged items that when sprayed would cause the can to explode.
This took some jerk a long time to do and if only they would put that kind of effort into improving themselves and their community good things could happen.
I don't dare say how I REALLY feel on RYPN.

Fortunately, the vandals did this at a time when the graffiti was noticed within a short period of time and volunteers could get the car cleaned up quickly. Had this happened on a Monday, or a Tuesday, I might not be fortunate enough to be able to post this photo sent to me as of 2:45pm.

Wow, great job on getting the car cleaned up! Will these cars be going into one of the new barns?

It doesn't help that many in the Art Crowd encourage these people. So much for respecting property rights.

For the record for those that don't know, there are special "graffiti-removal" products available from the usual places (major home-renovation chains, hardware stores, etc.) that, as shown here, does the work of removing spray paint off of better-finished surfaces.

It does seem the faster you hit it, the easier the removal job.

Hopefully, but there is still a fair amount of fundraising to be done to pay for their indoor storage space. There might be a link in the museum's web store, but I don't remember. Donations would be for "CNW Bi-Level Indoor Track Space".

I work at the UP. I see all kinds of stuff they've painted.

From looking at oodles and gobs of examples of this stuff... I've come to the conclusion that they aren't just using cans of Krylon to get this done... what it looks like to me is that they have a little pressure vessel... maybe a C02 cylinder.... a regulator, and an airbrush and an assortment of cans of color.

..and a ladder. All that paint being layed down is not the work of someone standing on the ground... or someones shoulder.

It had to have taken quite a bit of time to do all that. Lots of preparation... as far as getting all their ducks in a row.

Not going to be carrying cases of aerosol cans and do something like that. About 4 quarts of various colors, a co2 tank in a backpack, a little air brush and you have the makings of mega graffiti!

If I recall, this is not the first time IRM has been hit by graffiti vandals, I believe this happened with some stainless steel equipment about six years ago, no?

Excellent cleanup job. The best way to thwart graffiti is to deny it an audience, either though cleanup, overpainting, or putting the graffitoed (sic) object out of view/in a barn.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

Okay, vandalism like graffiti sometimes comes with/precludes other, more annoying/expensive problems: has IRM had any incidents of (even attempted) copper theft? There have been such reports from other outfits posted here; being a large museum with lots of overhead catenary this poses a big potential problem.

Everyone who thinks they might be a victim of graffiti should have a couple of gallons of these products on hand. We use them at Carrie Furnaces and they work great. Put it in a pump sprayer, spray it on and then follow up with a pressure washer.
http://www.graffitiremovalinc.com/

I have personally used this stuff to take graffiti off of brick, concrete and steel.