maso1 if it is a government run like u said .. be careful casue they if you get caught they could call you a... this is gunna sound stuiped but they could call you a terriorst because you now would have axcess to trains that move 100's of people .. and they could suspect you of that kind of activity and idk about Oz but here in the us only older people get jobs like that .. but this could also be a bonus cause its gov funded .. you could say your an apprentice if you ever get caught ... idk just be smart and use commen sense .....good luck ..
quick and easy thing to do. just ask. i live down the street from a conrail yard, and the could give two damns if i did it or not. they really dont mind, just dont be a dick about it.
Beyond keeping spots chill.. SAFETY i would like to post some safety tips that are very important alot of this is quoted from a combination of other posts but is really good stuff to know... HUMPING. No, not that kind. In the fr8 world humping is a process used to break up trains and sort, or "classify", the individual cars and get them to the right tracks in a yard. Basically, the train is driven backwards a short distance, and they slam on the brakes. At the same moment a brakeman jogs alongside the moving train and throws a lever that uncouples a car or group of cars at the end of the train. These cars fly off on their own momentum down the track that has been selected for them, with no brakes, and they don't stop till they run out of inertia, or until they hit other cars parked on that line (the BOOM!!! sound you may hear from your local yard). Freight cars can safely collide at 5mph or less, they just lock onto each other at the coupler; sometimes a crew that's in a hurry to hump off a train will send them faster than 5mph, though. This raises several safety issues: One, a train that is backing up, or cars that have been humped off, can run you down without you ever hearing an engine. In a dark or foggy yard, those drifting cars (called "ramblers") can go a surprising distance, and sometimes are very quiet despite their size, so they can sneak up on you. The danger is magnified if you are standing in a noisy spot (near another locomotive, or one of those reefer cars with the loud compressor running all the time, or anything else) that could mask the sound of an approaching rambler. Two, you might be on or painting a car that gets hit by a line of ramblers. It will slam them into motion suddenly. If you're climbing on a car and don't have a good handgrip, you could become the next photo at www.deadtrainbums.com . When ramblers hit a motionless line, it's like a cueball hitting another ball in pool: the force gets transferred to the object ball, and when you're talking forty tons per car that translates into some serious slamming power even at low speeds. So in general: assume EVERY track is live, that something may come at any time. NEVER climb underneath a freight car for any reason. If you have to cross a line, assume it could slam into motion any second. Don't climb over the coupler, cross using the handy ladders and walkways at the ends of most cars. If the car you want to cross doesn't have a walkway on the back, cross somewhere else. Don't stand in between cars in a line, or less than twenty feet from the last car in a line. Basically, don't stand ANYWHERE you could be hit if ALL the trains around you started moving at the same time. Don't climb onto the tops of railcars. Don't attempt a big project involving ladders, like an e2e or wholecar, until you are a veteran of A) yards in general and the particular spot you want to try something ambitious at (and those projects are best reserved for chill, lonely layups, not yards). A lot of this sounds pretty anal. You might already have prowled yards not knowing any of this and still not had a problem. The tricky thing is, 9 out of 10 times none of this shit will happen, but if you spend enough time in yards you will personally experience all of these things, and that 1 out of 10 can be fatal if you didn't know in advance. You can also get complacent after several uneventful trips. Don't do it. Be safe in the yards, and tell all your writer friends what you know about this. AIR. This is more of a timing issue than a safety issue. Any car you are about to paint should be quiet underneath, that is, no hissing noise. If the car is hissing steadily from underneath, the train will have a locomotive hooked to it and they are "getting up air", which means they will be leaving soon, so just bomb or do a hollow or save your paint for another line. If a line rolls up near you, stops, and then a huge blast of compressed air is heard, like a giant sneezing, that line just "dynamited" and will be there for a while, long enough to piece at least. Trains need to get up compressed air to release the brakes on each car. It is pumped back from the engine via those hoses you see connecting the cars by the coupler. It takes a while to get up sufficient or "legal" air on a long train. If you were painting a quiet train and then you hear that hiss, finish up quickly, it's gonna roll away soon. The longer the train the more time you have to finish but not by much so just get it done. In yards, sometimes a dead string needs the air bled out of it. If you hear a few distant hisses, one after the other at ten or twenty second intervals, and getting louder each time, get under cover. A brakeman is walking the entire line, letting the air out of each car as he goes trains use radios for about 80% of all communication. There is a system called the block system, in which a moving train can tell whether or not the next block of track is occupied or not by the signal lights. Littlejohn says the blocks are about two miles in length, but out in the boondocks, a block is a lot bigger than two miles. Engineers look out the right side of trains, so the signals to the right are the ones telling him what to do. If the signal is red, it means stop, and stand. If the train gets a "stop but proceed slowly" signal, it will be red with a smaller signal light off to the side and lower. Yellow means "Proceed with caution". Green means "Go ahead." The signals change according to what the trains are doing on the track. If there is a train in the block behind you, he will be getting a yellow "proceed with caution" while you will be getting a "green--clear track ahead" signal thats it for this post ill dig up more later
sorry for the double post but this is called critical mass, a post from 12oz from a member called Cracked Ass..seerious knowledge heed the word Graffiti itself to many who do it is a reckless, rampaging "fuck you" to anyone watching or listening, so the idea of using foresight and intelligence to make life easier for yourself or others is a foreign one. Make no mistake, these are the good old days of freight graffiti, the years everyone in the game will remember most fondly: for their chillness, the names, the styles, the feeling of being part of the next big wave of rolling canvases since the suppression of the NYC subways. Did anyone doing trains in 1980 suspect they had less than ten years till the scene died down to almost nothing? What did it take to kill the New York subways? A bunch of factors converged. A couple of mayors harping on "quality of life" issues. Public ignorance of how the scene worked was a bigger factor than anybody gives it credit for, in my opinion. The public made no distinction between piecers with a vision, like Dondi, and gangs whose thing was busting out subway windows and fucking with passengers. They were all lumped together as one big "bad element", and dealt with by people with that mentality. What will it take to kill the freight scene? "Critical mass", a bunch of factors converging, some of them seemingly unrelated. First of all, it will take years, although I think we have less of those than everyone else thinks. Also, it will be a death by degrees - it's not that there will be a day when nothing will run, it will just be harder to get over, and harder to find a spot where you have time to do more than small stuff. Everything plays a role in achieving critical mass. Painting over numbers on freights. Bombing engines. Leaving cans for workers to trip over. Increased general security after 9/11, especially regarding chemical/hazmat shipments and bulletins to workers to be alert for suspicious persons. Innovations in trespasser detection technology, and a drop in price in this equipment, such that yards get much harder to work with. Continuing capitalist philosophy that property is worth more than people ensures the hiring of more security personnel and the building of more fences, lights, cameras, etc. at layups as well as yards. Pissed off railfans forming watch groups in league with the railroad companies themselves, for a more "community policing" approach to dealing with writers, burglars, and random vandals and trespassers (who, again, are often lumped together as all the same in the eyes of the property owners). Independent companies offering fast turnaround and low cost on buffing/restamping painted cars (this is already happening). The swing vote will be railroad workers when it comes to the life or death of the scene. They are the guys most likely to discover writers or their spots, and they have the power to let it slide or report it and put heat on the spot and the scene. Being nice to workers (in ways that count) is the number one thing any writer can do to delay critical mass. That means staying off the numbers, not painting engines or other RR equipment besides the freight cars, and disposing of your empty cans elsewhere. The empty cans issue is not a "don't litter" thing - it's a safety issue. Workers have to run alongside moving trains and throw a lever to uncouple cars, or mount and dismount moving trains, and they don't need to be landing on round, slippery cans. Every small thing you do that you hear freight heads advising against contributes a little bit toward critical mass. I hear all kinds of excuses. "Well yards out here are already burnt so why not hit engines." You might not notice a difference in security in your area. But you are having your effect. Workers, railfans, management, internet toys are all paying attention. If one worker gets killed tripping over a paint can and falling under a train, that one incident will do a lot of damage, create a lot of anger. If enough company logos on engines disappear beneath pieces, railfans will start banding together with RRs to police spots better. Toys come on the Net and see stupid behavior and copy it, heating up more and more spots from the city to the cuts. They might also pay too little attention to yard/train safety and get killed trying to paint, which could spark some reporter doing a "spotlight" story on kids and freight painting that gets play. (I'm still waiting for a movie or book to drop which blows up the scene by portraying it fictionally.) All of this shit contributes to critical mass. I think some heads secretly want the scene to be much harder in a few years, so they can enjoy their "back in the day" king status, like the subway kings can now. Others, like me, would rather spread the word about how to make it last longer. I'm not one to tell people what to do without offering logical reasons - "you shouldn't hit engines or go over numbers" - I'd rather make people aware of the consequences, and let them make their own decisions. I know I'll do what I can to delay critical mass. I hope others can see their own role and make an informed decision about how to handle their spots and situations.
bump the hell outta the last two posts, word this should be stickied, SUPER important info up there^^^^
now i live in a relatively small town with no yard, but sometimes trains go by and stay for about 30 minutes at his spot. the engine is still running and shit but the thing in usually fucking long so would it be ok to hit that parts that are far away from the driver or should i hit them in the night or something casue its like a long straight away and i mightbe noticeable
hit them everytime theyre there man .. day or night .. and if it a long straight part of track just go bout 10 cars back from the locomotives .. id also recommend following those tracks for a bit if i were you just walk like 10 hours one way and see where that gets yah .. then come back and walk 10 hours the other way another day .. in case there is a yard or a better spot that you may not know about !! peace!
as keenur said just go about 10-20 cars back, the farther back, the safer, and if you arent familiar with trains, you shouldnt get that close to them at night.....also, it was mentioned, that you may want to walk the tracks, good idea, walk the direction it is usually faceing when its stopped, you might just have a lay up or small yard a mile or 2 up the tracks...
are you saying you walk up and ask if you can paint on the train? if they said no wich they probly would but you and everyone else thier would be fucked cuase then they'd have hard security.. luckly for me we have like 4 diffrent layups in little ol small town copenhagen cow wrelsters and pig fuckers..
word. i dont get why people hear about all these kids gettin shifted by cops because of myspace, 12oz, flickr, facebook etc. yet think Bombing Science is invisible to police or something. THINK!!! also, great post hammertime, that applies to yards everywhere. the amount of toys in this city that have baited out the lay-ups just so they can do their shitty hollow, shit handstyle...on one car........with a marker....boo!!
is walking the tracks during the middle of the day just to look at graffiti a bad idea? i've gotten glances and second looks from workers around there but they don't really do anything.
if your there JUST to look for/at graff, maybe if you got a streak, you'll probably be fine, depending on the level of activity near you. That said, you could possibly get a criminal trespass, so if you can, just stay as off the tracks as possible, you know like 5-10 feet away from the base of where the rail rocks stop, at least, that should discourage them from hassleing you
bumpp! they should seriously have like a "graffiti saftey" thread, thats locked so only people can read, and mods can add to when they see suffice