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Critical Mass: Death of the Freight Scene


Cracked Ass

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Originally posted by Graff Jesus

luckilly not in my new spot, but other yards i was doing 3 years ago or so did. do you have a rail police station on site at your yard....? it's no fun ducking from bulls and workers on mopeds/golf carts.

 

about the cans too...if you're really concerned go around one weekend in the day and just pick up all the cans you find in trash bags. i did that once.

 

the yard i bench at, they have a control tower like airports, and lights like a football field but that's all

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same with the yards in toledo. We get most of the trains transported from chicago, detroit, or cleveland( It's relatively easy spotting a place to bench). But, the security is a different story, it's basically a concentration camp, but everyday theres new fliks, so paint with caution...

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Guest BOSTONIAN

VERY INFORMATIVE THREAD. CLEANING UP YOUR YARD, NOT TELLING ANYONE ABOUT YOUR SPOT AND MOST IMPORANTLY, SAFETY FIRST PEOPLE. DONT GO GETTING YOUR SKULL CRUSHED AND THEN BLOWING UP YOUR YARD AND RUIN IT FOR OTHERS

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Re: CRITIAL MASS

 

Originally posted by 2TRU

THATS A FUCKN GOOD ASSESMENT OF HOW THE NETWORKS RUN

 

COUPLE OF QUESTIONS:

 

ARE FREIGHTS WERE ITS AT IN THE US IM GUESSING?

 

ARE THER ANY METRO NETWORKS THAT GET DONE HEAPS?

that and walls are still hot, and have been hot for years.

some of the smaller networks do, it depends.

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KEEP UR SPOTS CLEAN!

 

in the begining of this thread a few people were talking about how shitty it is when people leave their cans behind...i have alot of respect for the writers that carry out what they carry in...i always leave the yard with a pack full of cans, even when i only enter the yard with a few. please keep ur spots clean. graff is supposed to look good, and it wont look as good if the area is filled with litter. KEEP UR SPOTS CLEAN!

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  • 1 month later...
  • 5 weeks later...
Originally posted by Cracked Ass

I doubt that the people I most want to reach with this thread care much about history or the way events converge to create change. 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. Despite this, I'm going to throw my thoughts out there for people to chew on. This isn't a sermon, just something to think about.

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.

needed a second post .... best advice i have to add is keep your yard on lock... dont know em... check em. period. scool em on the rules of your yard.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Talk about death of the freight scene. The days of 5-7 upfe (blues, yellow and whites) in 2 paintable spots seems is to be over. Then the cyro have disappeared. The paper plant spots have closed for the most part. The new beer lay-up with all its promise has been dissapointing. What is next? The only thing that seems to be improving are the rock carrying coal cars, big fuckin deal. This really sucks. I hope the rest of you are having these same problems. I really do!!!!!! I guess coal cars it isssssss!!!!!!!!!! FUCK U HELEX with all your upfe's. J/K you have extra living space for a depressed Freight Stomperrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :idea:

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i've been wondering about paper-plant spots, too. does anyone have any idea why they seem to have dried up throughout the country in such a short period of time. in talking with different writers from all over, it seems like it's been a common theme lately. any ideas?

 

at the very least, we all need to start recycling like crazy to bring them back.

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The paper industry in this country is getting hammered for the same reason all of manufacturing and a lot of other industries are getting hammered: it's a global economy, and it costs less for companies to make shit in other countries, because they can pay a lousy wage and wreck the environment without penalty.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I'm from london so I got a completely different mentality on this as no-one does frieghts here but yeah I still got sympathy:

 

1) the scene should never 'die'.... it might get harder or you'll have less time but the dedicated will still smack it, you just have to be more inventive... In our underground tube network its hard to get longer than 20 -30 mins in a yard but they still get smashed week in week out... you just evolve... double fences, razor wire, security camera's, gaurds and lasers all get avoided by people with far more committment than me!

 

2) never underestimate the damage of tagging to the entry points to yards or leaving big holes chopped in fences when you could climb them... When I lived in another city in england the yards got roasted because people were doing street damage on the way out..

 

3) avoid late-nighters if you can... get 'em when their paints are down - if its dark by 6pm then do it then and be home for dinner with the missus! (although it might be different if frieght yards have people uncouping the frieghts - I'm not to clued up on that).

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fuck fellaz it sound pretty fuckin tough to hit freights where u all live i should really consider myself lucky !! coz where i live here in oz its freakin 2 easy to paint! well im not gonna get 2 cocky coz who knows when ya gunna get done! ne ways the freights come in here like 2 =3 timesd a week and just sit in a layup whith no fences no securiety nuttin no shit! and the layup is pretty dead no traffick and only 1 street 2 get 2 it and a drain right next 2 it for easy evauation i dont think evan half of these net toys could get caught , there pretty much just sittin ducks for me and my boys but theses days im hittin em solo less dramas ! how big r the cars ova there ??? and is just the red hot in ur city or all ova the u.s?? peace keeps killin shit boyz...!!!!

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
Originally posted by bear

i've been wondering about paper-plant spots, too. does anyone have any idea why they seem to have dried up throughout the country in such a short period of time. in talking with different writers from all over, it seems like it's been a common theme lately. any ideas?

 

at the very least, we all need to start recycling like crazy to bring them back.

 

My paper plant spot is dry as a bone too!

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

the reason certain newsprint boxcar layups dryup is because the demand for papers is not there at that time,

 

Around these parts it seems the layups fill up nice & lovely when there is going to be a huge sales in the newspapers- mostly around the times of Back to school, Halloween, Thanksgiving, & threw the Christmas season till the new year.

Then it's back to fewers cars laid up & an empty yard.

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