This photograph was taken at the end of a dirt road in central BC while waiting at the stop sign for one of the ghostly trains that haunt our vast country. Trains and the Graffiti on them have always been fascinating to me. After learning more about the projected messages behind these images and tags I questioned the motivation behind the creation of graffiti on trains. If a lot of graffiti and tags are meant to engage in an ongoing conversation with fellow writers, artists, and crews, can trains be deemed a form of “long distance graffiti phone call?” Artists know that their graffiti will roll away on the tracks yet they still create it. I think that this attests to a more universal message of graffiti and the various subcultures associated with it.

Jeff Ferrell (1998) discusses the conversation between long distance taggers. He writes that, “Freight train graffiti expands this circulation of subcultural images and identities-and expands it so widely that writers may see, appreciate and learn from eachothers art but in fact may never be able to traverse vast geographic distances and get to know eachother.” (Ferrell 594:1998)

Further, in his research of freight train graffiti Ferrell found that taggers were including their city of origin as well as telephone area code with their graffiti. He asserts that this proves their intent for it to be mobile and visible. There was an evident desire for the graffiti to be recognized and associated with their place of origin. Although this practice is illegal it is innovative and intriguing that the subculture has sourced the train as a platform for communication to circulate messages and styles among the larger graffiti community.

Reference

Ferrell, Jeff.

1998 Train Graffitti: subculture, crime, dislocation. Justice Quarterly 15(4): 587-608