(The following article by Vince Devlin was posted on the Missoulian website on July 5.)
MISSOULA, Mont. — Art, or vandalism?
To Montana Rail Link employees who daily see the often-elaborate graffiti painted on boxcars roll by them in their train yard, it’s a bit of both.
“It’s become more and more prevalent,” says trainmaster Jim Lyons of Missoula, “and the quality has become exponentially better.”
One boxcar features a painting of an elephant with the message, “I am not the elephant man.”
On another, a monster is pictured plucking boxcars off a track. In another part of the yard, there’s a man’s face being stretched down a boxcar by a hand.
“Why on a boxcar?” asks yard foreman Jim Coleman. “For my entertainment, I guess.”
Very few boxcars remain a blank canvas. Much of the graffiti is the work of taggers, people who attach their own logo to buildings, bridges, boxcars and whatever else they find to paint it on. The tags are often difficult to read, at least to the uninitiated. Some are believed to be gang-related, but not all.
“Utah Glue” one appears to say. “Dreds,” reads another. There is “Hype.” “Smack.” “Plot.” “Crise.” “Zerc.” “Pryer.” “STS.”
Near the “STS” tag is an explanation: “State Too State,” it says it stands for.
But most are indecipherable.
Some have three-digit numbers attached to them, which may refer to police scanner codes, or might be a telephone number area code that identifies the tagger’s location.
Virtually all of the artwork/vandalism is done outside Montana.
But the boxcars eventually wind up back here.
“It happens so quickly,” MRL spokeswoman Lynda Frost says. “We’ll get a brand new car in, and you can trust the next time it goes off our system it will come back painted. We have no control over it.”
“I don’t understand a lot of it,” Lyons says. “My take is there are hidden meanings in them, but I would not know what they are. It’s like trying to solve ‘The Da Vinci Code.’ ”
Both Frost and Lyons say it causes problems. First, trains are very dangerous things to be around – boxcars are constantly being moved hither and yon in a train yard, and no sooner does Lyons warn that cars can move incredibly quietly than several roll silently by on a nearby track.
And the taggers paint over vital information about load weights and brake information stenciled on the boxcars.
“Although some have started painting around it,” Lyons says.
If they don’t, railroad companies will re-stamp the information over the artwork.
There is some evidence that a wee bit of the work has been done locally. “Go Griz,” it says on a couple of boxcars, and the messages are signed “Mr. Bass.”
The most impressive Lyons has seen – it was on the Internet, and not in his yard – was a boxcar whose side had been completely covered with a beautiful scene of pandas peering out of a bamboo forest.
Most boxcar graffiti is limited to the lower half of the car, which artists/taggers can reach without the help of a ladder.
“We surely do not want anyone around something that big and heavy who is not trained to be on it,” Lyons says. “I’m not sure the artist is best served having their work on the side of a rail car, anyway.”
Part of the attraction to taggers is that their work becomes a traveling art show that will be seen who knows where. Kansas City? L.A.? Missoula, Mont.?
Boxcar graffiti has been around as long as Lyons can remember, and he spent 25 years with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway before joining Montana Rail Link 2 1/2 years ago.
“It was usually the ‘Kilroy was here’ sort of thing,” Lyons says. “It hasn’t always been at this level.”
There’s still plenty of the former. Someone named “Walt” was not only here, he appears to have been many places by the number of times you can find “Walt was here” painted on boxcars.
“Rest in peace, David,” reads another. “Where have you gone Joe Richardson?” “You shook?”
Some get more involved.
“Why am I so scared? Scared of what I could do next. Painting to have fun,” says a message on one boxcar.
“I spent too much time doing this foolishness,” says another. “My mom tells me so. My mom can’t remember my name. My dad can’t forget my face. All on you then. What a waste.”
Lyons thinks most of the painting goes on while boxcars are awaiting loading or unloading at customer sites, not in train yards. Locomotives are usually untouched because “at a million dollars a pop, they’re kept in more secure locations,” he says.
On a recent tour of the MRL yards in Missoula, there were only a couple of words of profanity found among hundreds of examples of boxcar graffiti.
Some of the work is signed. “The Rambler” and “Pancho of the Frisco” are two Lyons has noticed often over the years.
“All I know,” Lyons says, “is there is a tremendous amount of talented people in this country with a lot of time on their hands.”