Graffiti and tagging in the 1960s and 1970s


H

Homer Jay

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I am currently asssembing and wheathering a few P2K freight car kits. I intend to model the 1960s and 70s era. The question is: would it be prototypical to add graffiti and tags to the cars or were they still "clean" back then? Where can I find photos of freight cars taken in these decades to take as reference?

(and yes, I am aware PM ceased in 1947)
 

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It depends on where the cars went, and if they spent any time where they could be tagged. There has always been some graffiti, but it has increased from an occasional annoyance to nearly every piece of equipment over the course of the last few decades. My best advice is to search online for cars like you have in the time period you want to model, and see how much vandalism was appearant.
 
The widespread of graffilthy on freight cars didn't take place in the US untill early 2000s. Before that it was sporadic at best. 1960s and 70s are decades of still proper colored freight cars. The best source of pictures to prove it are the many colorfull "Morning Sun" albums to start with. New York subways were another matter though. Back in the mid 80s when i came to the States, entire subway trains were sprayed with this crap. It was at the end of that decade when MTA authorities invested in a special laquer for the trains, where during washing the graffiti would literally be washed away. There was graffiti on railroad structures before the 80s. In my book "Americas Colorfull Railroads; The Second Generation" by Don Ball Jr. there is a picture taken in 1960s of a New Haven freight coming over Hell Gate Bridge with graffiti way up on the bridges stone work. First time i actually saw graffiti on regular trains, was in Italy in mid 90s. Shocking; was the least of my reaction, and that was on Italian passenger trains.
 
Most of the chalk marks on cars weren't hobo's they were railroad employees marking various things, such as switching instructions, spotting instructions, inspection info, etc. In the 1980's, every plain bearing car that came through the yard where I worked got an inspection mark by the carmen, where /when/who/OK? Technically it was in lumber crayon, not chalk, but same idea.
 
Thanks a lot for your answers, especially @Kriegslok and @dave1905. ! I will then remove most of the tags on my gondola and just apply some small tags here and there but not all over. That suits me quite well, I like them clean much better than tagged all over as they are nowadays. I still need to figure out how those inspection marks look like.
 
Homer Jay said:
The question is: would it be prototypical to add graffiti and tags to the cars or were they still "clean" back then?
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My recollections are, and they only apply to what I saw here in Texas, are these. Initially in the 60's and early 70's, only about 1 in 20 cars had graffiti, and it was simple single color painted stuff like peace signs, flower power, "Kilroy was here", SRS '65, etc. In the late 70's I started seeing multi-colored "billboard" graffiti, primarily on cars that were coming in from California, usually SP and UP railcars. Slowly it started spreading to some ATSF and BN cars that also visited the West Coast. In the mid-80's it caught on to cars from the Midwest like KCS and MKT and frequency increased to about 1 in 10 or 12 cars. I didn't see many East Coast cars so I don't know when it caught on over there.
One thing back then and it seems to still hold true today, is that tankers are rarely victims to graffiti. I attribute that to the fact that at least here in Texas, they are both loaded and unloaded in secure fenced-in areas. There are some that are tagged, but they are few and far between. And it has only been recently that I see Autoracks tagged; I assume it is for the same reason. Now it seems that 1 in 2 boxcars and covered hoppers are completely covered from end to end. Experienced taggers do not cover reporting marks because they know that the railroads will paint over their "works of art". It's vandalism to me.
 
santafewillie said:
, is that tankers are rarely victims to graffiti.
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I think also their cylindrical shape makes them a little more awkward to tag and the tags would be less visible as it might be more towards the underside. Their may also be more oil/chemical residue on their surface which makes for a poor canvas.
 
Kilroy tags might have been the first tags ever, and not just on RR equipment, yup.
I'm discounting all the ammo tags, of course: "Take this Adolf!," "Good morning Tojo," and "From Winston, with love," etc.
 
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Toolbelt said:
I think also their cylindrical shape makes them a little more awkward to tag and the tags would be less visible as it might be more towards the underside. Their may also be more oil/chemical residue on their surface which makes for a poor canvas.
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Just the other weekend:
IMG_20240623_151346112_HDR.jpg

And it was the only one tank sprayed in the consist. Tanks with graffiti are deffinitely rare sight, probably also because the facilities for their delivery are guarded and fenced off.
 
"J.B.King esq." and "Bozo Texino" are older than Kilroy, by perhaps 50 years. BTW to do JB King correctly, you had to write it without raising the chalk off the car.
 
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