Are Railfans pro or anti-graffitti on trains? Trainhopping?

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Apparently some Railfans are anti-graffitti & will report graffitti artists, as well as train-hoppers. This is an autism forum so there should be many railfans here. What if your (or general people's) opinion on graffitti on trains

When I see graffiti on a freight car it's usually just a tag (fairly common) & I think it's pretty lame.. but on the rare occasion that it's a well done graffiti mural? That's art & I like seeing it.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

It is not good. I like seeing art, but why on trains? It takes money to clean the trains and the graffiti is sometimes as previews post says lame. Note the whole problem is that graffiti is pretty much art form that is very diverse. I like it when it makes ugly walls look nice. However when it comes to trains - it is illegal, dangerous, and you may end up in jail. So why do it?

And yes trains would look nicer if they had many colors and pictures, but some graffiti is ugly and make the train look horrible.

I dont like it, because the costs for the cleaning are added to the tickets. On grey tunnels or bridges or so i like them if they are really pictures and not only some noobstuff like "Acab" written, or other kiddiepictures.

[Moved from General Autism Discussion to Random Discussion]

I am not really a railfan, but I do find trains interesting. I like the graffitti as long as it doesn't cover up the markings on the cars and it's well-done. I have some rules for graffitti--not on churches, not on private residences (except if you do up your own house), don't cover up important information, etc..

I have talked to some train hoppers. The young ones were nice but I was a bit afraid of the older ones. Sometimes I envy them because they look so free, but then again, I'm extremely fond of plumbing and electricity.

I'm not particularly a railfan, but because I can't drive, the train system is an important means of transport for me.

I think graffiti is very wrong. It's a form of vandalism, which unnecessarily costs us a lot of money. I can't think of it as art. It's just childish behavior. Where I live, it's usually the young trash people who do that sort of thing. In general this metro area has a large population of such trash people, making the whole area quite dangerous. I hear that in general graffiti is a good indicator of the presence of (mostly youth) crime in a given area. To me graffiti is the same as general anti-social behavior (such as violence). Most of the graffiti here is done on the (train) windows by scratching them. They are utterly ugly.

In contrast, in my country (where I was born) the amount of graffiti is far less (pretty much none on the trains). It's so much neater and pleasant. It also feels much safer there as well. So I know how much better it is not to have graffiti on the trains.

What's trainhopping?

I was reading rafians and looking for a post from someone in the UK!
I started seeing a girl on her birthday cus her boyfriend decided to go trainspotting instead of celebrating her birthday!

oh I forgot to say-
I have a friend that is a big fan of trains and he loves to take pic.s of the graffiti, but he also likes to hop trains to vacation and loves the hobo culture so he may not be a "railfan"?
never heard of the term?

I think graffiti is terrible and would support public flogging as punishment for it. Seriously. That or at least force the people to pay to clean it up and do many hours of community service helping to clean it up.Whatever punishment they have for it now is clearly not working.

Supposedly some graffiti is "artistic" and on occasion I've seen some that was really nice but where I live most graffiti I've seen is just people tagging their initials or writing stupid/offensive stuff. Someone even tagged the fire hydrant by my house and I've seen people tag businesses and houses even. It makes it look like you are living in a ghetto.

To the people that do it and think it's good, would you honestly feel that way if you wake up one morning to find that someone tagged your home, business, or other property?

here if someone gets caught graffiting and ends up with community service, and get put at the park district they make them use strong solvents to clean up graffiti!

I don't like it. It's tag and I find tag to be very tacky on anything.

When I worked on the railways there was a spare of graffiti, and it was all done in the same style. Buildings, wagons, coaching stock like DMU's... One did not mind old rusty wagons but these were also painted on newly referbished DMU's so it was a big issue. For around four years even railway staff and passengers were fed up of this. The same graffitti was spread miles across the area of South Wales...
Then one day the BTP (British Transport Police) caught them. To their surprize it was four men in their 50's to 60's (Close to retirement) and they had what must have been 50 spray cans in the boot of their car. They were areested. Turns out I believe three were judges and one was a top lawyer. (Or two were judges and two were top lawyers).
When they were asked why they did it they said they had become bored, and the breaking in and spray painting had been a challenge which had brought excitement to their lives!
Can't argue with that but they really needed a non destructive way to get excitement back!
I do not know what happened after that.

You see. If they had only painted the rusty old wagons, even us railway workers and railway enthusiasts would have said "Carry on!" and even the companies owning them would have turned a blind eye. It was because they were hit so many buildings and decent coaches and locos etc. It was sad!

Tags are usually pretty cool to look at. I love the graffiti I used to see on the train approaching Toronto. There's fences that are basically murals because they're probably too expensive to keep non-decorated. I'd be open to having areas where it is encouraged since it can beautify dilapidated, rundown former industrial spaces. I'd imagine liability might limit the ability to encourage it though.

Taggers deliberately damage necessary and legally required information panels and stencils on the car sides.
Therefore as well as being criminals, taggers totally dis-impress me.

Visible on this car is where the railroad had to spend the time and money to repaint at least some of the legally required information on the car side, https://www.railpictures.net/photo/404086/

Note the orange strips spaced along bottom of car, the taggers who painted over those displayed to the world their totally self-absorbed lack of concern for the safety of people driving at grade crossings.

And probably committed a federal crime by damaging them since the reflective strips are a federal regulation;