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How long does it take to scrub off graffiti of a train

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class321

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Hello,
I would like to know how long it would take to scrub graffiti off a train.
A kind and helpful forum member @Islineclear3_1 who has helped me try to find class 321427, has now told me that it had a graffiti attack, how long would it take to scrub the graffiti of that train?
Thank you in advance.
 
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skyhigh

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Hello,
I would like to know how long it would take to scrub graffiti off a train.
A kind and helpful forum member @Islineclear3_1 who has helped me try to find class 321427, has now told me that it had a graffiti attack, how long would it take to scrub the graffiti of that train?
Thank you in advance.
How long is a piece of string? Depends how much there is (part of a coach, whole coach, whole unit?), what type of paint (some have anti-vandal coatings that make it easier to remove graffiti), how much need there is for the train to be back in service (if there's plenty of slack in the fleet they might not even start cleaning it straight away etc).

Basically there's not a simple answer :)
 

Journeyman

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Believe it or not, a lot of graffiti vandals are also leaders in the field of paint technology. A BTP officer once told me that many vandals prepare their own paints in an attempt to keep one step ahead of removal techniques. If they devise something that hasn't been encountered before, there's every possibility it'll stay on trains for some time.

I was told of some types of paint/dye/chemical that are particularly hard to shift, but for obvious reasons I'm not naming them here.
 

class321

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How long is a piece of string? Depends how much there is (part of a coach, whole coach, whole unit?), what type of paint (some have anti-vandal coatings that make it easier to remove graffiti), how much need there is for the train to be back in service (if there's plenty of slack in the fleet they might not even start cleaning it straight away etc).

Basically there's not a simple answer :)
I see your point. I didn't specify how much of the train was covered. Thanks for the answer.

Believe it or not, a lot of graffiti vandals are also leaders in the field of paint technology. A BTP officer once told me that many vandals prepare their own paints in an attempt to keep one step ahead of removal techniques. If they devise something that hasn't been encountered before, there's every possibility it'll stay on trains for some time.

I was told of some types of paint/dye/chemical that are particularly hard to shift, but for obvious reasons I'm not naming them here.
That's quite a shame, I don't think greater Anglia is going to bother removing the paint as the 321's are only in service until 31st May 2021.
 

Horizon22

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I see your point. I didn't specify how much of the train was covered. Thanks for the answer.


That's quite a shame, I don't think greater Anglia is going to bother removing the paint as the 321's are only in service until 31st May 2021.

It depends if it is offensive or not, in which case they are required to remove it.
 

furnessvale

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I see your point. I didn't specify how much of the train was covered. Thanks for the answer.


That's quite a shame, I don't think greater Anglia is going to bother removing the paint as the 321's are only in service until 31st May 2021.
No train should ever run with graffiti showing. A roller brush and white paint is sufficient to obliterate their work until a more permanent repair can be made.

Seeing their work on the move is a major objective of these vandals and it should never be accommodated.
 

robert west

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Hello,
I would like to know how long it would take to scrub graffiti off a train.
A kind and helpful forum member @Islineclear3_1 who has helped me try to find class 321427, has now told me that it had a graffiti attack, how long would it take to scrub the graffiti of that train?
Thank you in advance.
321427 on test run this morning and thankfully graffiti free
 

Ladder23

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It’s soaked in a chemical and simply brushed/ agitated and off with a rinse, it’s not actually a massive job.
 

Ladder23

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So I assume it wouldn't take very long to do so (Depending on how much is actually covered in graffiti).
I’ve witnessed removal plenty of times at Bedford when I worked there and it seemed easy enough!
 

Flange Squeal

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No train should ever run with graffiti showing. A roller brush and white paint is sufficient to obliterate their work until a more permanent repair can be made.
The problem is with trains not logistically all able to be berthed overnight in main depots, many have to spend the night berthed in sidings or stations away from them. If they are attacked overnight, the first it’ll generally become apparent is when station staff open the station in the morning, or the driver turns up at the location to prep the train. It’s then either run it in service, or cancel the train. Understandably, the latter option isn’t particularly popular with people trying to then get to work in the morning! Then depending on availability of replacement stock how soon you can get the stock swapped, and if not then the impact withdrawing a unit that’s running in multiple with something else would have on short formations.

You’re absolutely right in what you say - the more they see their tag floating around, the happier they are and more likely to repeat it. But sometimes it’s not always going to be a realistic option for one to not enter service in the morning, particularly as these more remote stabling locations are I’d think statistically where it’s going to occur most? I think sometimes the best that can be expected is get it back to a main depot that night, perhaps through swapping sets with another diagram during the day if required, so it can be tended to as soon as possible without impacting service provision.
 

furnessvale

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The problem is with trains not logistically all able to be berthed overnight in main depots, many have to spend the night berthed in sidings or stations away from them. If they are attacked overnight, the first it’ll generally become apparent is when station staff open the station in the morning, or the driver turns up at the location to prep the train. It’s then either run it in service, or cancel the train. Understandably, the latter option isn’t particularly popular with people trying to then get to work in the morning! Then depending on availability of replacement stock how soon you can get the stock swapped, and if not then the impact withdrawing a unit that’s running in multiple with something else would have on short formations.

You’re absolutely right in what you say - the more they see their tag floating around, the happier they are and more likely to repeat it. But sometimes it’s not always going to be a realistic option for one to not enter service in the morning, particularly as these more remote stabling locations are I’d think statistically where it’s going to occur most? I think sometimes the best that can be expected is get it back to a main depot that night, perhaps through swapping sets with another diagram during the day if required, so it can be tended to as soon as possible without impacting service provision.
All true, which is why my second sentence is important. I am not talking coach painter quality work. A simple rub over with a roller will ruin their night's work and can be done in 5 minutes. Eventually, they become disheartened and go to legal walls etc.
 

Gostav

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All true, which is why my second sentence is important. I am not talking coach painter quality work. A simple rub over with a roller will ruin their night's work and can be done in 5 minutes. Eventually, they become disheartened and go to legal walls etc.
Well, l watched the videos about graffiti on YouTube and they are not work as you think. The group are international and may have high experience on graffiti (i.e. 1UP) and even they don't care how long their graffiti can be keep on the train because they filmed the full action - and make money from their photography albums and videos.

In continental Europe, these groups did even worse, such as prevented the train.
 
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furnessvale

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Well, l watched the videos about graffiti on YouTube and they are not work as you think. The group are international and may have high experience on graffiti (i.e. 1UP) and even they don't care how long their graffiti can be keep on the train because they filmed the full action - and make money from their photography albums and videos.

In continental Europe, these groups did even worse, such as prevented the train.
They DO care about going to jail though. Part of my time within BTP I spent organising and running an anti graffit squad and I successfully put a number behind bars.

Mind you, they do make the job easy. Not many safe crackers make a careful film of their work for use in the prosecution case.
 

Sbahn4

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All true, which is why my second sentence is important. I am not talking coach painter quality work. A simple rub over with a roller will ruin their night's work and can be done in 5 minutes. Eventually, they become disheartened and go to legal walls etc.
isnt just adding another coat of paint that then has to be removed too?
 

zwk500

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isnt just adding another coat of paint that then has to be removed too?
You can choose an appropriate paint that the depot will be expecting and therefore have the appropriate equipment to deal with. It doesn't have to be particularly strong or thick paint.
 

Recessio

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Judging by how crap the GN 313s paintwork looked towards the end, I'm guessing 5 minutes with some sandpaper?
 

Gostav

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They DO care about going to jail though. Part of my time within BTP I spent organising and running an anti graffit squad and I successfully put a number behind bars.

Mind you, they do make the job easy. Not many safe crackers make a careful film of their work for use in the prosecution case.
I think the problem is the punishment did not impress these criminals, see how the Japanese treat them:

from https://ilovegraffiti.de/blog/2013/03/28/interview-daor-in-japan/

INTERVIEW – Daor in Japan [DEUTSCH] 03/2013​


Daor, in retrospect, which of your trips can you do without?

In short, Japan.

Why?

Because I ended up in jail

When was that and what happened?

That was in the fall of 2008. We painted and then it happened. But they didn't catch us painting directly, they caught us two days before we wanted to leave the country and fly.

How long did you stay in Japan?

A month and a half, almost 45 days.

What have you been doing in Japan for so long?

Full throttle, painted almost all subway systems in Japan - Yokohama, Tokyo, Fukooka, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Nara ... We only failed to make three. And the very first subway that we took landed in the newspaper 2 days later with an article with a photo - I cut that out and still have it at home.

Yes, Japanese television reported, we were even able to follow Germany from here at that time (ILG September 2008)

In any case, there were also many other articles, but unfortunately I was only able to find and cut out one.

But what exactly happened then?

We painted there with two boys from Australia, so there were five of us: the two of them, me and Senior plus a friend of mine from Budapest - Ekin. You can certainly imagine what it looked like there, we let it rip. The second subway that we did, we had to go up on a high platform, a kind of elevated train on a bridge, and we had to climb up through the rain pipe. We wore gloves. Mine are kind of torn open and I seem to have left a fingerprint or something on that rain pipe. It is well known that when you enter Japan, your fingerprints are taken and they take a photo of you. They had my fingerprints, but nothing was done. They weren't quite sure.

The cops gathered evidence for over a month from the time the glove was torn. They waited for it to be clearer and then arrested us. They took photos of all the subways, we sometimes walked across a field and so on, then they took our footprints and made plaster casts, recorded the shoe sizes. As is well known, the Japanese also have smaller feet like us, so it was relatively easy to understand everything.

In the end you compared the results with our shoes - they didn't find anything with me, but with Ekin they did.

But how did it come about, how did they find you?

Well, a few days before, when we saw all the photos, we were joking about how funny they are. We painted in Koba and the next day, when the three of us woke up in the hotel later that evening, we just turned on the TV and saw the first news that someone had painted the whole subway. They were completely over the moon. We had Top2Bottoms there, so completely the whole area. Yes, and with this news we joked that we are going to the airport and they will definitely be waiting for us and arrest us!

And that's how it came about?

No worse. Irony of fate, we should have left out such jokes. We didn't even have to go to the airport, they came to our hotel. About 15 plainclothes officers or something. I was just in the hotel elevator, they asked my name. I then asked why they wanted to know and one of them wanted to take my hand right away, but I pushed him back. Then they have already pulled out their ID cards. They handcuffed me and asked where my friends are.

They were fetching beer from a local shop somewhere nearby. They all came back to the hotel one by one and were taken to the police station, always with the sentence: “You know why, you know why!”.

You kept me from day one. The other two were allowed to go back to the hotel. They took everything from us, camera, clothes, shoes. Wasn't that bad either. We always changed our clothes while painting and then threw them away, except for one. Who always wore the same shoes. So nothing else was found with us, and the footprints didn't fit either. We had already sent the photos away and deleted them; I had sent the tapes to my girlfriend beforehand. So they only had this one fingerprint, footprints on one and in my friend's camera they found a photo from the subway, but it was only a picture of the platform.

And what happened to the third member of the group, what did he do?

Senior, against whom they had no evidence, asked if he was willing to conduct a polygraph investigation. Convinced of a bluff, as the police do in Slovakia, he said he had no problem with it. But it wasn't a bluff ... but thought, if he agrees, he certainly has nothing to hide. So they let him into the hotel, albeit under police supervision.

Senior then fled early in the morning through the back exit of the hotel, he found some kind of homeless blanket, threw it over his shoulder and went to the subway. Took the first subway, then a train to southern Japan and from there somehow got through to Korea. There he bought a plane ticket home; friends had sent him money for it.

And how did you go on?

I was then imprisoned for three months, but not really in prison, rather “only” in the precinct. It was crazy, we were constantly on the move, at the crime scenes, the polygraph investigations, millions of interrogations.

The investigation room was an open cell 4.5 meters long and 1.8 meters wide. Under the supervision of police officers at all times. Even the toilet was made of plexiglass, so they also watched me ****, which was a bit uncomfortable, but what the heck. The light was always on overnight, there were no windows, no exits, no bed, we slept on the floor. Like 100 years ago. A great way to end up in psychiatry.
In Japan you get arrested for any nonsense, did you get to know others during this time?

Yes, in any case. There were a few people there who told me why they were arrested. One because he loaded three DVD carriers and sat for 21 days. Another got two weeks for smoking weed on the street. And from the way I listened to it all, it became clear to me that we caused tens of thousands of euros in damage and that I will probably sit there for many years to come and possibly rot. I had no idea what was going to happen to me.

You could partly film during the 3 months, right?

it was problematic, but I was able to film a little bit ..

Did you actually get a lawyer?

Yes, he came at some point, the lawyer. He promised another 7 months, possibly more. Then they will send me home. Not much comfort. When they locked me up, I thought, it doesn't matter, after 48 hours they will have to release me anyway, as is customary in Europe. But there I was sent to a judge after 48 hours, and he gave me another 10 days and broke my psyche. I lost 18 kilos there.

The policemen there behave very decently, not like we do in Slovakia. In Japan they are fair, nobody wants to lie to you, nobody tries any tricks. Later in the process, too, they considered whether or not you helped with the investigation. If you don't cooperate, they can hold you on one case for as long as 11 months.

At the end there was a negotiation with a new lawyer. It was much better, he probably wanted to give his career a boost with this case. It was very much medialized ... that's why. Otherwise I would have just gotten some idiot from the state.

Yes, and that's how it went and I spent 3 months there. Then they kicked us out. I am not allowed to go to Japan for 5 years, the lawyer even told me that I should never come back. He got us out of the ****, but we should never go again, then there would be no more help for us. When the police returned my things to me, they told me to tell the one who fled that he should never be seen in Japan again. So probably no more vacation in Japan ...

And how did you go on then?

Well, over the years they only caught me in Slovakia, abroad there were bad escapes, there were shots in the air, people jumped out of the vents into the street - in Prague, for example. If you want to paint subway, you have to find the right entrance. There are cameras, sensors, security. Very often it doesn't work, but just as often it works. And luck plays an important role. Every now and then the one you go out with gets caught, but not you yourself. Organized escapes usually go wrong anyway because panic breaks out. But in Greece or Spain, for example, we always agreed beforehand that we would stay when the security comes. Unity is strength and there is nothing you can do. As mentioned, they didn't catch me anywhere abroad, just in Japan, but right there. While I was there, I promised my girlfriend that I would never do something like this again. I was really in the bag, they had already made me feel small. The Japanese can break you down mentally.

When I came back I really didn't paint anything for half a year. Then I slowly started bombing the streets again, then trains again, and now the subways as well, just like before. As if nothing happened.

But I just enjoy it. Very many people have no hobby and they waste their lives. Thanks to graffiti, I started to travel, met great people, experienced so much that my brain is unable to store them all. We want to publish a book soon, somehow putting together the stories of all and adding photos.

It's difficult to explain why you can't really stop doing it, right? Especially after such situations in Japan

Yes, that's right. I just can't answer the question of why I paint, and neither can many of my people. In my opinion it has become kind of an addiction. Addicted to travel and adrenaline. It's a hundred percent better than spending your entire ****ty life in Bratislava, drinking with friends on the weekends, doing drugs ... and in the end, spending the same money as me, but you just go to work, for a drink, and then afterwards Home. Damn stereotype! And then all the gossip, how everyone envies me where I've been and what I've seen
 

furnessvale

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I think the problem is the punishment did not impress these criminals,
I can only speak about the criminals I dealt with. None returned to railway proerty to cause criminal damge, preferring to damage other public property instead.

Note the absence of damage to privately owned property which, if caught, could well have earned them a swifter form of punishment.
 

Sbahn4

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I can only speak about the criminals I dealt with. None returned to railway proerty to cause criminal damge, preferring to damage other public property instead.

Note the absence of damage to privately owned property which, if caught, could well have earned them a swifter form of punishment.


i bet some of them did.
 

Turtle

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Bevan Price

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Some paints can be removed by use of chemical solvents. But, you have to be careful. Some solvents (e.g. acetone) are flammable, and others are harmful to your health or the environment.
 

furnessvale

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i bet some of them did.
Possibly. Having changed their tags and style and avoided publicity amongst their peer group, they may have evaided detection but why? Isaw no evidence of this.

However, I can say, that having stopped them in their tracks, the powers that be decided the special team would be disbanded, with the inevitable result.
 

Sbahn4

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Possibly. Having changed their tags and style and avoided publicity amongst their peer group, they may have evaided detection but why? Isaw no evidence of this.

However, I can say, that having stopped them in their tracks, the powers that be decided the special team would be disbanded, with the inevitable result.


why am i not surprised at this.
 
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