Passenger Trains > Tioga Pass gets more new paint...

While parked in LAUPT's Garden tracks (private car storage), someone cut through the fence and "redecorated" Tioga Pass' brand new paint job for us. It's being removed this morning, and there should be no lasting damage.

After discussing the issue with the Los Angeles Police Department, LA County Sheriff's Department, Amtrak Police, the Union Station security guards, and others, it was generally agreed that it was someone else's responsibility to patrol the area. Amtrak Police did finally take a report, but only after asking during the first phone call "Why are you calling us?"

It's no wonder why America's railroads have so much graffiti.

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So sorry, Norm. We're any other cars "re-painted"?

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We just drove home from Lodi this morning and saw a very long mixed manifest train near the I-5/205 interchange and I commented to Carl that every single car on the train was graffitied----what a shame!! Also, in San Jose, on the rail bridge across highway 280 there is a gigantic RIP TOMMY painted all the way across it. That bridge has razor wire on top. Whomever(s) did this obviously had to do it in the dead of night but clinging to the bridge like Spiderman. It defies description---and how no one ever reported them in the act. This of course has local San Jose Merc columnists wondering just who Tommy is and why he died so young and deserved such a brazen memorial.
C.

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

Now, now...graffiti is social comment and we should not look with disfavor
upon the downtrodden who feel this is their only way to be heard.

The h*** we shouldn't!

As for "Los Angeles Police Department, LA County Sheriff's Department, Amtrak Police,
the Union Station security guards, and others (who) generally agreed that it was someone
else's responsibility to patrol the area," that sounds like they're wimping out and not
facing up to their responsibilities. Maybe they've been counselled in "social consciousness"
and think taking a crime report on graffiti is to denigrate "social comment."

I want to see an environmental impact statement for the amount of VOCs released by taggers painting in the outdoor environment.

Sorry Norm

I guess since no authority wants to respond, if the tagger got dead it would be ok? It would be ok with me.

KR

I think anybody that assumes we all appreciate what they call art when in reality 99.9% is just destruction with a "rattle can" deserves a new vocation,,,,breaking rock in a chain gang! Seriously they cut through a fence in the middle of the nite to do this?

Larry Dodgion
Wilsonville, OR

Gosh, Norm -- I am SO sorry that your beautiful
car got vandalized. And I am absolutely disgusted
at all the police agencies and LAUPT Security who
refused to take any responsibility for keeping the
cars in the garden tracks safe and secure.

I absolutely detest graffiti. It is never ever art.
Just a human version of a male dog lifting his leg
to mark "his" territory. Disgusting.

Nature has a way of sorting some of these folks out...http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Sacramento-high-rise-death-linked-to-graffiti-4400312.php

4451Puff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nature has a way of sorting some of these folks
> out...http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Sacram
> ento-high-rise-death-linked-to-graffiti-4400312.ph
> p


Nature 2, SOB's 0

Norm, aren't you parked about 500 feet from the Twin Towers Jail?

I would assume that the jurisdiction is LA County Sheriff. I don't think it's Amtrak PD because they do not own the garden tracks, and they have no facilities there---correct? If so, then it would fall to the S/O. Hard to believe they argued over a simple vandalism report. It takes about 4 sentences to write one up.

Sorry Norm! Hopefully the newness and smoothness of the new paint on the car will make it easier to get that crap off there!

CarolVoss Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We just drove home from Lodi this morning and saw
> a very long mixed manifest train near the I-5/205
> interchange and I commented to Carl that every
> single car on the train was graffitied----what a
> shame!! Also, in San Jose, on the rail bridge
> across highway 280 there is a gigantic RIP TOMMY
> painted all the way across it. That bridge has
> razor wire on top. Whomever(s) did this obviously
> had to do it in the dead of night but clinging to
> the bridge like Spiderman. It defies
> description---and how no one ever reported them in
> the act. This of course has local San Jose Merc
> columnists wondering just who Tommy is and why he
> died so young and deserved such a brazen
> memorial.
> C.


Lodi? And you did not call or write...Charley

Some years ago I was on the Tamalpais while it was parked in the garden, and we noticed that all the other cars that had been there before we arrived had all their exposed copper wire cut off. The garden is not a safe place for car storage unless the car is (conspicuously) occupied, and even then only if there is some round the clock vigilance. And I know its no longer the LAUPT.

JBWX

My son comments:
Security at the Garden has improved over the years, with the installation of a new fence on the upper street-facing side and a small maintenance facility for Amtrak's various motorized Red Cap carts and baggage tugs. Also, I often see that the police park there to eat lunch or fill out paper work (not that that is any reassurance, but good to know they take a look once in a while). Very sad to see that the Amtrak Police would not make a response to graffiti in a "maintenance facility" of theirs, but it is not that hard to understand that there is little they can do if someone hopped the fence, slid through a hole, or created their own, considering there are no security cameras (other than those perhaps from the Post Office properties). Seems suspicious that nothing was taken from the area. Why bother breaking in to tag a car that can't be seen by anyone? Sad to see what the hoodlums resort to in Downtown LA.
-James C.

When I discovered this crime ( yes, it is against the law!), I first called the Amtrak police since I lease a parking space from them, even though the garden tracks are actually owned by Metro. Their 800 number said they don't handle that - call the LAPD or the Sheriff. LAPD had me on hold for 40 minutes and I gave up. I drove to the other side of the depot and found two deputy sheriffs on the Metrolink detail. They said they only covered Metrolink trains and the platforms used by Metrolink. I encountered two burly, well uniformed security men who said they were private security hired by Metrolink but they too only covered Metrolink. Then I went to front of Union Station and talked with the security people there, also private security but a different brand. They suggested maybe it was the guards for the Mosaic apartments who I had seen checking the gates at the garden. The Mosaic guard called me and said he did check the garden gates every night but he had no jurisdiction there really. On the way back to the garden I encountered two Metro transit policemen, and they were the most helpful of all. They took a report and said they would add that area to their regular patrols as they could. Amtrak's police department called me and said they would send someone by to take a report. On the way back to the garden, I stopped by the intersection of Vignes Street and the little side street that goes into the Post Office building. I noted a homeless fellow and his female companion setting up their tent for the night. I assured him I would be most generous if he reported anything he saw about the garden to me or the LAPD. He seemed glad to be on the "payroll".
Sometimes I feel as if I am a bit skeptical about people and governments accepting their responsibilities, but tonite, the graffiti has been removed, and I hope somebody is watching the Garden.

TIOGA PASS

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We had a rash of this on the Pacific Wilderness operation in Victoria,BC when we first set up shop there. After numerous attempts to work with the local police we finally took another approach. One night we caught 3 of them in the act and my 4 employees on duty "detained" them in a back room of the shop for 36 hours without any attention. We then told them that next time the "waiting period" would be substantially longer and would involve corporal punishment. 2 of my guys were of a size that they could have played linemen in the NFL and they were very convincing.

For the rest of the 2 years we were there we remained trouble free.

Ross Rowland

I guess you can tag cars and hang off bridges to paint them with grafitti but by God don't you dare to be a railfan and take a picture of the bridge or train because you might be a terrorist. Send out the SWAT Team and everyone wants jurisdiction to hang you.

Slimy lowlifes. Hope it cleans up ok. If you could catch who did it. They deserve to be detained and forced to watch you tag there automobile after they clean yours up.

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