Read time: 4 min.

I work at a plastics factory that receives most of its material by rail. Every month, I go out to the yard and share the best graffiti I find. Welcome to the fifteenth edition of railcar spotting! I’ve got six photos to add to the collection.

I like to kick off my railcar spotting sessions early in the month by snapping photos of the cars parking facing the plant. I walk the length of a football field from my car to my office, so there’s usually plenty to capture. Unfortunately, October was different. None of the cars facing the factory had any interesting graffiti! I waited a couple of weeks with no luck before I decided to head into the yard for a closer look. The purple and blue of this WARD car caught my eye right away. 

I spotted this VeDGe car nearby and I couldn’t help but admire its fat letters and bold strokes. It might not have stood out as much in a different month, but October was a little slow for colorful cars. Maintenance issues shut the yard down for a while, so we didn’t get as many eye-catching shipments as I’d hoped for.

October means Halloween for people enraptured by “spooky season.” This FEAR God car, complete with a floating grim reaper, was a perfect seasonal find! I don’t come across many railcars dressed up for tricks and treats, but I was still excited to stumble upon this piece- even if it leans more cute than creepy. 

Whether it says METH or MECH, this piece definitely leans more creepy than cute. The jagged, dripping letters immediately made me think of some kind of unsettling potion oozing down the side of a beaker. There’s something eerie about it, like it belongs in a mad scientist’s lab instead of on the side of a covered hopper car full of pellets.

It takes a complicated system of tubes and hoses to empty out a railcar, and I’m sad to say I couldn’t fit the last two cars completely in frame thanks to our unloading equipment. Still, my favorite part of the first was this canister-vauum-looking robot. For reasons known only to the artist, its badge reads SIZE. I don’t know what that means, but I can completely get behind it.

The last car I spotted in October was hands down my favorite. Remember the movie Castaway? This car features Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland, the stranded FedEx employee who befriends a volleyball on a desert isle. In the graffiti, the disheveled Nolan is desperately calling out for Wilson in the middle of the ocean after a storm blew him away.

The Castaway car was a random nod to a random movie. Pieces like it make my quick railyard expeditions rewarding! Finding unexpected gems reminds me why I love railcar spotting: there’s always something unique waiting to be discovered! We’ll be slowing down for the end of the year soon, but I’m stoked to see if November brings anything intriguing to the yard.