Read time: 4 min.

It took me longer than usual to make it out to the rail yard this month, but when I finally did, the wait proved worthwhile. On a dreary afternoon, the graffiti-splashed cars provided a lot of unexpected color! Welcome to this next edition of monthly railcar spotting. Believe it or not, It’s my twenty-fifth!

If you’re new around here, let me give you the scoop on how railcar spotting works. I spend my days at a plastics factory where most of our raw material shows up not by truck, but by rail. That means every month, our yard turns into a rolling gallery as cars from all over the country line up with their sides covered in art.

Between sessions of planning out our production schedule, I try to make time to wander the tracks and see what rolled in. What I bring back here are my favorites: the boldest tags, the most intricate pieces, and the surprises that turn our industrial corner of Anderson into something unexpectedly artistic. I liked both of these first two tags, which shared the same side of a railcar.

Sometimes, the pieces I share are small scrawlings confined to a corner. Other times, they span the entire width of a covered hopper car and turn tons of rolling steel into a moving billboard. This one falls squarely into that second category: I couldn’t begin to tell you what the letters are supposed to spell out, but that hardly matters- its sheer size and bold colors make it impossible to miss!

This piece has clearly been riding the rails for a while since its paint is sun-faded and weather-worn. Even so, I can actually decipher it- “BiGGiE.” What really grabbed me, though, was its color palette. Light blue, dark blue, and mauve aren’t shades I usually see paired together on railcars, and the combination gives the piece a kind of retro quality. The tag might be worn down, but it still stands out.

This car was another I could read: “MIXeR.” Its orange, pink, and black had a desert-sunset vibe to it, like something lifted straight out of the American Southwest or an upgraded room at the Motel 6- your choice. It straddled a line between rugged and flashy as piece that refuses to blend in.

I admit that I’m no graffiti expert. Honestly, the closest I’ve ever come to tagging anything was scribbling my initials on a Keebler cracker with spray cheese! Even so, this one jumped out at me right away. Bold letters spelled out “PAiN AND LOSS,” and the car has been impossible to miss ever since. It’s lingered here for weeks, shuffled from one track to another as new arrivals cycle through. At some point, I probably need to stop admiring the paint job and actually check what’s inside. We get charged if these cars sit around too long!

This last piece -a combination of two- was impossible to miss given the patina of its railcar. Against that backdrop, the colors stood out in bold relief, almost as if the artists had chosen this particular canvas for the contrast it would provide. That final car ended up being the perfect sendoff- the last shot I snapped before heading out of the yard, and it left me on a real high note. For a month that started out gray and dreary, September turned out to be surprisingly colorful. Now I can’t help but look forward to October. I’m curious about what new tags will roll in!