Article: Organised vandals delaying our trains

[ozbob]

From the Herald Sun click here!

Organised vandals delaying our trains

Organised vandals delaying our trains
Article from: Herald Sun

October 29, 2008 12:00am

GRAFFITI vandals are damaging and delaying hundreds of trains a month - and their methods are becoming increasingly brazen.

Connex asset protection officers have turned up a nocturnal gang who set up trestle tables for their gear as they prepared to "graffiti bomb" carriages, and detected interstate and even international offenders.

In recent months, Connex has recorded up to 180 incidents of vandalism a month -- with graffiti top of the list -- damaging and delaying hundreds more services.

Connex spokesman John Rees said vandals who had been nabbed included one from Germany.

"There are certainly networks of these vandals, and they are grandstanders -- we're finding more and more often that when a group is tagging or graffiti 'bombing' a train, there's a 'watchdog', and there's someone who's got a digital camera taking photos," he said.

"Often, they've flown into the city for one night, they get a hire car and find their targets, they hit our trains, and they're already posting it up on internet networks on the way back to the airport."

Graffiti clean-up costs Connex more than $11 million a year. New public transport contracts will see operators fined if they do not clean up damage efficiently.

[ButFli]

It's time for a new approach to managing train graffiti.

Get some artists together and give them the paint to do some top-to-bottoms. Proper pieces. No tags and no nasty-arse throwups. Keep it real and don't cover the windows and doors.

Blaming graffiti for late running trains is taking a cheap shot.