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Take a break from being depressed that everything you love is being destroyed by slop for a moment and let me tell you about the beautiful symbiotic relationship between graffiti writers, train yard workers, and model train enthusiasts.

This all starts with a secret handshake between writers and yard workers, a mutual understanding that if writers don't leave cans behind, and they don't touch the identifying numbers on the cars, then there's largely no harm. Writers will go to meticulous lengths to respect the latter rule.

If you want to hear more I recommend this video from Living Proof about ACET, a train writer who comes off a bit of an asshole, but for good reason. If the rules aren't respected then the entire train writing culture is affected, and because these trains go everywhere that means nationally.

Model train enthusiasts are another group dedicated to their craft, with some embracing the reality that graffiti is a part of their culture and others rejecting it. Ultimately the hobby is what you make it, and that is largely the shared sentiment - the choice is yours what you do with your yard.

But, because the attention to detail in the model train world is so high, the effects of the writer/yard worker relationship trickle down to the small scale, and even the train hobbyists reflect the rules on their own models.

Many hobbyists even opt to write like writers do (outline -> fill -> outline -> highlight), finding that decals don't provide a realistic result. And to be clear, mostly we're talking about retirees who have dedicated their time off to making accurate scale model trains, never having touched a can.

And to come full circle - because these trains are constantly roaming across the US, and many hobbyists work from real reference photos they've taken, you end up with real pieces on these models. ICHABOD (aka The Rail God), an extremely prolific graffiti writer, ended up in a lot of my searches.