The Radic and the Rail Anoraks.
Written by ERN, 1999

Trainspotters. The stereotype is the anorak wearing, hygiene deficient guy who spends hours on the end of a station platform getting excited over rare train numbers and locomotive types. A writer knew that he would find out more when he decided to attend a meeting organised by one such group. The guest speaker was to be an officer from the BTP. This was a chance that couldn't be missed!

Graffiti writers and trainspotters have a common interest in rolling steel. But that's where it ends. And the latter hate the former with an antagonism that is just beginning to surface in the media produced to service the obsession of the train nerd. "Rail" magazine last December did an expose on Graphotism and several mainstream and lesser known periodicals are following "Rail". Sometimes this even results in good quality graf flix worthy of a hardcore mag!

It was the "Southern Electric Group" who had invited the BTP. This is a bunch of anoraks who categorise changes to electric trains that run in the south-east (south of the Thames). They had recently been traumatised after a 1930's electric train only recently restored to its original condition had been modernised overnight by generous application of spray paint. HEAL got another wholecar; the railway preservation world got the jitters. It wasn't a train owned by this group but they are in the lengthy process of restoring another. And if this could happen once.....?

The meeting was held in a room at the Southwick Community Centre near Brighton in December 98. The place was filled with between forty and fifty guys, all white, mostly middle aged, several serving and ex-railwaymen. On one of two trestle tables stood a range of train books for sale. On the other stood the prizes for the raffle. A bottle of white wine, some chocolates, more books on trains. Well exciting...

Then came the copper. A bloke in his early forties and a lowly constable from the Victoria BTP, called in to replace the inspector who had been billed to take part. He apologised for the substitution (but not for his existence) and explained that he wasn't used to public speaking (except when giving evidence in court? "The accused was standing next to the train with a can of spray paint my Lord...")

He then went on to explain the history of the railway police, their independence, their "fortitude" and their plebian status compared to the ranks of the ordinary police forces. While on this subject one of the audience asked why he had never risen above the rank of constable in the whole of his 20 plus year career. It then transpired that he was probably a trainspotter himself, opposed to having to sit an exam that mentioned road traffic acts when he himself was a RAIL copper. (Probably the reason that he was in plain clothes tonight was because he had just had to change his trousers after cummin in them at the sight of some rare train....?) The audience loved him and what he represented. Law and order in this world of anarchy. They laughed when he wanted them to laugh, and clapped spontaneously.

Refreshment time meant a chance of escaping the sweaty room and getting a bevvy but the good citizens were adopting a strictly non-alcoholic policy and queued for tea from an urn. There was still an hour to go....could I stand it?

But this hour brought question time. And graffiti was high on the agenda. Trackside graffiti, graffiti scratched on the glass of train windows, yes, and even in first class(!) and finally the horror of the wholecar, even (they spluttered) a whole train! (Aaagh!) Then came the story of 2-BIL, the preserved train which represented a gentler era when the only graffiti was in chalk on a brick wall. Kept in West Worthing yard and overnight....wrecked! The National Rail Museum was coming to the rescue with a multi-thousand pound grant this time but what if it should happen again?

The cop explained that graf was a problem everywhere, not just on the railways. He tried to sound reassuring. Yes, echoed the chairman of the meeting, London Underground had a problem ten years ago but now they'd cracked it. Those yobs were on the run! But then it transpired that London Underground had BTP graf squad. Connex in Sussex was lucky if it had three BTP officers to cover a vast patch. And the regular police were unlikely to interfere with offences commited on railway property. The bubble of optimism burst.

The cop tried to sound trendy by saying that he tried to "understand" these people. He even grudgingly had admiration for one writer in the Brighton area who had been fearless in any circumstances. "We found him dead one day in a park," said the copper, "and the criminal damage crimewave on the railways halved overnight." A muted "excellent" was hissed by one anorak. But then he hardened again and told a story where a guy he was questioning for trespass spilt scalding coffee down himself when it was pointed out that he had evidence of spray paint on his hands. The coffee was forgotten in the reflex reaction. (Much laughter).

Optimism started again. Perhaps the new trend of scratching windows meant that train painting was declining? Perhaps the electric third rail was scaring vandals away? Perhaps it was just after all an American trend which would soon pass? (Yes, agreed a nerd, his friend was a traindriver on DB (German Rail) and he'd told him that graffiti only ever took place on railways near to allied air bases). It would have been a real pleasure at this point to have distributed half a dozen of the hardest of hardcore mags and put on a rail-orientated graf video. (But I'm not sure the local health authority could have coped with the number of heart related casualties!!!) The cop just said flatly that he'd seen enough trains, painted end to end, and recently, to know that this wasn't a dying trend.

At the end of the evening came some good news. The raffle and admission costs had raised about 80 for the cause of the restoration of their train. It occurred to me then that the railway preservation world; their seventy-odd lines dotted around the UK, worked to a close balance sheet. HEAL had done damage amounting to thousands of pounds in one hit. Imagine if hardcore writers decided that preserved lines would make ideal practice for the real stuff? The new millenium might come in with half the preservation world in ruins, the remainder searching desperately for salvation as steam engines and other vehicles, saved from the scrapheap went down to the spraycan.

Then as I looked at the guys around me I realised that I wouldn't actually give a fuck.