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I
hear the train a-comin’
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| Freight-train graffiti has received a considerable amount of attention over the past twenty years, within both the graffiti scene and greater society. However, an earlier form of underground art that uses trains as its canvas has been largely overlooked despite its continued prevalence. Hobo monikers, or boxcar art, are one of the earliest forms of graffiti. The modern practice of tagging train cars originated in the early 1900s; one of the first taggers was a locomotive engineer who tagged thousands of cars with his moniker “Bozo Texino.” The practice evolved out of an underground hobo language consisting of symbols designed to aid those living on the road and hopping trains, a language wherein a locomotive drawn on a wall indicated an easy place to catch a train without being arrested and a “U”-like symbol would indicate a place where one could camp. As the hobo culture was driven further underground after its most visible period during the Great Depression, the use of hobo symbols largely disappeared. Hobo monikers remained, however, as hobos marked the sides of train cars on which they had ridden. Contemporary boxcar art is a mix of drawings made by hobos and railroad workers. Boxcar art is different from graffiti in that it replaces spray paint with chalk or wax pencils and consists of single color drawings rather than multi-color murals. The actual markings vary from artist to artist—some just sign their name while others draw elaborate pictures that include poetry. Despite the railroad industry’s claims that train hopping ended in the 1930s, both train riding and boxcar art continue to exist as part of a distinct subculture. A2P
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INTERVIEWS COLUMNS PLUS: Art: |
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