Unless you work for the railroad, or have business matters pertaining to the railroad, there's no reason why you'd be granted permission to spend time in a train yard. Needless to say, they aren't doing any organized tours. Once in, you realize the enormity and scale of the trains. Just to be there, and to physically place yourself in the middle of a yard, you get the immediate feeling of being on hallowed ground. That's sounds loaded with sentiment, but every time I went there, I had this overwhelming feeling standing within the canyon of train cars, knowing I shouldn't be there, but thrilled to have the chance to soak it all in. I was completely awestruck each and every time I was there.
I've always associated freight trains with the moving variety that passes by while sitting in your vehicle at a train crossing, and because of this, I tend to think of trains as being noisy. The first impression when you enter a train yard is how quiet it can be. It's easy to be lulled into a state of peaceful complacency, when surrounded by 50 tons of rolling steel sitting stagnant in a train yard waiting to be assigned its next load. That complacency can get you in deep trouble, so it's best to be hyper-aware of your surroundings, and not lose sight of just how dangerous it can be. I made a point to closely follow the move of the writers. Because of my naivety, I knew I'd be better off following directions of those who were much more accustomed to the environment than I was.
In the world of freight trains, "humping" allows for parked trains to be sorted out to different tracks. Train cars that are humped off will quietly run down the track with no engine, and before you know it, your friends and relatives could be showing up at your front door with flowers for your mother. The possibility of getting yourself sliced in half by a moving train is a reality that's hard not to think about while spending time at a yard. It sounds morbid, but you'd be fooling yourself if you didn't buy the hype.
The other cautionary tale, often heard in graffiti circles, is the presence of train yard cops (known as bulls), who have the choice of arresting you or dispensing vigilante justice if they catch you in the act of trespassing their property. There are legendary stories regarding bulls beating the hell out of writers rather than arresting them. I took these stories to heart, and because of my age and physical limitations, I made a point of making paranoia my closest and dearest friend. Despite my frequent visits to the Rouge Yard, I never had the pleasure of running into a bull.
There was another train yard, though, that I went to on three separate occasions, with the sole intent of photographing a finished piece of graffiti by the notorious graffiti writer TURDLE. Each time I went there, the situation turned into a shit-sandwich. My first visit, I was chased by a bull who had spotted me a mile down the track as a train was being unloaded. I would find out later, that while trains were being unloaded of their cargo, it was not an opportune time to be on the tracks. I went back the next day, and this time my unpreparedness forced me to hide in some overgrown grass for nearly two hours, as I waited for the bull to leave his post. Finally, on the third try, I got my picture, and the same bull came after me again, but this time I had the luxury of having a long line of moving trains between us, before I finally got out of the yard. I never went back to that yard again. In hindsight, I find it funny what lengths a photographer will go to, when trying to get what amounted to an uneventful image: but your mind plays funny tricks on you when you fixate on taking a picture.
Of all the disciplines of graffiti I was able to observe as a photographer, the freight train writers garnered the highest amount of respect from where I stood. This is not to say that painting on the streets is somehow less of a risk, or should be viewed as inferior when looking at the overall scene. However, in a city like Detroit, with a crumbled economy, and a decimated police force, there's a less then likely chance of something going wrong if you're painting street-side. There's so much space, and so many walls, that it's near impossible, for the dreadfully shorthanded police, to patrol it properly. This has much to do with the reason there's such an overflow of visiting writers from around the country, who see the wide-open spaces of Detroit as a "Field of Dreams" for graffiti art.
To become a freight king requires a unique breed of writer, who's willing to take the necessary risks for the added benefits of painting freights. Because painting freights require a special skill set for writers wanting to get up, freight writers will spend years studying the schedules and routines of rail workers and train yard security, and familiarize themselves with the mechanics of how a train yard operates, and what is involved in the logistics of moving trains from track to track as they are being set up to carry a load. Being ill-informed can not only get you in serious trouble, but worse yet, can get you seriously hurt, or dead, if your not a student of the yard.
Not long after my last visit to the Rouge yard, they installed security cameras along the line. Needless to say, there was to be no memo or warning regarding there installation. I had heard through a third party, that after the cameras were installed, a writer was caught by one of the train yard bulls, who managed to put him in the hospital he was so badly beaten up. I was relieved that it wasn't me, but also sad that my visits to the train yard were now over. I had taken hundreds of amazing images, but realized that I was rolling the dice each and every time I went there. The fate of the young writer who was not so fortunate, was a reminder of just how dangerous it could be.
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