Again there are pictures of a sprayed train in Stuttgart. This time there were probably no VfB Ultras at work. And other things are also different.
For sprayers it’s codes, for the uninitiated it’s hieroglyphs. For the federal police and the Go-Ahead transport company concerned, it is primarily a case of property damage: the large graffiti left by unknown sprayers on a train that arrived at Stuttgart Central Station at 7 a.m. on Wednesday morning and was noticed by travelers there.
The police did not say on Wednesday who sprayed the train with large letters and where this happened. Officers from the Stuttgart Federal Police concentrated on photographing the train; in doing so, they complied with a request from their colleagues in the Offenburg inspection department. That’s where the investigation is going on. The strange thing about it: The affected train runs far outside of Offenburg; he came from Geislingen and went back to Geislingen. The press office does not know why the Offenburg inspection was involved in the case.
“Unfortunately there are people who do not respect the property of others”
After various phone calls, one thing is certain: the operator of the affected line MEX 16 to Geislingen (MEX stands for Metropolexpress) is the railway company Go-Ahead. The railcar, which was almost completely sprayed, is a model of the “Flirt” type.
A spokesman for Go-Ahead basically states: “Unfortunately, there are people who do not respect the property of others and who paint, soil or damage our trains.” The transport company makes a considerable effort to keep the trains clean inside and out . The state of Baden-Württemberg, as the customer, is also contractually obliged to do this.
Memories of a painted S-Bahn
“We are trying to remove graffiti from the trains as quickly as possible,” the spokesman continued. However, this is not always possible, since the cleaning crews must have the capacity for this and the vehicle would then be missing for passenger service. Therefore, it is weighed up “whether you can use a painted vehicle in scheduled operation or whether train services may have to be canceled if the use would be unreasonable for our passengers”. It is clear: “Any damage to property, including graffiti, will be reported.”
At the end of March, the case of a completely sprayed S-Bahn car in Stuttgart caused a stir. VfB-Ultras were suspected to be the authors. According to the railway, the car has now been extensively cleaned and put back into service.