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A vandalism case involving paint sprayed onto a large section of the exterior of a Honolulu Authority for Rail Transportation vehicle at HART’s Rail Operations Center is being investigated by police and the agency’s security team.
HART spokesman Bill Brennan said the incident occurred before dawn in the operations and servicing facility of the center, which is located between Leeward Community College and Waipahu High School. Four rail cars are stored in the building.
Security at the facility has been stepped up since the incident, Brennan said, although he declined to provide specifics.
Removal of the paint graffiti has begun and will run through next week, he said. Insurance will pick up the cost of the cleanup.
HART declined requests by news media to photograph the sprayed-over car. “We haven’t provided any pictures to anyone, and we have no desire to give any recognition to the vandals who defaced our property,” Brennan said.
The Rail Operations Center is considered the hub for the upcoming rail line. The $8 billion project is anticipated to be completed no earlier than 2021.
What kind of security do these guys have? There should be someone in that building 24/7, especially with all the special duty HPD cops on the payroll you see sitting around in subsidized SUVs on their smartphones in the construction areas – even when no work is going on.
What do you expect with who is running this show??
I agree, that’s it, Fire Grabby and the rest of management and hire someone competent. Then get them our of the fancy offices and town and move them to a trailer along Kam Hwy where the construction is happening so the they can see what is going on.
Actually the artwork/graffiti was pretty good and can be seen on Hawaii news now. these boyus or girls had real talent and the cars look better than the original painher sidest at least the part showing the island with a setting sun, palm trees and a sailboat nice colors as well. now other sections look like normal graffiti . To bad they did not leave the cars in a field in Kalihi so they could finish the other sides. At least they didn’t look RUSTY LIKE OUR CITY LEADERS AND LAWMAKERS.
The real vandals ARE THE CITY LEADERS AND LAWMAKERS FOR ALLOWING THE RUSTING RAIL PROJECT TO GET AS FAR AS IT HAS. RUSTY THE HATED RAIL WAS A RIPP OFF OF THE HARDWORKING PEOPLE OF OAHU.
Check out the great job the rail taggers did. http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/clip/12551422/giant-elaborate-graffiti-discovered-on-honolulu-rail-car
The tagger really did a great job compared to the low class design HART selected.
Died laughing when Bill Brennan and Pine tried to spin it as a disaster. Uhhhh, you two baboozes failed in your jobs. Need to resign.
According to KHON news they have only one security guard and not even camera’s on site. If the area is fenced in maybe they should have dogs.
Actually HART only hires low class rental cops. Most are off duty prison guards who never show up for work, always calling in sick.
Probably sleeping.
What do you expect for a $10 billion train that hasn’t run for even a mile? Imagine how safe things are going to be when its finally up and running as CADwell hopes.
Here is a recently leaked video of HART’s rail security team in training. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVNSQ72wvlc
These commentors cannot be taken seriously.
Au contraire rookie poster. They are all far more serious than the bozos in charge of rail, all the weak of mind pro railers.
Get used to it. Rail cars attract graffiti like a hooker attracts STDs…
Thought wubbahs supposed to prevent that.
Wubbahs prevent graffiti? Wooooh. Someone tell the HART folks quick. They can put triple-extra large ones over the rail cars.
I am not a rail advocate but gee whiz, these kind of stuff just shows where we are as a society. No respect for anything. Auwe.
Share your sentiments kiragirl, it sure makes you wonder what we’ve become despite sophisticated technologies!
Mahalo.
Got to admit though, it’s a better paint job than the original design :/
What next…graffiti on firetrucks?
Clowns running around on a mini firetruck could do a better job guarding the place. And I’m not talking about Grabby and the HART gang putting out budget fires.
Watch this recently leaked video of HART’s rental cops in training. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVNSQ72wvlc
Please fire the security company that was supposed to protect the rail facilities. They don’t deserve another chance. The guy doing the graffiti had several hours to paint the train. The security company sucks!
LOL, this is just the beginning for these graffiti specialist. These new rail cars are ono targets for these idiots and it’s been mentioned by many anti-railers that graffiti will be splattered all over the trains, pillars, guideways and stations, as it’s been done in Chicago, Detroit and New York.
First person to interrogate should be the guard. Any friends, family should also be suspect. How much do guards make, $9 an hour? They’re not going to risk their lives protecting the toy choo-choo.
“Eh, brah, what you doing there? Oh, what’s with da shiv and paint can. Eh, no boddah me. Keep on spraying. Nice job, brah!”
The painter should be complemented for his excellent art work and exposing the gross incompetence of HART. This is 2016. The cars will be rusty and rat infested by the time rail starts the trials circa 2021. Never understood why the cars were delivered 4 years plus ahead of time. Maybe, in reality he was hired by HART To provide art for the stations, but needed work in the interim. Public found out and HART disowned the work. Looks like more than a single nights work.
Why no photos of the work SA. HNN shows the handiwork.
Just saw it online at HNN and the graffiti is really nice and artistic. Thought it would be swear words followed by Kirk’s name but instead it was a beautiful tropical scene with the tagger’s cryptic name across the side of the train. Whoever did it has serious artistic skills. What is truly pathetic is that this graffiti artist so far is the ONLY one who has shown real talent and capabiltiy when working on the Oahu rail project and unlike Kirk he did it on time and on budget. Kirk and Grabby should have left the mural on the train as the mural would actually provides a potective barrier for the train’s metal skin exterior given it is just sitting in a warehouse exposed to Oahu’s year round humid and corrosive salt-air environment.
Inverse: If you say that the graffiti artist has serious artistic skills, HART should invite him to do free art work in all the stations and have at it, instead of accepting artist rendering and paying big bucks for their art work. The paid art work project for all stations were such a big issue but since the money is drying out, it has’t been mentioned and its probably aborted.
No way. This grafitti artist completely embarrased Kirk, Grabby, Brennan by pulling their pants down and exposing their total lack of security. To invite this guy to do free work on painting rail stations would only be a trick into revealing himself so they could arrest him and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law just to save face.
Jus seen pictures of graffiti…
It looks as though it was PLANNED and executed very well compared to the state and city officials are doing in anything they do!
TV 4 10pm news showed the “art work”……..looked good to me.
I saw it on TV. My first thought is that is was pretty good and must have taken a very long time to complete (the whole car was covered) so they had free run of the place. Translation: security sucks. I imaging all the trains, poles and guide ways will be covered with graffiti before this slug gets running. Will be the blight of all blights. Thanks to crooked caldwell.
Had a look at the photos on HNN. Painter would have needed a ladder or scaffold to do the work. Work extends below platform level to nearly the roof. Must have had some overlay templates. Needed to let background dry before adding detail. Probably done over a weekend during daylight. Needed a lot of spray cans for that much coverage.
Now to add another $1 billion dollars so they can hire 100 security guards.
Proof that our rail is bad for “the future of our keiki.” The keiki hate HART. So stfu, ukuleleBS!
This is a prelude of what is to come with graffiti on rail cars, support columns and in rail stations.
Now you are on to something. How about letting hundreds of graffiti artists paint similar murals all on the metal support structures of Aloha Stadium. These guys do a thorough paint job and provide their own paint. Many of these graffiti artists are like Spiderman that mange to paint highway signs that are very high up in the air and way out of reach. This would save Hawaii taxpayers $40 million in maintenance in providing a protective paint barrier to the ‘magic steel’ that makes up Aloha Stadium.
Yep. Like one giant canvas. Look for artists’ signatures on their work like “Turk92”.
See, even juvenile delinquents know what a bad job HART is doing!
Real rail activist would have set the rail carts on fire… Then what another 3 billion to tax the slaves of Hawaii.
Whoa,fire? That and this graffiti is criminal. That’s how it starts with the KKK. First epithets then fire. All conducted by hooded cowards.
Incompetent even in the basics. When is SA going to do an investigative report on why grabby was fired from his plush Boston transit position? Seems that even in humdrum routine stuff grabby and company are out of their league. What, too busy blogging as ub ub boo, willy boy and company to pay attention to security needs? Fire him and all his ub ub boo cronies.
I can see it now, our toy choo-choo in one weekend will look like the NY subway system rail cars. Yea, cladwell, the naked emperor, with his empty promise of doing rail better, and now his trying to distance himself. Fire him, too!
Ahhh … New York City in he 1970’s. It’s deja vu all over again.
Every subway car in the city had graffiti on it. Even the inside of the cars had it. Some good, some not so good. Local “artists” had contests for the best work. The city had to coat each car with some special mix that allowed the paint to be washed off easily or not stick in the first place.
Get used to it folks. The pillars will be next.
Why is anyone surprised at this? Look at all the mass transit lines on the mainland. Is there even one with no graffiti in stations, on the cars, etc.? If there is anything surprising, it’s that whoever did it did not even wait for construction to de completed.
Looks like yet another eventuality that “HART couldn’t possibly have foreseen” has come to pass.
Sketchy Waipahu.
Why do we have the rail cars now when the train won’t be running until 2024?
So you don’t SCREAM YOUR SCREECHING HEAD OFF, when you see the 2024 sticker price.
I guess they can test out the anti graffiti paint on these cars since they probably will be targets again like you see on rail cars in the mainland.
An inside job?