iN PHOTOS: A showcase of railcar graffiti rumbling through Kamloops

Everyday Chris Ens pauses during his cycle to work in Kamloops to take a few photos of the graffiti painted on the CP railcars that rumble through the city and posts them on his Instagram page The Graffiti Express. 

He got the idea several years ago after taking note of the skill involved in the art.

“There’s definitely a lot of effort, skill and work that has gone into it, and a lot of money, the artists are using a lot of paint,” Ens said.

The painted cars travel on rail lines through Canada, the USA and Mexico.

“I like the idea these artists are painting at night in secluded places and their work criss-crosses the continent,” he said.

While graffiti can be often be distasteful, Ens doesn’t see offensive graffiti painted on the cars. Typically, the paintings are creative renderings of a graffiti artist’s unique tag, which identifies them.

It’s illegal to paint on someone else’s property, but Ens said the train companies don’t usually paint over the graffiti.

“Each train has stamps of information that is needed on the train car,” he said. “The graffiti artist will tape over that, then do their painting, then remove the tape. They know not to cover key information on the car so that their art doesn’t get removed.”

Ens’ page has more than 1,500 followers that include graffiti enthusiasts and some of the artists themselves. If he can decipher what a tag is, he puts a hashtag on his post so the artist can find it. Graffiti artists from near and far have reached out to ask him for photos.

“One guy commented, ‘oh, this is neat, I’ve never seen my art by day,’” he said.

“I have an appreciation for their work. We have industrial-looking freight cars going through our city. I feel this art brightens them up.”

To see more of Ens’ photos, check out his Instagram page here.