Vandalized Sound Transit rail car to move to Tukwila Station

Sound Transit has decided to move its recently vandalized train to the confines of Tukwila Station, after the rail car was spray-painted over the Fourth of July weekend.

The rail car will be stored in the elevated station — about seven stories above the ground — instead of its earlier spot next to southbound Interstate 5.

"It's a more easily secured space," transit spokesman Bruce Gray said this afternoon. Gates already exist at the main station's entrance and stairways, he said. Security personnel will keep watch at the station overnight, Gray said.

The crime was reported early Saturday on an elevated track just north of the Southcenter exit.

Near the site, an agile person would require only a few seconds to climb a 5-½-foot chain-link fence — which was bent at the top — to reach a track segment that's level with a road.

The taggers left several clues to their identity. After the tagging was discovered, the train was moved south to the high-rise station. It cost about $1,000 to remove the large paint spots.

The Link light-rail line, to open next year, is patrolled by an unarmed security firm, Securitas USA. The company recently won a three-year, $14 million contract renewal to monitor buses, trains, parking lots and Sound Transit headquarters in Union Station. The vandals struck while Securitas personnel were at another location.

Agency officials have said they will review security procedures. The topic might come up as part of Sound Transit Chief Executive Officer Joni Earl's biweekly report at Thursday's transit-board meeting, said Gray.

"Anytime you have a problem, whether it's your house or something else, you take a look at what you can do differently," said Claudia Thomas, the transit board's vice chair and a City Council member in Lakewood, Pierce County.

Trains normally are kept in a secure maintenance base at Sodo. But this rail car is being stored in the South End for upcoming tests in Rainier Valley, and construction work at Beacon Hill blocks its return to the base.

The spot along I-5 was a prime location to promote Link, because 131,000 cars per weekday pass the southbound lanes.

But one motorist, Mike Muller, says he complained that the train was a sitting duck for taggers but was brushed off.

Train graffiti is rare on Vancouver, B.C.'s SkyTrain line, said spokesman Ken Hardie. If trains aren't in the base, they are stored behind gates in stations or tunnels, he said. Lasers and footstep-activated alarms, installed to prevent trains from hitting people, also deter vandals. And where the tracks meet access roads, fences are topped by barbed wire, he said. "It's well-nigh impossible, unless you're Batman," to deface the trains, Hardie said.

Tri-Met in Portland reports a few cases a day of minor vandalism, mainly inside the trains.

National statistics don't exist, but industry practice is to remove spray paint promptly to deter its spread.

New York famously waged a campaign in the 1980s to clean up rampant train graffiti, even to the point of temporarily taking cars out of service — with the goal of reducing crime by making transit look and feel safer.

Tipsters may call Tukwila police at 206-431-3689.

Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com