Inside the fight against graffiti on trains across the UK’s railways

We’ve all been there, haven’t we?

You’re sat there, minding your business on a platform, waiting for your train to pull up when suddenly it arrives – covered in tags, markings and signatures.

Some people are unbothered about it, while others have said it makes them ‘feel like they’re in Gotham city’ or branded it as a ‘complete eyesore’ which leaves people feeling unsafe.

It’s a growing problem. Last month, Transport for London said it was removing about 3,000 pieces of graffiti each week on the Central and Bakerloo Tube lines alone.

While the UK railways have other issues – delays, cancellations and an ageing infrastructure being some of them – graffiti is also continuing to plague train bosses.

So, how are they tackling the problem? Metro was invited along to a train depot to see how staff at South Western Railway – the UK’s fourth busiest operator – clean the trains in London.

Despite the UK’s scorching heatwave this week, the grunt work continues at the SWR Wimbledon maintenance depot around the clock, 365 days a year.

Temperatures soared to 30°C as we entered the depot area on Thursday as workers continue to clean up the trains ahead of the Wimbledon final matches this week.

Inside the covered area, nicknamed ‘the shed,’ a group of men were seen working away in protective suits, with the heady smell of cleaning chemicals filling the air.

‘A rise in graffiti’

As punters were enjoying tennis matches less than two miles away, train presentation operative Jeff Asiedu explained how his stomach sinks every time a graffitied train rolls in.

‘It’s been a tough one because today is very, very hot. But we got on with it and make it look good,’ he said.

‘Sometimes you get very serious graffiti from top to bottom. Most of the time, it is not easy to remove it, but we try as much as we can to get it done.’

When a train rolls in covered in graffiti, Jeff just wants it ‘off the unit’ as quickly as possible.

He added the graffiti levels tend to peak when kids are on their holidays and get bored at home.

‘After you’ve got it done, you feel so proud – you get a buzz. The end result is very important,’ he said. ‘It is a team effort.’

In recent years, their task has become even harder with new, higher-quality spray paints. Scrubbing one carriage clean of tags usually takes about an hour, and if all carriages are affected, it can take an entire day.

How it works is the team sprays on a chemical that breaks down the paint. It is so strong they have to be careful not to corrode the body of the train.

Charlie Hatcher, the head of train presentation at SWR, told Metro they work on small sections at a time, making it a fairly significant task.

‘Workers have to wear safety equipment too, which, on a day like this when it’s 30 degrees, makes it an even more laborious task for them,’ Charlie added.

Other train cleaning leads across the UK have told him at meetings that they have seen a spike in graffiti across the whole country in recent months too.

‘We’re seeing that spike and we need to keep on top of it, and we need to keep the graffiti levels down, and we are going to try to keep cleaning that graffiti as regularly as possible,’ Charlie said.

‘We will be bringing extra security measures in place, such as CCTV cameras and extra security, to make sure we limit that from the very start.’

Graffiti painters face severe risks when breaking into the tracks, including the dangerous, high-voltage third rail carrying 750 volts, which can easily kill.

A sinister type of vandalism called acid etching has also recently emerged, where a corrosive acid pen is used to edge tags on the train’s interior surfaces.

Contact with a fresh etching before the substance is cleaned could cause skin irritation and even burns.

South Western Railway was the first train company to be renationalised in May. Now that it is back under public ownership, vandalism will directly cost the taxpayer too, the firm said.

This is because the renationalised train companies will be owned and run by a government-linked company instead of a privately owned firm maximising profits and paying dividends to its shareholders.

The messiest fans – Royal Ascot or Wimbledon?

South Western Railway, which saw 165.6 million passengers between April 2024 and March 2025, faces its busiest season in the summer as thousands travel to the iconic British summer events.

It recorded around 80,000 more people during Royal Ascot in June, while the Wimbledon Championships saw an extra 100,000 passengers. Twickenham rugby games meanwhile add an extra 40,000 passengers.

But which fans leave the biggest mess behind?

Comparing the level of mess was ‘tricky’ as there are also music festival passengers to consider, Charlie said.

‘I would say Ascot has a larger proportion of prosecco bottles and beer cans than you might see for the Wimbledon goers, who are maybe saving their Pimm’s for a bit later when they get to the tennis,’ he said.

‘But we do see definitely a heightened level of rubbish and other impacts on the train during the Ascot week and during Twickenham for the rugby matches during the autumn and Six Nations as well.’

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