This is just cover up after Hamburg got caught building a vampire train
April 30, 2015 6:57 AM   Subscribe

Having trouble getting off the train? Crowds can get in the way, or sometimes an extremely bored bricklayer just seals you in the car.
posted by selfnoise (46 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
such yarn!
quite craftsmanship
very prank
posted by Wolfdog at 7:05 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


see this is what a functioning educational system gets you: the vandals measured the door opening, worked out the stagger pattern and pre-broke the cement blocks so they would fit perfectly.

now imagine what Baltimore would be like if the kids from Frederick Douglas Gymnasium had had an actual education...
posted by ennui.bz at 7:09 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


For the love of God, Montresor, this is my stop!

Also, I definitely remember something along these lines being in one of those Anarchist Cookbook-adjacent text files called 101 WAYS TO GET REVENGE or whatever that my cousin gave to me on a floppy disk in 1995.
posted by griphus at 7:10 AM on April 30, 2015 [40 favorites]


That there is a single offender who should have all the stones alone transported to the siding in Barmbek, keeping the police at least unlikely.

They have ample stones!
posted by bleep at 7:15 AM on April 30, 2015 [5 favorites]


see this is what a functioning educational system gets you

No, this is what you get for lying to kids that if they study hard and learn a skill, there will be a well-paid job for them that will give them a secure and comfortable life. You get gangs of unemployed stonemasons hanging around on street corners in their hoodies and dust masks and making walls where you don't want them.
posted by Naberius at 7:16 AM on April 30, 2015 [54 favorites]


The Cask of Gewurztraminer
posted by Thorzdad at 7:17 AM on April 30, 2015 [8 favorites]


For the love of God, Montresor, this is my stop!

I came here just to make sure that someone had already made that joke.
posted by Ragged Richard at 7:17 AM on April 30, 2015 [13 favorites]


Remove the Wall of Shame! Now build the Wall of Triumph!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:21 AM on April 30, 2015 [7 favorites]


The logistics of transporting the materials and actually installing the wall without anybody stopping you or running out of time because the train is only at the station for so long completely baffle me.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:21 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


It's obviously a comment on the perils of freemasonry.
posted by Rumple at 7:25 AM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]


"You shall not get off here!"
posted by TheLittlePrince at 7:27 AM on April 30, 2015


Glad to know that even in a country with one of the best rail systems in the world, there are still frustrated commuters: "Just when you think you've seen everything as an HVV commuter..."
posted by backseatpilot at 7:28 AM on April 30, 2015


I like the use of expanding foam to ensure no air leakage. These bricklayers aren't getting enough credit for saving the transit system on their heating bills.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 7:38 AM on April 30, 2015


Those pesky Russians are at it again.
posted by waving at 7:41 AM on April 30, 2015



The logistics of transporting the materials and actually installing the wall without anybody stopping you or running out of time because the train is only at the station for so long completely baffle me.


German high precision vandalism, where the walls get built on time.

They glued the blocks together and then spray-foamed around the edge to adhere it. This would have taken very little time, the hardest problem is carting the blocks in which is just a question of manpower... which means, that's right folks: THIS WAS THE WORK OF A GANG!
posted by ennui.bz at 7:45 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


If they ever catch the perpetrator, he'll be permanently bahned from riding again.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 7:56 AM on April 30, 2015 [6 favorites]


The logistics of transporting the materials and actually installing the wall without anybody stopping you or running out of time because the train is only at the station for so long completely baffle me.

Another source says that the vandals installed the brickwork in a rail depot before the train was taken into service, which sounds more plausible than them doing so while it was in service.
posted by acb at 7:56 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I love how the police expresses appreciation for the craftsmanship involved.
posted by ouke at 7:58 AM on April 30, 2015 [9 favorites]


see this is what a functioning educational system gets you: the vandals measured the door opening, worked out the stagger pattern and pre-broke the cement blocks so they would fit perfectly.

Would you expect anything else? It's Germany. Even vandals practice their trade with precision.
posted by nathan_teske at 8:18 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I was hoping that line is an awkward translation of a well-known German aphorism or something.
posted by griphus at 8:31 AM on April 30, 2015


How is that even possibly equal to 12,000 Euro in damage? It looks like blocks and insulation foam.
posted by mochapickle at 8:55 AM on April 30, 2015


I doubt the depot. Drivers check trains before taking them out, and unless Hans was particularly distracted I think that would perhaps be noticed.

There are certainly places and times on the London Underground where I would be fairly confident of being able to spend ten minutes undisturbed and unnoticed on a stationary in-service train. Not a trivial task - so hut ab!
posted by Devonian at 9:00 AM on April 30, 2015


Gotta love that German engineering.
posted by offalark at 9:15 AM on April 30, 2015


I love how the police expresses appreciation for the craftsmanship involved.

Here's the deal; it was a dumb prank and it cost a ton of money to fix. However, it was done really carefully and precisely, and glued so that there was no danger of it falling on some poor rider, so I would like to express my appreciation as well. It's a good prank if no one gets hurt.

They should have left it up and gotten someone to do some nice graffiti on it. That would show those rouge masons!
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:42 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


...of course I meant rogue masons. The masons may have been wearing rouge, for all we know, but the police have not confirmed or denied that yet.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:44 AM on April 30, 2015 [5 favorites]


Yes, they get points for measuring and cutting the blocks to size, but lose points for the expanding foam. That's one of the marks of amateurs, real pros wouldn't have needed it, the blocks and a thin layer of adhesive mortar being all that would be needed.
posted by Blackanvil at 9:55 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


MetaFilter: What looks like a joke is clearly a crime.
posted by bricksNmortar at 10:01 AM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]


I don't think the perp will ever be caught; the investigation has hit a wall.
posted by yoink at 10:01 AM on April 30, 2015 [8 favorites]


Hey! Conductor! Leave those kids alone! All in all it was just another brick in the Bahn.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:14 AM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]


Detectives were blocked from looking into the mayor's whereabouts. One investigator didn't adhere to policy and was railroaded. The mayor is still stonewalling.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:14 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


I heard the exact same thing happened in NYC but they painted big burly dudes in Mets jackets and headphones on it and now no one is sure where it is.
posted by griphus at 10:19 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I know! Vandals, in the railway station, with a trowel
posted by tigrrrlily at 10:53 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


I heard the exact same thing happened in NYC but they painted big burly dudes in Mets jackets and headphones someone put ads on it and now no one is sure where it is.
posted by Smart Dalek at 10:57 AM on April 30, 2015


I know! Vandals, in the railway station, with a trowel

Don't be silly; the Vandals were much further south. Heck, they ended up in North Africa, what would they be doing putting up walls in Berlin?
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:04 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Needs a window.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:12 AM on April 30, 2015


All in all it's just another train with a wall.
posted by Splunge at 11:40 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


So to add some technical notes, Ytong is the original brand name for aerated concrete, which is a fairly lightweight material that can be cut with simple hand tools. I don't know the exact dimensions used here, but the thinnest standard blocks (around 2 inches thick) are just over two kilos each, so the entire wall could weigh as little as 35-40 kilos (or even less if they sliced the blocks into thinner panels).

(Concrete is "betong" in Swedish, so the step from "steam-hardened gas concrete from Yxhult" to "ytong" was pretty short. First introduced around 1930, it was widely used for all kinds of building projects in Europe, especially during the boom in the sixties, until they realized that the alum shale they originally made it from contained uranium, making the blocks a nice source of radioactive gas. They no longer use alum shale...)
posted by effbot at 12:02 PM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]


whenever I see something like this (unexplained, strangely competent vandalism), I like to imagine that it's a protest for something so esoteric and so subtle that no one even knows what it's supposed to be. 100 years from now, some historian will declare in triumph that "the great revolution began with the symbolic bricking up of this train car, know forever as 'the masonry that shook the world.'"
posted by ghostiger at 1:18 PM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


Sorry, mention of ytong breeze blocks immediately triggered this.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:35 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I was hoping that line is an awkward translation of a well-known German aphorism or something.

I found a similar German article that's not behind a paywall - not exactly the same, but it has the quote in question. That line seems to be a surprisingly accurate translation of a straightforward sentence. (For what it's worth, that just looks like a normal thing to say to me, and not a variation on any saying that I know. Caveat - German isn't my native language and I only lived there for a year.)

Apparently the train was in service for an hour and a half before someone informed the conductor! I imagine commuters seeing it, sighing, considering whether it's worth the interruption to their commute to notify someone, and ultimately deciding to just use the other door and get on with it.
posted by mandanza at 3:08 PM on April 30, 2015


How is that even possibly equal to 12,000 Euro in damage? It looks like blocks and insulation foam.

I see you haven't ever had to clean up that foam before.

If i had 12,000 euros, i'd pay someone else to clean it up for me even if it was just a small spill. That shit is IMPOSSIBLE to get off.

When i worked at a fast food joint, i gave a contractor who came in covered in the stuff(including his beard/hair) a bunch of extra free food in solidarity for how crappy that shit is to clean.

It bonds to basically anything that isn't glass better than almost any other glue or generally sticky material i've ever encountered. I'm sure everything it was attached to either has to be sanded or just replaced. everything. it probably ruined the flooring and ceiling material which might be large sheets.
posted by emptythought at 3:24 PM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


I hope that the techniker ist informiert.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:42 PM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]


A Poem is an Underground Wall
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 6:08 PM on April 30, 2015


"What looks like a joke is clearly a crime," said the railway spokeswoman.

Die Mauer muss weg!
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:38 PM on April 30, 2015


"Damage" likely includes lost income from having to take the train out of service. That's easily €12K.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:26 AM on May 1, 2015


That's assuming that they don't have any spare trains for the contingency of a train being temporarily rendered inoperable. The €12k looks a bit like those multi-million-dollar copyright damages of the Napster era, or the astronomical amounts of damage allegedly caused by teenage hackers dialling into government computer systems in the 1980s.
posted by acb at 7:35 AM on May 1, 2015


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