Railfanning

[Head-end View]

JoeLIRR: Did I understand your post right? Did you say that the NASSAU COUNTY Police threatened to arrest you and confiscate your camera while taking photos or video from the public platform at Mineola Station? I'm surprised that the County police would care about this. What charge were they going to arrest you on?

I stood there last summer taking numerous photos of the overpass construction project and nobody even noticed me.

[RRChef]

About 2 weeks ago, I was at the Mineola station around 8pm, sitting in my car in a legal parking spot watching trains and was approached TWICE, first by NCPD and then by LIRRPD. The second time I was asked to leave if I wasn't waiting for someone coming in on a train. I didn't have a camera, I wasn't drawing diagrams, I was just sitting there. But I guess I was perceived as some sort of a threat sitting in my $50,000 SUV with child seats and ski racks and Z100 sticker on the rear window(doesn't Ali Akbar listen to Al Jazeera?)

[JoeLIRR]

The NCPD didn't say exatly what they will charge me on but they said "kid, its illeagal to take pictures of trains/planes since 9-11, if u dont leave NOW I will take you in."
I just got the hell out of there no further ?? asked, thats y I dont know what the exact charge would have been. Tho I beleve they woulda nagged me for loitering on the platform. then would of found some other serous charge that will fit to screw me over for havinh the camera.
I got the hell outathere before any further troubble. I went to another area to watch trains that day, (not on the main)..

[JoeLIRR]

I also forgot the mention that the PO-lice were not in such a good mood. (maby no DONUTS yet) thry also told me that I need to get anotha hobby.

(they had the right to ask me to leave, but like usal abused the jobs by telling me "go get another hobby").

SORRY but U dont talk S!!!T about this hobby.

LONG LIVE RAILROADING!!!!!!!!!!

[jayrmli]

Again, they're doing their job during a very trying time. Give them a break.

If that $50,000 SUV with the Z-100 bumper sticker had a concealed explosive in it, and "no one did anything about it," someone would have hell to pay for it. My guess is it would have been the "grumpy cops at the scene who did nothing." Sad, but unfortunately true.

Jay

[jayrmli]

As for the background check regarding a "railfan's pass," don't you think railroads, law enforcement, or since you mentioned the NRHS as a requirement of this pass, historical societies have more important things to do than this? Trust me, besides the risk of terrorism, there's another reason this wouldn't fly:

Railroads don't want you on their property because of severe risk of injury and or death to you or others. Don't tell me that some won't think this pass would give them access to everything, including private property.

And if you think just cause you're a railfan that you know more than the average Joe, read on...this from the Railpace Hotnews page:

BE CAREFUL WHEN PHOTOGRAPHING TRAINS!: A Pennsylvania man was killed Thursday in Savannah, Wayne County, when he was hit by a car as he attempted to cross a bridge over railroad tracks. Ian Purkiss, 59, of Williamsport, Pa., was struck and killed by a vehicle around 3:52 p.m. while he was photographing trains, police reported. A vehicle traveling south on Hogback Road struck Purkiss who was transported to Newark Wayne Hospital where he was pronounced dead. State Police in Canandaigua are attempting to reconstruct the accident at the scene. Ian Purkiss was a longtime active member of the Central Pa. NRHS. He was a contributor of news photos to Railpace as well. He will be missed! The investigation is ongoing. (Joe Calisi, Sandy Mitchell - posted 4/09)

Now I know, someone will get smart and say he was hit by a car...not a train. Don't think that's ever happened? It has. And I'm sure the railroad has had to deal with lawsuits from the "victim's" family. For that reason alone, don't expect a pass to trespass.

Jay

[Srnumber9]

When I hear of this stuff I always think of a good friend (since passed away) who retired from the Transit Authority, and got a letter from the UN asking him if he'd be willing to work in Tanzania for 6 months helping to straighten out their bus company. He took the job, and was delighted to find out that the Chinese were furnishing the railroads over there with steam locomotives. Being a railfan he went for his camera, and was promptly told he could go to jail for photographing trains. Well, by the letter of the law my friend became an international criminal, because he came home with many pictures.

I think the thing for today is discretion. Don't loiter: get in, get your shot and get out. Leave the Hasselblad and tripod home, bring something that will slip into your pocket. Maybe consider not concentrating on the stations so much, but move out into the countryside where security isn't so tight.

If you're caught, remember: name. rank and serial number only!

My regular diet of railfanning consists of bike rides up to Northport Station at the right time to see a train. I stop and watch the train arrive and depart, and I continue on. I doubt I'll ever have any trouble because I stay on the opposite side of the track from the station, and if the police are in the station, they probably never even see me.

Besides, when you come down to it I'm just a taxpayer out riding his bike.

When I was in college, I shot movies from the front windows of an MU train all the way from Mineola to Huntington. I'm glad I did it then, I wouldn't want to try it today.

Being a native, and still a resident, I do love the LIRR. However since I'm a steam and narrow gauge (especially the Two Footers) fanatic, most of my camera time is spent at museums. Fortunately cameras are still very welcome there.

[emfinite]

In regards to shooting movies out of the front of the train, I've done so twice. Once in January of this year in the "railfan window" of an MU and the other was in February in the cab car of a Patchogue scoot train. I struck up a conversation with the engineer and I just sat up there the whole time in the seat opposite where he sits. I took out my pocket DV cam and sat it on the desk and filmed the whole tirp from Patchogue to Bay Shore. He didn't have any problem with it at all.

Only time I was ever hassled was when I was at Beth Interlocking (yeah, I was trespassing) with my brother. We went there on a Thursday morning around 9am on our bikes. A westbound MU passed and saw us riding up the ballast onto the access road (I didn't have camera, scanner, or LIRR reflective vest in hand) so I was reported to the MTA police. Luckily, I turned my scanner on just in time to hear our descriptions being read over the LIRR frequency and had just enough time to jet out of there without being caught.

There was one other time last August when I was sitting on the access road at Beth waiting for a freight to pass when an LIRR maintenence truck pulled up behind me and parked. The guys were friendly and just said not to go near the third rail. They let me stay there and photograph while they worked and had no problem at all.

I never get hassled at train stations though. I am at Farmingdale station every night, sometimes there is an MTA cop on hand when I am there, while I film NYA coming through.

This could all be that I am 17 years old, white, with blonde hair, but I have heard of other young railfans being hassled before.

Joe

[DutchRailnut]

having a LIRR vest in hand can only put you in deeper Doo-Doo .
it still does not make it legal to tresspas and now posesion of stolen propery would probably be the second charge. (even if it was given to you)

[Mr Met]

I hope to go down to the BS station this week and get some shots of c-3's dm's and de's

[Mr Met]

i am going to try to down size the photo

[Srnumber9]

You have to wonder where all this is going....

A lot of people on and off this forum have a dream that someday we will be seeing LIRR steam rolling out of Riverhead and Oyster Bay. What is the no picture policy going to be then?

There's a certain silliness to it too. In all the descriptions of pre 9/11 terrorist activity, there is no talk of taking pictures! They attended flight school, they rode the target flights several times and there is even talk that some of them went to a topless bar the night before......-yet no taking pictures!

Given this, these guys don't depend on second hand information provided by intelligence gatherers. They go and see it themselves. Probably all the prior research they need is provided by everyday public domain information like schedules and maps.

By the way, is it really illegal to snap a photo of a train these days?

Hey!, my mother in law has a framed photo she took of the Brooklyn Bridge in her den. Does this make her a terrorist? Can I get her arrested?!

[JoeLIRR]

With the hopes of seing a steam train ever run again on the LIRR terrorism is not the big problem, the Problem is the MTA. Also there would some kind a BS regulation wth taking pics.

[Srnumber9]

Oh, I'm not saying that terrorism would be the factor that prevents steam from returning to the LIRR, I'm just saying that the current no pictures policy makes for some interesting possibilities:

It's October 2007, you've just heard number 39 whistle for the crossing headed westbound with the fall foliage excursion from Greenport. You're waiting with a camera on a tripod waiting to catch her crossing the Hashamomuck Pond bridge. Just as she approaches an MTA police car pulls up, the officer gets out and announces "OK!, nothing to see here! Move it along!"

[Paul]

As far as the BIG SUV with child seats and the Z100 sticker on the back glass"
Ivan Trotsky once said "The best way to hide the potential leathality of a nife is to place it between a fork and a spoon." Food for thought.