First, let me say that anyone that disagrees with me should be beaten like a pinata. OK, just kidding.
Let me try to go post by post to clarify what I'm saying...
Otto's Quote:
...you haven't explained how banning amateur photography will stop espionage. No one can stop surveillance...but don't believe for a minute that banning photography makes us more secure.
Anything could be espionage. It's what you do with your surveilance that would consitute espionage. If said photographs get sent someplace else for someone else's use to plan, etc...then it's espionage. It's really just a question of semantics, not a huge difference in opinion here.
0-6-0's quote:
Your reasoning would make me smile if I were a terrorist as you seem quite willing to give up your and my rights.
Not true at all. I have no desire to have someone suddenly tell me that I can't take pictures as I do from time to time, or post them on a website, as I run. For those who don't know, I run a website, Jamestown Area Railfan Page. I currently have somewhere in the area of 600 or so pictures uploaded with about 1000 more I have just been given, including recent pictures of operations of the WNYP. Trust me, I have no wish to have my ability to post pictures or take pictures curtailed. However, I do understand that events from 2001 and forward may change our lives. I understand that to be able to have the freedom to travel unencumbered about the country as I do from time to time, I have to have certain freedoms either limited or taken away, small though they be. These changes are for the greater good of the people of this country, and I don't believe they are designed to take away my larger freedoms, in this case, my ability to travel, whether by plan, train, or automobile.
0-6-0's quote:
Who are you to say that my taking pictures is aimless?...We (railfans)
are by virtue of our comparitively small numbers easy targets for
those who perceive us as some kind of threat. Again I ask you for
proof.
I don't think it's aimless. The public just may. I hope you can gather that from my point above. most people, however, don't understand railroads as we do, and certainly don't like railroads as we do. Any quick check of the events in Kingston recently might back that up. On the WNYP, there are a few people (not too many, but they do exist) that are displeased the railroad came back. Why? Real estate agents told them there'd be no chance of a coal train coming through ever again at 3am. Um.....wrong. So those people don't like railroads. And yes, we are easy targets. Even railfans know there are some people that are complete foamers... and the public may perceive all of us as foamers. You are completely correct.
0-6-0's quote:
I do not know for which RR you work or what postion you have with that company but know this. If the CEO of (you name the road) were to join me trackside, while I was on public property taking pics or just waveing to the crew and he/she asked me to move along, I would respectfully decline.
My point is not that this would happen now. My point is that it very well could happen given a serious terrorist attack on a freight railroad. And I have a greater point to make at the end of this post that relates to 0-6-0's quote here.
0-6-0's quote:
You say RR don,t like to post their schedule? Have you ever seen an Amtrak, NJT, SEPTA orMTA timetable. How could they do business with
out one? What would be a more likely a target. Freight or Passenger.
Good point. I am not arguing that Amtrak, etc, doesn't post their schedules. Of course they do. As do the commuters. As did the Spanish railway that was the victim of an attack. But just take a look at what happened in the south...a derailment that contained only a few cars of Chlorine gas completely disabled an entire area. Now, drop that problem in the middle of a big city. Look at the mess that was caused in Baltimore a few years back with the tunnel fire. The entire city of Baltimore was completely shut down, and foolish people were briefly debating the possibility of rerouting all HazMat shipments away from large cities. They can't of course, but this is my point...imagine a 50 car shipment of propane or Chlorine or (fill in the blank) derailing near a major suburb or downtown someplace. That's going to have a larger effect, I think, than a passenger derialment...though with a smaller loss of life. This is an arguable point.
0-6-0's point:
This" unusual" activity has been going on a long time.
Of course it has, and it will until it's not allowed to. However, many of out greatest pictures, whether photographs or paintings, were commissioned by the railroads it portrayed. This is NOT always the case, of course. Just sometimes. And again, I'm not saying it should stop. I'm saying it could. And I hope you understand that things are vastly different now than they have ever been in this country, even going back to World War II. All it will take is one major attack.
And your point about the other unusual activity is dead on. All of that should have been noticed and reoprted, and sadly, was not.
SRS125's point:
The Ham Radio clubs in NY sit by the Rt90 over passes every holloween nite to make sure that no one is there throwing pumpkins off on to cars or trains below. If there were not there think of how many people would be hurt if something where to happen!!
That's lovely. And perfectly useless for our argument. I'm not suggesting that you or anyone else shouldn't be doing things to stop acts of stupid people. But sitting in a car to provide a presence to prevent acts of mischief or vandalism is not the same thing as taking pictures to support a hobby. And quite honestly, if someone happened to get into a car accident because they clipped (or worse) one of the hammie's cars, the hammies would be liable...so I'm surprised that the police haven't gotten them to move along yet. I didn't know they did that.
The idea that railfans are this huge legion of people preventing ne'erdowells from causing problems is a bit of an exaggeration. This isn;t the case...in large part because there aren't that many of us. Realistically, though, reporting some idiot talking about putting rocks on the rails doesn't make you a nark. It makes you a responsible human being.
SRS125's quote:
I already have a small list of railroads that I stoped reporting problums to or just no longer railfan becuse they gave me a hard time over stupid stuff.
Of course you do. Because they have no reason to believe that you have any idea what you are talking about. And if you attempted to contact them via e-mail, your grammar and spelling would be one reason why. And why do they give you a hard time? Because they want to know why you are taking pictures...or watching....or videoing...because it runs counter to a secure operation. Which is a point I've made before.
njt/mnrrbuff's quote:
To sum it up, take all the pictures you want. The world will never be the same as Sept 10th 2001. I took plenty of pictures today along Septa and did not get punked by authorities.
Excellent. This is how it should be.
My final point...remember that we talking about the MTA banning photography, which is inherently different than snapping pics of an open space...aren't they limiting photography that would also identify places to sabotage what in essence are building foundations, as well as platforms with large, concentrated numbers of people? I have been making points about freight railroads...but to bring it back to 0-6-0's point from long before, if you're asked to stop taking pics on an MTA platform, you'd better stop, and you'd lose that court case easily.
Dave Becker
~Dave Becker
Moderator: Fairbanks-Morse Forum