How NOT to Railfan

To be honest, I have been kicked of "railroad property" by the Bourbonnais Police once. In my defense... there's no way to tell where property starts, and where it ends where I was. CN usually loves their "NO TRESPASSING" signs, but as it turns out, there weren't any. There was enough room between the roadways that parallels the track for a bus or two. As it did turn out, after research, ICG used to have it 4 tracks wide there. CN narrowed it down to only 2. So technically, I must have been right on the border line. Either way, whenever I'm there, I'm cautious. Police officer did also say I looked very suspicious. In fact so suspicious, that a couple of months before this incident, me and my dad had driven in on the maintenance gravel roadway. We were just sitting there waiting for a train to see, a good couple of cars lengths away from the tracks. Suddenly, two police cars pulled in behind us. Lights on and both spotlights in the car. It turns out someone called 9-1-1 reporting a car stalled on the tracks... Really? They walked off, never mentioning we were on RR property. I still wonder if that one officer was saying that because I was 15 and not with an adult by the tracks... probably.

Cheers,
Joshua
 
Kris94 said:
So if you smoke weed near RR Props they could arrest you even if you aren't on or near the tracks or other off-limit areas. Not that I do smoke weed.
Click to expand...

Unless you live in California and have at least stubbed your toe recently, for the medical excuse.:hehe:
 
From what I heard this is exactly why the Tehachapi loop area that had been open for decades for viewing has been fenced off. Because some foamer got in a pixxing contest with one of the maintenance foremen. I'm sure he, the foamer was doing something illegal to get the maintenance foreman on him in the first place. But thanks to that foamer's action we can only view the loop from a 1/4 mile distance now.
 
The railroad owns an unmarked swath of land, sometimes greater than 200' distant the tracks.

Being around RR property is dangerous at night, for many other reasons other than tripping and falling, being accosted by criminals, and being looking/suspected of potential sabotage.

Parking/loitering/blocking automobile view/creating a crowd/causing a disturbance ... within a 200' distance of RR crossing, is a law in most States.

Usually a public parking lot (much like the Station Mall & Pedestrian Overpass's in Altoona) where local police actually look the other way to railfan visitors, and choose not to enforce the ordinace: loitering/trespassing laws ... is your safest place to railfan.

At MG Tower it is another whole ball game ... you might get away with railfanning there ... but if you are caught there, in that highly sensitive interlocking ... they can arrest you.
 
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cascaderailroad said:
The railroad owns an unmarked swath of land, sometimes greater than 200' distant the tracks.

Being around RR property is dangerous at night, for many other reasons other than tripping and falling, being accosted by criminals, and being looking/suspected of potential sabotage.

Parking/loitering/blocking automobile view/creating a crowd/causing a disturbance ... within a 200' distance of RR crossing, is a law in most States.

Usually a public parking lot (much like the Station Mall & Pedestrian Overpass's in Altoona) where local police actually look the other way to railfan visitors, and choose not to enforce the ordinace: loitering/trespassing laws ... is your safest place to railfan.

At MG Tower it is another whole ball game ... you might get away with railfanning there ... but if you are caught there, in that highly sensitive interlocking ... they can arrest you.
Click to expand...


You also want to be careful anyway because of flailing metal strapping that can come loose from a load. I saw a line of very expensive cars get whacked pretty badly by a piece of strapping. The freight train was moving along at probably 35-40 mph at that point with the strapping whipping about like a weed whacker, and just like a weed whacker, there was a nice clear path along the ROW from the strapping! When it got to the cars, they were damaged pretty badly. The loose strapping not only whipped the cars, it also whipped up a load of ballast all over the vehicles and anything in its path. I don't blame the railroad in this case because the cars were parked illegally. They were commuters who were too cheap to pay the $1.50 to park at the commuter lot across the street.

Regarding the original post: Even if this character knows the railroad and crew, this is still an idiot thing to do. Suppose someone came along and rear-ended him? Some people don't think beyond the end of their nose sometimes!

John
 
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That guy's idea of a great time railfanning screams, "EPIC FAIL!!!" This sums up how I feel about what he did.
obama-facepalm-1.jpg
 
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Just so people can get an idea where the photog was, here is a link to the crossing, its an industrial spur as you can see, no highspeed trains here.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Respo...near=Granite+City,+Madison,+Illinois&t=h&z=18

I would have probably parked off to the side of the road behind the crossbuck and stood on the roof there but everyone that is actually a railfan (most people here just seem to armchair railfans quick to criticize others) has done something stupid at some point. And even those things are usually pretty mild compared to what some members of the general public do around trains.
 
You know there's a reason why they invented the model/virtural train hobbies...so you don't have idiots like you see in the preceding videos/pics out there in the real world pouring out their idiotness on the railroad industry. :p


I do, however....railfan............on occasion....lol
 
The guy on the bridge is obviously not a railfan.......
and yes enough with the stupid facepalm pictures, your excessive use of facepalm deserves a facepalm....
 
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