Also motivating this kind of over-the-top penalty is San Bernardino's substantial crime rate and that city's ongoing fiscal problems. It was in municipal bankruptcy from 2012 to 2017, and still has problems with covering (surprise!) employee pensions. Lotsa trouble there.
charlie hebdo Paul Milenkovic I heard something that a photo ban on Metro North in NYC had something to do with preventing pictures from circulating of prominent persons waiting for the train with their mistresses? Haha. Anyone that careless deserves to be caught.
Paul Milenkovic I heard something that a photo ban on Metro North in NYC had something to do with preventing pictures from circulating of prominent persons waiting for the train with their mistresses?
I heard something that a photo ban on Metro North in NYC had something to do with preventing pictures from circulating of prominent persons waiting for the train with their mistresses?
Haha. Anyone that careless deserves to be caught.
The story I heard firsthand from New Jersey Transit police in Newark Penn Station was that photography on station platforms was 'banned' because divorce attorneys had been setting up to record 'indiscretions'.
When I explained why I had a camera in the station, one of the officers laughed and said 'you can take all the pictures of trains you want, as long as there aren't specific people in them.' I had no further difficulty taking railfan pictures in Newark station -- I think 'the word was given'.
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And how! But when you come right down to it the prominent ones don't ride Metro-North, they take limos, taxis, or Uber.
Metro-North's for the commoners, and nobody cares about their cheatin' hearts, except those directly involved!
And then there is the ongoing dispute between METRA & UP
https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/commuterregional/metra-up-in-breach-of-contract/
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
CMStPnPThat might be pandemic related.
K. P. HarrierUnless you have a ticket or pass, you could be fined $2500 for being on a train station or stop platform.
That might be pandemic related. For example inside Dallas Union Station is now off limits to anyone without an Amtrak Ticket or it was the last time I used it.
Not sure if this newly posted(?) signage is related but; in today's Newswire There is a notation that the California Transit Authority(?name?) is going to start a 'crackdown' on trespassing.
What ever that means....After all it IS California.. They seem to break hardest on simple stuff like too many in a bar, and wearing of face diapers
K. P. Harrier Some believe riders deserve privacy on a platform. But a $2500 fine seems an overkill, but it sure gets the point across ... Will chased away would-be customers ever, ever return?
I tend to suspect the reason might be more of a hybrid between your and overmod's rationale.
Very little happens for no reason whatsoever. When I lived in Southern California, public transportation terminals were a "shooting gallery" for homeless to panhandle the would-be patrons of the service.
Perhaps these signs are intended as "teeth" needed to enforce a cocoon or safe zone for the transportation's customers? Now a days with stimulus checks coming out every so often, it might be surprising just who has $1,200 in their pockets (street bum: "wow man, yesterday I got my stimulus check, and today the Amtrak police took it away from me, and gave me this citation")
I'd be surprised if well heeled- well behaved photographers were given "the bums rush" over these signs. Please keep us posted if you do document any actual enforcement.
Here in the Richmond area there's two Amtrak stations and one "semi-station," for lack of a better term.
The two stations mentioned are the old C&O station in downtown Richmond and the Staples Mill Road "bus stop," as it's called by those who remember the grand old days of the RF&P Broad Street station. At both it's ticketed passengers only on the platforms and has been for years. No big deal and no problems. If you want to railfan the Staples Mill Road station there's no issue, there's a large patio with a good view of the tracks, but unless you walk there you're going to wind up paying for parking if you're there more than an hour.
At the old C&O station the tracks are all elevated so unless you're on the platforms there's nothing to be seen there anyway.
The "semi-station" is up in Ashland. Amtrack stops there but the old station is town-owned and a visitor center now. No-one cares where you hang out up there, although there is a two-hour limit on parking. On any given weekend there's usually railfans to be seen photographing and train watching.
Sounds to me like San Bernardino's trying to scare away the riff-raff or make a few quick bucks, take your pick.
This was, in fact, covered in a couple of earlier posts.
There is, and has been in California for many years, the idea of using exaggerated state penalties to induce or compel 'wanted behavior'. $271 fines for driving in HOV lanes is one example; extension of that $271, plus arrest, for failing to show valid propusk on the light rail is another.
Now California has an extensive 'homeless' problem, and difficulty discriminating panhandling from exercising personal rights. Some of them actually sneak up on station roofs and set up 'shelters' there. So what better way to let the blackshirts summarily haul someone off to the pokey than to make 'being in the station without a ticket' an offense of some actionable kind... one that of course doesn't limit the rights of law-abiding, carefully fare-validating riders.
Of course collateral damage includes railfans, but they aren't contributing to the maintenance and upkeep of the agency's private property, so (if the law has to be applied to everyone, like poorly-crafted drug laws lead to suspension of schoolchildren for aspirin)... oops!
In practice I have been assured that enforcement against railfans won't be made. But we all know how many nuts and busybodies make it their business to complain, and I suspect that with $2500 and perhaps an easy notch on quota compared to rousting a 'free inhabitant' you might see some unpleasantness, depending on the AQ of individual enforcement officials -- perhaps themselves suffering from the kinds of 'police' mindset most deserving of defundment.
Unless you have a ticket or pass, you could be fined $2500 for being on a train station or stop platform.
So warns a new good-sized sign on the San Bernardino, Calif. depot exterior wall, a stop that serves Amtrak passenger and Metrolink (Southern California Regional Rail Authority) commuter trains.
I guess America has radically charged for the worse. One railroader that was told of the news of the sign said, 'Going to depots to watch passenger trains is as American as apple pie.' Such news is so incredibly sad ... Especially scary in view of the implication for one's wallet or purse ...
Of course, in forum fashion, there is always an alterate opinion. Some believe riders deserve privacy on a platform. But a $2500 fine seems an overkill, but it sure gets the point across ... Will chased away would-be customers ever, ever return?
Then, too, such theathening signs may open up an unintended 'pandora's box' that Amtrak and / or Metrolink may never recover from.
The sign situation may be one to watch ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.P.’s absolute “theorem” from early, early childhood that he has seen over and over and over again: Those that CAUSE a problem in the first place will act the most violently if questioned or exposed.
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