RAILFANS PROHIBITED

[AntonioFP45]

Excellent Perspective and realistic!

[Anonymous]

AHHH, TO MUCH WORDS![%-)][:-,]

[John Busby]

Hi DavId
[#ditto][#ditto][#ditto][#ditto][#ditto]
I just wi***hose that where not railway employees would get the message.
Transwa and ARG actualy refused to advertise tthe trails of a new train for
fear of some idiot railfan would get himself Killed trying to get a picture.
do the railfans here on this forum want to spark that kind of drastic action.
from some of the comments so far I am begining to think thats just what they want.
We also have a spot that the druggies use and don't wi***o go too
regards John.

[Anonymous]

Thought that might get your attention...

When I finally manage to get over there I don't want to see signs saying this. I don't want to find a Zero Tolerance policy.

Yes, I'm back on about safe railfanning...
Okay you're a safe railfan... protect your hobby...
You might try printing off these threads for your LHS and/or you club / trainroom.

People need educating / helping to see perspectives / encouraging to think.

Thinking of education... and Political Correctness / Human Rights / Personal Choice / freedom of Speech / Right of Access...

One of the new buzz phrase campaigns here has been to replace academic failure with "DEFERED SUCCESS"... you got it... my point is... trains don't defer killing you.

Oh [xx(]! Yes they do... it's called a "Permanent Vegatitive Condition"... or being maimed.... you fancy paraplegia? Quadraplegia?

So far I haven't spoken for "the other side of the issue"...

So far I've tried to pu***he safety... your personal safety... side of the argument.

So here's a bit about the Railroads side...

In the short time I've been in this forum I've already seen stuff about UP making themselves unpopular people by litigating (in the old days toys in your livery were GIVEN AWAY as good advertising... maybe UP are charging now because they see it as offsetting costs caused by railfans?)... and NS virtually refusing to move a National Guard unit (Abrams Flat car thread) because they didn't want to risk spills... and, presumiably, claims from the environment people...

OK.

So here's a bit of the "Why we don't want railfans" view.

1. Railroads are here to make profits... No profits = No Railroad -> that stuffs the hobby a bit... ' still... taking pics of abandoned Right of Way would be a lot safer... except for the copperheads...

2. Claims against the railroad - ANY claims - erode profits -> that includes:-
ALL injury/trauma/emotional-distress compensation claims
ALL late delivery claims
ALL blocked highway claims (train stopped across highway)
ALL environmental damage claims
ALL everything else you can claim for.

3. Railfans cost more time and money than they contribute.

4. "Whatever we do we're wrong according to the railfans... Just 'cos we buy up their pet paint scheme and re-paint it we're the devil incarnate... okay... so we could let their flag go bust, be abandoned, go to weeds...

5. "We have enough trouble with the Health and Safety people, the Environment people, city ordinances, the neighbours... these railfans don't live here, don't pay anything, don't protect anything... we DON'T need them.

6. "We have more than enough trouble with vandals, grafitti, thieves, drunks, drug users, kids, stray animals, hobos, people taking pot shots, people dropping cinder blocks.... HOW are we supposed to know that that idiot wandering around OUR Right of Way is a Railfan.... kick the lot out... prosecute them if we can catch them... make it hurt.

7. "We've got a "War on Terror"... during WWII ALL taking photos of trains was prohibited for National Security... their parents / grand parents managed to survive without being a nuisance to us... Let's get railfanning made a Federal Offense...

8. 2003 a bunch of Brit airplane spotters got locked up for spying in Greece... Didn't cause much public outcry... seems to have quietened them down... let's try that here...

9. For the best part of fifty years if you took pictures of trains in the Soviet Union you won a holiday... to Siberia... didn't do so much to trouble the railways...

10. Which "Human Right" / "Constitutional Right" wins out... the right to get yourself killed / become a burden on your family and the healthcare system or the right to go to work and not be traumatised by having to remove bits of body from under a train?

11. You can't just wander "down the front for a moment" and take a snap of your airplane at the airport... why should we let them take pics of their trains?

12. "We don't want compensation claims from their families / insurance companies / health care providers etc etc

13. We don't want bad press / media coverage.

14. We need to run our trains on schedule without some dozy idiot backing up the system.

15. We don't need staff off sick with trauma.

16. We don't need compensation claims from our staff because "We didn't do enough to protect them".

17. We don't need compensation claims from neighbours because of crop damage / noise nuisance / broken fences / trespass..

18. We put money into OLS... and the people that say they are our fans go doing and giving an example of most of the things we're struggling against...

19. My kid loves "Thomas the Tank Engine" I don't want some idiot making him think it's okay to just go wandering round rail tracks. I want him/her to grow up to be a Railroader.

20. WE DON'T NEED RAILFANS

GET THE MESSAGE ACROSS TO YOUR LESS CONSIDERATE RAILFAN FRIENDS... BEFORE THE RAILROADS GET IT

AND RAILROAD CORPORATIONS...IF YOU'RE READING THIS... PLEASE RECALL THAT MOST RAILFANS ARE A HUGE PART OF YOUR LOBBY TO KEEP TRAFFIC ON RAIL AND GET IT BACK THERE... THEY CAN DO A WHOLE CHUNK OF YOUR MARKETING FOR YOU...FOR FREE.

HEY... ALL THE BIG MONEY FAN INTERESTS HAVE SUPPORTERS CLUBS... FOOTBALL, BASEBALL LOADS OF THINGS... AS THE RAILROADS GET TO BE ENORMOUS WHY NOT GET THE HOBBY ON BOARD...FOR SAFETY AND TO IMPROVE OUR IMAGE... A RAILFAN IN THE WORKPLACE MIGHT GET TRAFFIC MOVED TO RAIL INSTEAD OF TO TRUCKS... WE HAVE OUR OWN - FREE - ADVOCATE RIGHT THERE IN THE FACTORY / SALES DEPARTMENT/

GOOD RAILFANS (PROPERLY TRAINED) CAN BE YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH.

HEY RAILFANS... YOU HAVEN'T JUST GOT TO FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS ...YOU'VE GOT TO SELL THE RAILROADS THE BENEFITS OF HAVING YOU AROUND.

(The fox-hunting people thought that there was no way that they would ever be banned... and the people that got laws made against them wer NOT big corporations putting money into the national economy...)

Maybe I shouldn't tell them the case against railfans? i think they've got the smarts to work it out... they do the job 24/7... have you got the smarts?

GET OUT THERE... JOIN OLS... LEARN HOW TO BE SAFE... TEACH YOUR FAMILY... NEIGHBOURS... FELLOW FANS

LAST POINT (for now)...

On a persoanl level...

The last two weekends I've turned up for work at a rail junction with waste rail-owned land in the V... fenced off with 8' high steel palisade fencing all round...

druggess (or maybe railfans wanting to get a "good picture") have built a pallet bridge over the fence, made a camp of dumped furniture (how.did that get in there?) and have been laying around like zombied emperors when I've driven in to a disgusting location I don't want to be at but I have a living to earn.

I also have to work along the track away from MY vehicle I have to pay for.... and it's tyres, paintwork, glass, lights...

I DO NOT want to even get near people stupid enough to inject*** in themselves... one reason I got out of London...
I DO NOT want to be at risk of treading on discarded needles. (We have enough trouble with rats in locations like this).
I DO NOT want to need to carry a (legal) self defense spray.
I DO NOT want to have to consider whether I should include covert body armour in my work clothes.
I DO NOT want to be spat at.
I DO NOT want to have to think about some claims lawyer sueing me for "harrassing" his client.
I DO NOT want to even go near body parts that may include HIV and Hepatitus.

1st week I got them moved on.

2nd week I was going to get them arrested... "Oh deary me! What about their RIGHTS"?... They beat me to it and climbed back over the fence... someone had rebuilt their bridge.
Thing is this is almost "home town"... so do I come out of Tesco with my shopping and find my tyres slashed?

So I just love to see a railfan... who I can REALLY see is a safe, sane person... wandering about the track a couple of hundred yards away... I don't want to go up and ask to see his railfan pass... he might be a druggee... he might stick a needle in me "for the fun of it"... I WOULD have a several week wait to see if he's given me HIV... okay... so he MIGHT go to prison (to sit on his backside) for a few months for assault... I'll have a life sentence...

Look at it anothrer way... before I left London we stopped calling surfers "surfers" and started to call them "skittles".

Hey! They had tickets to ride on the trains didn't they? Not usually...

PLEASE ENJOY YOUR RAILFANNING SAFELY AND RESPONSIBLY... BE A GOOD AMBASSADOR PLEASE