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When I was but a wee tot (aged 13) I used to hang around the New Haven railroad station in my hometown. The station master knew me and didn't seem to mind my being around. I know for a fact that he broke a bunch of serious rail road rules putting up with me. I spent many a happy afternoon in his switch tower catching engine numbers and counting cars so he could call them into his dispatcher. Under his supervision, I even threw an Armstrong lever or two. And yes, I even got several cab rides when the local would show up to switch out the cars being set out. I knew (because the guys told me to) to duck under window sills when some trains went by to keep "trespasser" reports from being generated. Now that I'm a rail fan, and a serving deputy sheriff, I realize how much risk those guys took having me around. They risked their jobs just to let a kid hang out with them. I shudder to think of what might have happened to them if a trainmaster or management happened to wander by. I still go down to the local yard and I still take pictures. I realize that the men and women I see- throwing switches, operating the locomotives, or running the yard tower- need to concentrate on what it is they are doing. I try not to distract them from that. As a cop, I realize the fascination with trains. I also am well aware that the vast majority of Americans equate trains with Thomas the Tank Engine rather than a heavy industrial operation that is dangerous to the untrained observer. People in general do dumb things that I have to stop them from doing. Some examples: 1) The bird watcher who wandered onto a private hunt club because she saw a flight of Canadian geese. It was hunting season; she wondered why I would even bother her for "trespassing" because all she was doing was "counting birds". 2) The idiot who wandered into a local lumber plant and climbed up on top of a stack of unprocessed logs to take a picture of the plant because it was "cool". It took me ten minutes to get up there to tell him that the stack he was standing on could collapse and kill him... and, at that point in time, me too. I have nothing against idiots getting killed... it's Darwinian selection at it's finest... but getting me killed with them is right out. 3) There have been news articles lately about planes being hit with laser beams in the airspace over the United States. My suspicion is that you have a bunch of kids out there with laser pointers or levelers taking aim "from their own property or from public property". They don't know any better... and their folks probably believe that "it's all harmless, good fun and that kids will be kids." I would like to believe that all railfans are responsible, educated and safety minded people... but the reality I face daily is somewhat different. Erik
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