People do some ODD things!

There used to be a guy that used to show up in the Weedsport area in a maroon color minivan who used to walk his dog along the ROW from what I rember he used to go out every afternoon between 3 and 5 p.m. and do to a medical problum he had to go on long walks he would be gone for almost 3 to 4 hours. Anyways he used to just pull in and park his van on the ROW blocking it completeley with the frount of the van faceing the tracks he would make no attempt to park far enough out of the way not thinking that anyone would drive along the tracks. This one Sunday as usueal he came up and parked his van like always this pissed me off becouse he blocked my photo viewing location so I relocated a Mile East to the next crossing. I guess 2 hours had passed and I had heared some chatter over the scanner that the MOW crew down in the Jordan,NY area was done and that they were going to Centerport Road to drop a few things off 10 minuets later a large truck drives by me going down the ROW and stopped the guy gets on the radio and reported that the road was blocked and he could not get down it to take the markers down and asked a pickup truck to stop and ask if me and two outher railfans had seen the driver of the van as is we had seaid yes and that he had taken off walking West and that he took 3 or 4 hour walks daily the driver in the CSX truck thanked us then called the dispatcher to call the police. A state trooper showed up followed by a tow truck to haul the van away which they did. Things slowed down the rest of the night and my buddys left. About an hour later the guy showed up to find that his van was gone being vary mad he demaned to know who took his van so I told him the Railroad had it towed becouse it was in the way. His reply was that they (CSX) had no right and then demaned that I give him and his dog a ride into Weedsport to Pullens to get his van back. In all do respect I laughed at him and told him to walk as I drove away. The end result of this was that after that day no one has ever seen this guy walking the tracks sents his van was towed away. This guy has not been seen for about 5 years now!

We also had anouther guy who used to show up in a silver minivan who would pull in and with zero respect for outher railfans would sit on the Service road and start reading the news paper blocking all photo options. Needless to say this jerk gave a signal maintainer a hard time and he to was ordered to leave or he would be arrested for obstruction and if he was seen anywhere along the ROW he would arrested on the spot with out any warnings. No one has seen this guy around in 4 years now!

Some of the signal maintaince guys That I know used to keep licence plate numbers in the area in order to keep track of who was friendley and who was trouble. Some compared notes and asked us to keep a list of plate numbers and we would exchange info with them along with make, model and color of there car or truck and how many people were in it on an avrage siteing. In the end Thows who were Friendley railfans got to stay thows who were not were often always told to get out by the Maintaince guys.

While hanging out in Ayer, I see people get off the commuter train on the parking lot side with the train on the #2 (the one with a platform on the yard side). Then they walk down to the front of the train and walk right across the tracks right in front of the train to get to the side street on the other side. Fairly often I see people do this even after the train started moving (with the bell ringing and the ditch lights alternating). They usually get yelled at by the engineer (out the window) or get a horn blast. Sometimes the people will walk within 10 feet in front of the moving train, and when the engineer blows the horn at them, they'll flip him the middle finger.

And to that I will quickly add a saying that my sainted Grand Mother used to use. "Not all the crazy people are in the Crazy House." 'Nuff said.