Buffs and Photographers Beware

Want your car confiscated? Take railroad pictures, lose your car. You are the new boogyman.
Quoted from 9/19 Newsday, which isn't a very reliable source:
------------------------------------------

Merrick LIRR trestle photographed by man, MTA says

September 20, 2016 By Ellen Yan [email protected]

Nassau and MTA police rushed to Merrick on Monday after a report of a “Middle Eastern-looking man” who parked under a LIRR trestle and was taking photos of it, authorities said.

An MTA officer arrived with a bomb-sniffing dog, and after a “full examination” of the man’s car, they did not find any evidence of explosives or contraband, said Salvatore Arena, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. No trains were affected...

The caller said the man parked his car on Brooklyn Avenue at the trestle, just west of the Merrick station, and spent several minutes photographing the trestle, Arena said.

He then left, walking east on Sunrise Highway, and that’s when the witness called police, he said.

Nassau police arrived, called MTA police and impounded the car after it was examined at the scene, Arena said. Details on the driver’s identity and his whereabouts were not clear Monday night, he said...

What a different world this has become. It wasn't too long ago when you would see a kid taking a picture of your train and you could invite him for a ride and give them a tour of the engine and answer any questions they had. Now they would have their bicycle confiscated. It's going to get worse if something really bad happens in this Country.

Kelly, if an engineer took a selfie on the engine, would the railroad police impound the engine?

Government overreach. If the car was legally parked and the guy just went for a walk, taxpayers are going to be paying out the pending lawsuit.

I can remember a family day-trip (via LIRR) to Greenport some months after 9/11. It was a beautiful day and I was taking photos, including the ferries. Two flack-jacket wearing, rifle-toting military people approached us and sternly told us, "No photography". And, taking photos at RR and subway stations and NYC tourist attractions would get you scrutinized by security or law-enforcement. (It wasn't until the end of 2002 that the first phones with cameras started being sold in the US and really changed the face of photography in the US.)

Take pictures of trains & stations not the underside of a trestle and you should have no problems.

How true, Publius. When I was two years old in 1948 my parents took me to Cape Cod for vacation. At Sandwich I got restless during church, so my father took me across the street to the train station. The train was in, with a steam locomotive on the point. The engineer said to Dad, "Would the boy like to come up here." Well, the boy certainly did want to get up there into that cab. It was the beginning of a life-long enthrallment with trains. I evidently had not talked much before that trip, and the parents were worried about my late speech. But on the trip home, every time we caught sight of a right-of-way, I shouted, "Train tracks." And that is how it started, with a friendly engineer who sensed a rail fan in the making. How sad that young people no longer have that thrill of being drawn into the world of trains. Each December the New York Transit Authority runs "the nostalgia train" on Sundays using vintage rolling stock. Grandparents bring children who are enchanted. They press up against the "buff window" at the front of the train. And some motormen leave the cab door open so that the children can view how the train is operated.

Post redacted in its entirety by an Admin.

Content redacted in its entirety (Please, no "me, too" posts).

Post redacted in its entirety by an Admin

Post partially redacted by an admin.

Whitepot46, that's a great story about the steam engineer. Many of us got our start as railfans (and firefighters) with similar experiences. I'm willing to bet that in other parts of the USA, far from the New York area there are still railfan friendly engineers who are friendly to young kids with a parent. Happily, some things like this never change.

I'm 15 and I've occasionally been allowed to step inside the cab of an Amtrak locomotive on a train with a long dwell time at the station.

Admin note:

Please stay on topic. Moderators (and Admins) have pruning shears, and we use them if we need to.