Photography at M-N stations

a highway is not a public street, you can loiter on a street but not on a highway or schoolground etc.

A "highway" and a "street" are two words for the same thing, except that people usually travel at higher speeds on something that is called a "highway".

Back on topic, I now don't reccommend filming or shooting photos at GCT especially this week, citing the GOPNC going on, even though is not above Grand Central, but still........................."I'd rather be safe than sorry"

As that old saying goes.

Ron Newman wrote:A "highway" and a "street" are two words for the same thing, except that people usually travel at higher speeds on something that is called a "highway".

Except that people cannot walk, cycle, ride a motorbike or golf cart on a thing called a "highway" that one can on a "street."

The no-photos rule is stupid IMHO, and I don't know when it came in, it seems new as I had no trouble up until this year.

Speaking of photos, I got a few new photos and I just updated my website. http://www.geocities.com/coolio3ie/. The new material is at the bottom of the each photo page.

BTW there's something bothering me, Jaap. Remeber about a year ago on the old forums, someone using the handle "RRWorker" momentarily joined the forum, it seems simply for the purpose of hurling insults and abuse. When pushed on one particular set of comments, he defined a Railnut as a annoying semi-deranged version of a railfan. Is this the definition of said term? If so, why do U use it?

"Street: Shoulder/bike route with speed limit 50 or below.

Highway: Emergency only shoulder with limit 55 or above."


OK, so what are roads where the speed limit is 55 mph but walking IS permitted on the shoulder? There are thousands of miles of such roads in NY State.

And on the other hand, much of the Bronx River Parkway has a speed limit of 40 mph, and no shoulder, but it's more of a highway than a street.

Well, back on topic now, but while I was riding car 8411 coming from New Haven earlier today, I decided at around Mt. Vernon East to break out my camcorder and begin videotaping out the front window all the way down till GCT, which I never got to do before on MNRR. Everything went smoothly, until the very end, when I was able to hear the motorman's radio, and It turned out that there were Transit Employees watching at the train's arrival, when they saw me videotaping, so I then heard, "Operator 8411, there's a guy videotaping on your train, you wanna check it out?" as we were about to come to the complete stop, so I then immediately stop taping, and put my camera away, but when I got off though, I was lucky, I didn't get approached or stopped my Transit Personnel or MTA police. But other that that blemish, everything went well while shooting that video, and it was kinda cool to film out front. The first two cars, BTW, were all open too, they weren't isolated as I thought.

I have videotaped full 40-60 minute segments before from Penn Station to Farmingdale on the LIRR and have never been bothered. Even the conductors see my DV camcorder in hand and I do not have a problem.

Oh wow, maybe because at Penn Station, the track doesn't end at a bumping post and there's not an area for anyone to see the train coming at them at the station unlike Grand Central, where the tracks end in a bump, which anyone can see directly at the front of the train and easily detect anyone in the front of the train, like me.

But as mentioned, I didn't get pulled over luckily, I just vanished into the crowd, and that was that.

Photography and videography are not supposed to be clandestine activities that you have to "hide" from the authorities. All someone can do is ask you to stop or move along, and then you come back another day and you take your photo/video.

-otto-

Photography and videography are not supposed to be clandestine activities that you have to "hide" from the authorities. All someone can do is ask you to stop or move along, and then you come back another day and you take your photo/video.

Ok, I was just kind afraid that they may detain me and even try to get my name and personal info like they did three years ago in WMATA METRO Washington DC. So that's why I had to make a quick move. But you're right, Otto, they should only tell you to leave and nothing beyond. I remember in a previous post from you that when you were taking pictures of MNR trains at one of the New Haven Stations, and had your scanner with you, you were also called in, but I'm glad you didn't "chicken out" and dissapeared. Now I'll remember your advice for next time, but hopefully that won't happen .