Western Railroad Discussion > The "foamer" photographer vs. railroader debate...

has popped up again, this time over here:

http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/observation-tower/archive/2015/01/28/railroaders-railfans-and-the-letter.aspx

My opinion is the blog author should not have sent a letter and a photo to the railroad. If he felt he needed to write a letter maybe sending it to the local UTU office would have been a much better choice; that was suggested by someone in response to the blog. Still all things considered the actions of the conductor should not be condoned...if he didn't like the train being photographed he should have just stayed in his seat and called in the photographers to the railroad.

The word "entitled" gets thrown around, for which I find puzzling...



Allen

Sending at letter is shameful. There is a sense of entitlement. If the crew didn't want to be photographed, that is all there is to it. Ratting them out is ridiculous.

I could care less if you photograph me, and so could most of the people I work with. That being said what the conductor did was a dick move. Reporting him to the sup though, also a dick move. All this is going to do is make things worse for the photographers out there because I guarantee the train crews will retaliate in much more creative ways.

inCHI Wrote:
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> Sending at letter is shameful. There is a sense of
> entitlement. If the crew didn't want to be
> photographed, that is all there is to it. Ratting
> them out is ridiculous.

I agree EXCEPT you can't confuse the pursuit of a hobby with entitlement. That's a can of worms if there ever was one...

IMHO the actions of both the conductor and the photographer were wrong. And we all know that two wrongs don't make a right.



Allen

First, any one in PUBLIC, cops, firemen, window washers, and trainmen can be photographed from pubic property anytime anyplace.

Trainmen have a right to stand on the front platform or have the locomotive door open anytime they want. In this case the letter was asking for more of the same and the supervisor should have stated these facts. In fact the supervisor should have had the balls to back up his employees.

Now if the crew stopped their train and got off, came over to the photographers and swore at them and threatened them like I had from public property at Darling, Az a year ago or so, that is when a letter should be sent and maybe the police involved as we had.

I asked the work crew of a rail gang if I could photograph them and they politely said no because they were of Indian decent. I told them ok and left the area.

Remember, if you rock the boat you may get dumped out.

KR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/15 11:50 by kdrtrains.

Two wrongs don't make one right. I learned many years ago that some people get up on the wrong side of the bed every day, get over it.

Posted from Android

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

I just returned from a drug and alcohol rehab center that primarily has railroaders from almost every major line. I became good friends with an engineer, mow worker and a carman. I told them I was a railfan but did not hound them with questions. They mostly thought of us as nuts with cameras but could really care less that we were there. Most of them were avid hunters and pursued their hobby with the same enthusiasm that we pursue trains. This guy must be the exception. If he comes out of the cab to ruin your shot, he is exactly the one to go back and try to ruin railfanning at his company. We have people like that at my Airline. I don't know that I would have sent the letter. I would have just ignored him. I live on the tracks and we used to play horseshoes beside the tracks and drink beer. Occasionally a train would pass with the same engineer hanging completely out of the cab by his knees and gesturing for a beer! We were so afraid that he would fall out and get hurt. We would never photograph this as it could go viral and in today's environment who knows where this would go. Lets hear back from other people!

- Jeff Carlson

---

I see fault with the photographer who sent the letter, the conductor who fouled up the photos, and the manager for over penalizing. All the manager needed to say to the conductor was "Hey, we got a complaint. Let's act professional and let them enjoy their hobby the same way you do yours." But unfortunately, many managers will use any opportunity they come across to excessively discipline someone.

bradleymckay Wrote:
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>
> I agree EXCEPT you can't confuse the pursuit of a
> hobby with entitlement.

Depends on what you expect in the pursuit of that hobby. You cant have everything the way you want it, particularly when you don't have direct control of the subject matter.

There also comes a point where one needs to pick and choose their battles.

This has the ability to turn very ugly for all involved.

I will never agree to submit to a railfans desire to place me where he/she thinks I should or shouldn't be when photographing my train. I also would rarely intentionally attempt to ruin a railfans photo. Only time I would intentionally try to ruin a photo attempt is if that person turned me in for something they likely know nothing about such as the incident in Ohio not too long ago, and I knew it was him/her trying to take pictures.

bnsfsd70 Wrote:
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> - Jeff Carlson


Right, as soon as I take up time to reply, I know what will happen.
Sooner rather than later, save peoples time and even more hard feelings.

Bob

Lord. Railfans in the bushes, springing out to get the shot, playing cat and mouse -- and then complaining to the railroad? And the original poster rebuts the comments, saying this has nothing to do with "entitlement."

It has *everything* to do with entitlement. Railfans can take photos from public access. What they photograph -- including crews hostile to any aspect of their "hobby" -- is not up to them, unless they're paying for a photo charter. And even then, there are limits of rudeness and, yes, there can still be a sense of disproportionate entitlement.

I'm not a railroader by profession, but have had many friends who are or have been. And while I understand that railroaders can sometimes carry (or develop) what seem to fans to be hostile or intolerant attitudes, they are doing their jobs. Railfans are indulging in a peculiar fetish for statistics, for "catching" a shot of something they define as meaningful, and for defining an "acceptable" photo by standards that do not exist in, say, the world of professional photojournalism. Meaning doors closed, doors open, all of these parameters are simply arbitrary bits of compulsive and collective mania. Or "foaming," a word I do not care for.

In my opinion as a non-professional railroader and occasional photographer of trains, the person who sent "evidence" of the crew's hostility to the railroad is not only a railfan acting with a railfan's sense of entitlement, he acted within the twisted and narcissistic ethic of today's social-media-fueled sense of self-righteous empowerment, meaning everybody's a whistleblower and everybody's a reporter.

It ain't so. And this fellow is, in my opinion, absolutely and completely out of line in every action and every attitude he's displayed over this instance.

Aggressive railfans have always been boorish, rude, and suspect. This is a new level of intrusion on the railroader's job. I can borrow a phrase from a well-known comic pundit here, and direct it to fans who feel similarly empowered to alter or control the environment they pretend to record:

"You're not helping."

~ BZ

Crews who screw around with the doors because they "don't want to be photographed" are idiots. Except in very low-light situations, no choo-choo picture has the lighting necessary for anyone in the cab to be identifiable. If you don't want your picture taken, just stay in the cab and do your job (except when your job requires coming out of the cab, of course) and your anonymity will be preserved.

Would I have written this letter? No. There are better ways to handle this that are less likely to lead to ham-handed management response. But it'll be interesting to see if the publicity about it generates the same reaction that the incident last year did, which resulted in a lot of childish behavior from the Railfan Pre-pubescent Boys' Club. In this case, the complainant is a well-respected, veteran foam-tographer and author.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/15 14:11 by toledopatch.

During my career, I was always happy to accommodate fans when I could. Heck, I've been a fan way longer than I was a rail, and fan or two just *may* have found their way into my cab over the years.

Having said this, if I were still a union rep, my reaction would be a bit more pointed, given that this guy is so stupefyingly clueless and his letter so disgustingly mean-spirited. I'm sorry boys and girls, but just because you choose to conduct playtime around the tracks in no way obligates a rail to condone or otherwise cooperate with your activities. You are in the railroader's turf, not the other way around. There are still many railroaders that hate railfans because, in essence, they look upon making a hobby of railroads as trivializing their jobs. That's the way it is. Get used to it and move on. And stay away from the tracks if you resemble this bozo.

BTW, I have milk and cookies for anyone that needs them.

-E.O.

Notch16 Wrote:
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And the original
> poster rebuts the comments, saying this has
> nothing to do with "entitlement."

If you are saying that I said this you better reread my original post. I said I find it puzzling.

Are you suggesting that every railfan photographer goes out to photograph trains thinking they are entitled to do so?? That's laughable because you can't possibly know all their motivations. Don't lump the one's who truly feel "entitled" in with the one's who don't.

If Richard Steinheimer were still alive he would take you to task for even suggesting this. Do you think he felt "entitled" when he took those incredible night photographs while riding Milwaukee Road train 262 as it climbed the Bitterroots east of Avery?? Hardly.



Allen

the whiner self entitled CRY BABY asks "was i wrong" ...

AAAAAABSOOOOLLUUUUTELLLYYYYY !!!!

first off if i'm working DOIN MY JOB ... I DON'T GIVE A FLYIN F$$K if anybody took a slow boat from China to take photos ... NOT MY PROBLEM !!! ... there's NO guarantee by ME OR MY COMPANY for ANYONE to take photos ... IT'S MY JOB ... IT'S JUST YOUR HOBBY ... lemme repeat that ... IT'S MY NOB IT'S JUST !!!!! YOUR HOBBY ... my rant could take up all the byte space on this site but it's not worth my time to get into it ...

i will say this ... i never went out of my way to ruin anybody's shot ... in fact i always approached anybody with a camera because that's what was expected of me at Amtrak to question anyone near the railroad ... if they were a railfan i gave them helpful info to take photos but also warned them not to trespass ... i really didn't want to get involved in cleaning up a mess of someone that got hit by a train ... which happened on 2 occasions ...

however if they proved themselves to be a self entitled narcissitic RICHARD then i did my best to be as much if not more of a RICHARD to the point where Amtrak's finest would be called to get involved ...

Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/15 14:23 by Out_Of_Service.

Out_Of_Service Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the whiner self entitled CRY BABY asks "was i
> wrong" ...
>
> AAAAAABSOOOOLLUUUUTELLLYYYYY !!!!
>
> first off if i'm working DOIN MY JOB ... I DON'T
> GIVE A FLYIN F$$K if anybody took a slow boat from
> China to take photos ... NOT MY PROBLEM !!! ...
> there's NO guarantee by ME OR MY COMPANY for
> ANYONE to take photos ... IT'S MY JOB ... IT'S
> JUST YOUR HOBBY ... lemme repeat that ... IT'S MY
> NOB IT'S JUST !!!!! YOUR HOBBY ... my rant could
> take up all the byte space on this site but it's
> not worth my time to get into it ...
>
> Posted from Android


And playing "devils advocate" his reply to you might be something like: "was it the conductors job to go out on the nose of the locomotive every time he saw the photographers"??

You can't possibly deny that the conductor did not inflame the situation...he did. If he was trying to make a point once was enough.


Allen

My main problem with "The Letter" is that the guy was treating the situation as though he had experienced bad customer service. The problem is, he's not a customer, and by continually moving to get ahead of the train, he was continually putting himself in the situation he was complaining about.

-Tom

I love the milk and cookies comment. It's the truth now in America. Every one needs a hug or counseling or a kiss for the boo-boo to make it better! I really hated my parents because I wanted Ballerina Barbee instead they got Malibu Barbee! How rude!

KR