Check this video out around minute mark 10:47, almost smacked in the face by a passing METRA train…doesn’t phase him much…lol.
Au contraire, he actually gets closer to the side of the moving train in his target fixation on the Geeps. Now that’s dedicated railfan photography!
I am thinking he is using a telephoto lens and may not be as close to the track as the video makes it seem.
Both the apparent parallax angle and relative focus of the ‘near-field’ train indicate to me that he was right there where we think. (Just not alarmed, as I wouldn’t have been at his age next to GG1s, with similar lack of mature sense…)
If he is on a typical camera phone, the situation might be actually worse, as those tend to have relatively wide visual field. Yes, he might be ‘zooming’ during the period he can’t see the target due to the METRA train, but that might actually be zooming out and not in, as the two Geeps seem much further away when they reappear in the ‘going’ shot than I’d have expected given the position and speed when they became ‘hidden’.
That’s a nice politically correct way to phrase it.
I would call it the definition of a FRN, or maybe a foamer.
Watch a video of railraods from Japan–at every stattion platform, the commuters (and rail buffs) ALL stand behind the yellow platform lines.