I was prevented from photographing a GO Transit MP40 at Oshawa today, due to a “determination following 9/11”. On protesting, the woman who challenged me claiming to work for GO Transit agreed that if she turned her back she wouldn’t see me take the photo and if she didn’t see me she couldn’t take action. “Have a nice day” I’m not local so I can only say she didn’t appear to be in uniform, and it didn’t get to the point where I asked her for ID. There is nothing on GO’s website about this, at least I can’t find it. Is this for real?
I actually find your experience hard to believe. I have been in Canada myself recently and made pictures from locomotives and trains at various locations. I was in Fields and Golden, at the CP railyards in Calgary and Vancouver, at the Union station in Toronto, actually 5 yards from the tracks in Jasper and nobody asked me what I was doing, why I was doing it or anything else. Railroaders were quite relaxed, i.e. it was an athmosphere known only from Europe.
Of course I didn’t trespass, but in some of the locations I was really only a few yards from the tracks and I was seen by rr personnell - no questions asked but a nice wave from an engineer of a AC4400 in Fields as he rode by and passed me. Oshawa is a nearly abandoned looking place in comparison, I have been there on my way to Montreal but I didn’t see a train there at all, despite it being the end of the line for Go Transit. They only run trains there once per hour or so, maybe the lady was kidding you?
Overzealous off duty security guard maybe.
I take my photos pretty much anywhere up here. A note though about other things. Do see about getting some kind of a permit to photograph around the refineries around Sarnia ON. They are very careful about issues.
Probably a visiting American.