At the risk of opening up a previously sealed can of worms, I ask the following of the professional railroaders here…
I take photos of trains- lots of them. I ask permission from a supervisor before I do it, and I will happily sign my waivers and produce ID’s before I point and shoot. I will listen to what the supervisor says about safety, even though I have heard the lecture- because the supervisor is the one gracious enough to let me be there in the first place. (I’ve only been denied permission once to go onto railroad property for photography, and it was a company policy that the trainmaster cited.)
So, there I was a couple of weeks ago, having gained permission to burn up a few rolls of film (yes, I still use film… somebody has to keep Kodak in business) at a Class 1 railroad division change point. I got to talking with a crew waiting to go out, and I asked them for permission to shoot a few pictures of them. They were shocked. Nobody had ever asked their permission before.
(Asking permission from a train crew running a moving train is Not Something You Should Try at Home, kiddies. Just a little note of warning. Wait till the Choo Choo stops.)
They were really shocked when I offered to email them copies of the film shots… seems that no one had ever made that offer, either. The train conductor said no, and the engineer said Hail Yes, Send me a copy! (Done and done, with pleasure.)
I remember reading something about Steinheimer’s photography that he made a point to send a copy of his pictures to the people who were in them. The book said he was allowed a lot of access because he did this very thing.
There are a lot of principles of railroad photography out there (Rule 1: Make sure there is film in camera.), many of which were laid down back in Lucius Beebe’s day.
First, is there any way of finding out who is running the train you just shot rolling by? Without getting the c