Pretty straightforward and to the point. The part that seems to belong in either the “DUH! Department”, or the “You can train the ignorant, but stupid is forever Department” follows: the last two paragraphs of the TRAINS article:
FTA:'…UP set up its photo/video guidelines in response to an individual who placed a video camera between the rails to document the passage of steam locomotive No. 844.
The rules also address recent actions taken by professional photographers, who have been staging yearbook portraits and other photo shoots on UP tracks…"
The "professional’ part of the description of photographers seems to be a reach IMHO.
Gee, I would think that posting a Photo/Video from within the ROW basically self-incriminates you of being where you should not have been in the first place!!!
“Professional” in this case means that they’re getting paid for taking pictures, charging the students or whatever to go trespassing with them.
Earlier this year I was surprised to see a wedding party come up onto the platforms in Lombard for a photo session that involved getting onto the tracks. I didn’t confront them (probably should have), but was on the phone to the railroad cops (who, unfortunately, didn’t catch them).
JIM NORTON from ALABAMA said:
O.K…Trespassing photographers make news once again. What “rules” has Union Pacific laid out for trespassing graffiti vandals who have apparent wide-open and unchallenged access to the nation’s rails?
Submitted: 12/6/2011 1:42:01 PM (CST)
The area around the old Burlington station (across from Union Station) in Omaha seems to draw photographers and subjects who use it as a back drop. I’ve seen wedding parties and what I assume are portfolio shots for would be models. The worst I’ve seen was a group of parents, small children, and a photograper. The adults’ attention was focused on the ones in front of the camera, while the others were wandering around the BNSF tracks there.
On another forum, a railfan happened to be taking pictures at this location while a couple of young women were being photographed. A BNSF train/switch move showed up. While it was stopped the women climbed onto the freight cars to be photographed.
I see my previous post didn’t turn out correctly, but what I probably said was that UP has really just gone on a pointless way to point out the obvious. I don’t see how they’ll really accomplish anything with this effort, and it may backfire quite badly. Let’s say the “remove” a good picture from publications from some means, because it was supposedly done through trespassing. How will they know this, and how will they prove it, or will they even try to prove it? I’m thinking they’ll just say to TRAINS mag, “Hey, that’s our ROW, so screw this guy, please.” And what if they’re wrong? What if the picture was taken with some permission froma company official? What if the person taking the picture was actually off the company’s property and used a zoom lens, something virtually every rail photographer makes sure they have? What if the picture was taken from someone’s yard next to a ROW? To me, this all seems like it’s just going to spew false positives, and really screw over a bunch of good people. A lot like Microsoft’s endless “anti-piracy” software, which I’m sure we’ve ALL seen more than enough of, eh?
It’s also weird that they’d be ramping up powers against photographers when vandals and thieves have been a much, much worse problem all along. What type of “policy” have they issued against these guys? I think UP may have just made a PR nightmare, all from nothing.
If you knew what UP pays out every year account trespassers, you would think twice about it being pointless. Through September of this year, more than 32,000 people have been caught trespassing on Union Pacific Railroad property.
Nothing? Trespassing on private property is nothing? A basic constitutional right to have and hold property is nothing? See how ill used you feel when I tramp all over your property eh? Nothing indeed.
I see nothing untoward in what U.P. has posted on their web site. Plain, simple language that is it is unfortunately necessary to provide because so many people haven’t the foggiest notion of even considerate behavior, not to mention the legal end of things. Just because you fancy yourself a photographer doesn’t mean you have the right to endanger yourself, others or other’s property just to get yet another photo of a train… even if you are a Professional photographer, you do not have that right.
That does not at all mean trespassing is nothing. I am still wondering about how UP will avoid “false positives”. If they have reliable methods of doing so (say, they are 100% sure that a picture was illegitimately taken before seeking any action), then that’s fine. I certainly understand the need to warn people, and if they address this, then this is essentially form of Operation Lifesaver in action. But they make no such mention, and that is where I’m worried lots of legitimate pics can get flagged for removal, and this being nothing but more of a “Don’t photograph us” approach.
I’m just an old retired guy looking back at a life of great railroad photography, riding the rails, and having a great time, and have to wonder what the poor schmucks of today have to go thru. During the mid-60’s I was INVITED un-asked, but invited to ride in the cab and in the caboose, asked dispatchers when freights were due out so I could ride, and never once was I chastised about anything. I rode in the caboose from Yakima to Spokane, in the cab from Troy to Whitefish, and in the caboose and a box car over NP’s branch over Lookout Pass – all unpardonable sins in today’s real world. I have a hard time comprehending what has happened, especially since I now live abroad and am not faced with the loss of freedom in the Land Of The Free. Free?? You guy’s are kidding yourself. It may have once been, beut that is now a Fallen Flag.
The mood has changed and for the worst, and I have to say that UPìs policy of a few years ago to charge copyright fees for replicas of it’s rolling stock REALLY turned my stomach. To this day I will not buy anything UP related, and the gaul of managemet a few back to to ask railfans to take photos of it’s trains for its calendar struck a chord – because the great UP will prosecute you if you TRESPASS – which is a bad word today, but unheard of 50 years ago.
Then there’s this – UP’s policy to have they’re photos delleted. Where have your liberties gone?
Well, I guess I’d better start CHARGING Google Earth to take pictures of my home to protect my rights and demand that they remove their photos!! This arguement is absurd. Do you really think railfans are going to buy an unprototypical model of a UP locomotive?? A child maybe, or a novice, but not a savy rail fan.
Are you willing to pay more for a prototypical model of Up’s City of LA just because they’re protecting they’re rights?? Why are they different than BNSF’s stance on a prototypical model of the 1955 Empire Builder?? Does Boing charge for rights on models of it’s planes, or GM on medels of it’s cars? Not hardly. Up’s stance on this flies in the face of every good rail fan, and I think UP should be PROUD that someone thinks enough of them to make very good model of their rolling stock, not charge them for it. It is just not good PR, and it has totally turned off this fan.
There’s also a bit of revisionist history that I’d like to put the kibosh on.
50 years ago, trespassing was an issue–I was almost scared to go back to the GTW around home after some guy drowned while poking around the old ferry slip. And a friend of mine and I got run off C&O property the minute we walked further down past the door on the non-platform side of the depot.
Fortunately back then, I made friends who gave me a few liberties that led to cab rides, longer trips on freight runs, listening in on the dispatcher, copying train orders, and on up the line. I even became buddies with the C&O section foreman that chased us off a few years earlier.
A lot of things that I did then involved rule violations on the part of employees who were letting me do them. But they weren’t afraid to use their own judgement. Now people would get fired for doing this (because the wrong people would think that they could get some money off the railroad and blame them for whatever happened), and the smaller crews make the people who are left too busy to take the time, or to keep an eye open for us.
Also, the first railroad to start vehemently protecting their image were the owners of that cuddly little kitten, the Chessie System. They did that well before UP dreamed of it. And face it. Do many other railroads have logos or images worth protecting?
That is an interesting idea. Place some self-created text on the outside of your house and sue Google for copyright infringement when they publish it without your consent on Google street view. They have deep pockets.
People have already done that and some lawyers got paid good money losing the case.
BUT, you may notice that most of the images now available on Street View have faces and text “de-focused”, blurred or otherwise obliterated so as to be unrecognizable. I wanted to use Street View to find the location of a new branch bank in a nearby city. I found the bank, but could not read the names on the street signs, or buildings in the area because of the blurring of those portions of the images. Great, clear images with “details” blurred so as to almost make them useless. There are still images on there that you can see details clearly, and there are new images that are clear, but many are blurred deliberately. I don’t understand the distinction of why some are blurred and others are not.
Apparently, the cause of this blurring of faces was because a man’s wife found his image on Street View as he walked into an "adu
Earlier in the thread, it was said that as of september UP busted 32,000 people trespassing on UP Tracks… I am just curious - where is that number from? It just seems abnormally large to me… UP police aren’t exactly “numerous” when you take into account the vast size of the UP system, and local cops, well, unless someone from the RR specifically calls in 9/10 times if they see someone on the tracks they just keep on driving.
Those “Professionals” would be more responsible if they were to take photographs on the inactive tracks at museums or parks instead of on active railroad tracks.
I do not like how the Union Pacific schemes look on scale models of freight cars most of the time. Something is always wrong with the colors and graphics in the translation.