Sounds like the lawyers are at it again, having resolved the model railroad licensing "crisis". Personally, I can't imagine why anyone would bother to photograph a Metra train, but the RR club is right; the photographers are much more likely to help the railroad than hurt it. How much do they pay these guys?

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst ... ix28.html#

Thankfully, the light of day has been seen.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 0755.story

It's amazing how much effort is put forth to curtail the use of good judgement and logic in situations like these.

Guess the UP realized that they had just created a get rich quick scheme for a railfan with a smart lwyer friend.

The linked article states that "Rail enthusiasts, though, argued that banning photography from Metra platforms" (by Union Pacific) "was a violation of their 1st Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution."

Why, precisely, would that be the case? In another thread, there was some discussion to the effect that the ordinary U.S. citizen is under the impression that the Government owns the railroads in this country, in contrast to the members of the railfan/preservationist/enthusiast community who know that this is not the case. How, then, does one argue that Union Pacific is a government actor and is thus capable of violating someone's Constitutional rights?

I find it annoying that people will often assert their "Constitutional freedom of speech" in demanding to be allowed, by anyone and everyone, to say (or do) whatever is desired. Granted, a railroad's efforts to ban photography may be unreasonable, and may very well be unlawful for a variety of reasons under given circumstances. But railroads are not the government, by and large, and therefore their actions are not controlled by the Constitution. In general, if a railroad's employee were to prevent you from taking pictures of their trains, even to the extent of destroying your film in the process, it would no more violate the Constitution than, say, if you were to stop someone from talking about Steamtown at your railroad club meeting because you disapproved of the opinion he had expressed (just to make up an example ... ).

G.J.C.

Isn't the Metra platform owned by the city?

It may not be. But if UP leased station property to METRA without any stipulations on photography, of if METRA owns the station area instead of UP, then First Amendment issues might conceivably come into play (because METRA is a state actor).

Chicago-area attorney Mike Blaszak put together a pretty good analysis of the legal issues (trespass, First Amendment, etc.), but I don't remember where I saw it.

JAC

If you are clearly on public property and are confronted by anyone about taking pictures, I would suggest that you turn on your video camera as they approach, tell them "I am taking pictures" so they have clearly been warned that cameras may be running (and your warning is recorded), and let it run through the entire conversation whether the person that has challenged you is visible in the frame or not. Having the entire situation recorded is a major advantage. I had this kind of a situation develop some years ago on a public sidewalk in a small southern town when challenged by a railroad employee. On being advised that the entire episode had taken place on public property while my video camera was running, the issue immediately ceased to be a problem. The digital "still" cameras that have a limited video capability are just as effective for doing this as a camcorder.

On that note, see this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01293.html

"The 41-year-old Lockheed Martin engineer had complained to his bosses. He had told his story to government investigators. He had called congressmen. But when no one seemed to be stepping up to correct what he saw as critical security flaws in a fleet of refurbished Coast Guard patrol boats, De Kort did just about the only thing left he could think of to get action: He made a video and posted it on YouTube.com."

I believe Trainorders.com also hosts video uploads.

JAC

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley from the mid-50's to my graduation from high school in 1970. The south end of the Van Nuys Airport runway was three blocks from my parent's home. Van Nuys Airport was home to an active military transport wing located at the northwest end of the airport. Several of the big aerospace companies had divisions located at or near the airport.

On the east side of the airport, Saticoy Street a (public/city street) came down and then turned south on Valjean Avenue (also a public/city street) which paralleled the runway on the east boundry of the airport.

Now, what was interesting is that you could stand at the corner of Saticoy and Valjean and facing west (the runway) you could photograph anything you wanted--cessnas, lear jets, military cargo transports and even the U-2s (although they had a real knack of climbing hard and fast into the sun). Standing in the same place (on a public thoroughfare), but turning ninety degrees to your right (now facing north), you were looking at signs posted every 50 feet or so on the chain link fence, forbidding any photography along that boundry of the airport. Posted in the name of national security by a private company -- Lockheed Corporation.

sc 'doc' lewis

I don't take photos of trains anymore, so UP's ban will never affect me, but I can't believe such a large company would let itself get a black eye in the general media over such a trivial issue. They generally did quite well with PR (and were about the only major RR that did PR, period) until the model RR licensing "crisis" and now this. For all the positive publicity Steve Lee and the boys have generated with the steam engines, these lawyers cancel it out with their stupidity. Surely the company could spend its money more wisely, like on hiring and properly training enough crews to get its trains over the road, or even putting real electric refrigerators on its locomotives instead of antique iceboxes.

Major difference:

The UP steam program is highly visible, and--as can be seen from our "Flimsies" section--garners generally positive (if occasionally banal and mindless) ink everywhere it goes.

Just how much press will the "negative" actions of UP garner? Enough, as seen by the Chicago articles--but how many people are actually going to form an opinion on the issue? "Aw, it's all about a buncha dork train spotters; who cares about them?"

Bluntly put, one has to think hard about the implications of the photography issue to take offense, whereas the PR of the steam locos is a fleeting, superficial, albeit quite positive, kind of PR. Front-page photos in lots of country dailies and weeklies, versus buried in the business or local pages of the bigger papers?

Where is the distinction drawn? It's a double standard, regardless of subject.

"You can photograph and blab on about our steam engines, but when it comes to documenting freight trains, forget about it."

This could have been a "testing ground" (which is why three lonely Metra stations were picked) for a potential policy to go system wide.

Kelly Lynch

Considering all the states that the Union Pacific operates in, and the large amount of public land out west, a systemwide "no photography" policy would not only be impossible to enforce but would expose the railroad to an enormous risk of lawsuits. All you need is for one employee to do something stupid while trying to enforce the company policy and the consequences for the railroad could be quite impressive. In some states, if you are not a law enforcement officer and you threaten or physically detain another person engaged in a legal activity on public property, you could be facing anything from assault to kidnapping. Then there would be the civil lawsuit for damages and maybe a constitutional rights case as well. I would think that the manager on the railroad who came up with the policy would be fired a long time before the resulting legal actions concluded.

In terms of preventing terrorist intelligence gathering, what is the difference between taking a photo of a train, and just looking at with your eyes and remembering what you see?

Would it be illegal to look at their trains and make sketches of them? How about taking notes while looking at rail operations?

If I were the UP, I would profile photographers for terrorists rather than create a policy that will cause terrorist photographers to use miniature cameras and conceal them under their clothing.

Maybe they should paint all their equipment in optical illusion patterns like the work of artist, M.C. Escher, so when you look at it, you cannot understand its physical structure.

RTK

Too late Ron, Mr. Escher was already at work on this radical new UP paint scheme many years ago... The project was abandoned when employees complained of headaches and nausea.

As the story goes, even Escher was a bit queasy ;-))))



YES, THIS IS A JOKE.