There is no guarantee that said individual is a "railroad employee." Wearing hi-visibility vests has become somewhat common among a few railfans, some of whom want to seem to want to "blend in" to the railroad environment and/or not get reported by rail crews (you'll see some "smokies," or firefighting buffs, doing the same thing at big fires, often in hopes of sneaking past police lines for their shots), and/or some of whom are realizing the dangers of being roadside at some spots (I've personally witnessed two railfans struck by automobiles, one run over in almost slow motion, and had a fellow NRHS member killed by a car during a train chase I fortunately wasn't on).

The flip side of this is that I've been checked out recently by CSX and NS agents who are now actively seeking out another frequent wearer of hi-viz vests to "blend in": scrap and copper thieves. In a couple areas, it's becoming "guilty until proven innocent" if they're spotted, and even the "innocent" are possibly still trespassing, if only six feet off the crossing pavement.

I've also witnessed "viewfinderitis" in person, and the line between a very focused photographer/videographer and Asperger's Syndrome is a mighty fine one at times. I've learned to become the hypervigilant one during photography, constantly craning about like a meerkat for another train, someone about to walk across the image, a clueless pedestrian about to walk into me, etc.

"Viewfinderitis" is actually an excellent thing to have in professional video work, however. Look at the (second, full-length) video in question again, and compare to most of what appears on "America's Stupidest Home Videos": steady camera/tripod, no madcap zooming or panning, no camera dropping or falling....... I suspect the guy had the video camera on a tripod, set it to record, and then shot a still or three until the freight showed up.

On yet another hand, had I been the one at trackside near those two almost-Darwin-Award-winners, and I had to be the one to act, I can guarantee you that both of them would have been yanked back with considerable viole-- umm, let's just say "extra effort." The last one would have had a camera pointed skyward while lying on the ground, let's just say......

I feel I must comment as a follow-up. Autism in some form, is not unknown amongst railfans. These include the people who lack social skills and obsess on trivial statistics, facts, dates, and repeatedly review events to "dissect" even more minutiae. Such a person could be so focused on viewing the object fascinating him/her, and exclude any outside influence, such as the man physically moving them. Without direct information, one can not say this was the situation, allow it remains a plausible possibility.

Good point. Go to a sci-convention and you'll see this in action. I went to one 2 years ago in Seattle and was entertained by watching people walk right into solid objects, the people having no concept of where they were going. I watched dozens of people walk right into other people, booths, pillars, doors, it just blew my mind.
None of them were texting or using cameras, either, when they did it.

I frequent Sci-Fi and Multi-fandom conventions, including the largest on the east coast, "Dragon*Con," and while I've seen every type of social awkwardness, I've never noticed a propensity for walking into solid objects among attendees.

Come to Seattle, then. I couldn't count the number of times I saw it happen the one con I went to there...

Being in vestibules:

The various States have for more than 100 years allowed the railroads to post notices not to stand in the vestibules or platforms and thus void liability for injuries or death.

For a college class years ago, I looked up the California Stature and the various California and other States cases that have held the railroads liable. Such reasons were no space in the body of the car for all passengers on board and the normal tendency of people to move to the vestibule when approaching a stop.

Nope, there was one specific incident, captured on video, that resulted in soiled underwear in the legal dept. and closed dutch doors on the train. Capturing stupid on video or other media and then sharing with the world, while compelling, can't be good for the collective us. Pretending the legal dept. can't find video or has blinders on is laughable. Cinders can be cured with goggles, stupid cannot.

And while I'm at it... The vestibule is a crush zone in a wreck, but your safe elsewhere, really? Fascinating.

o484 pretty well nailed it....

ETA

I seen to recall at least one err railfan who decided his exploits at trespassing was a great youtube subject. Gee, I wonder why some of the railroads said individual visited don't mind railfans, but absolutely hate video cameras (and triple check the switch locks).

For that matter, stealing recognizable RR property and attempting to sell it on Ebay is a bad idea; you will get caught, so don't try it.

Yep. Look at the photographs in Robert Reed's book and the various drawings and other information on steel passenger car design. It was identified that with the increasing train speeds and weights, it was essential to protect the passengers from the energy generated from crashes as much as possible. Thus the main body of the passenger coach became a steel box protected by steel framing at either end of the car and the vestibules designed to absorb the bulk of the energy of the collision by collapsing.

Thus while there is no totally safe place on a train in a wreck, you are statistically much safer riding inside a passenger car as opposed to standing in the vestibule.

LOL

And then, there is also just "attention blindness", well familiar to those engaged in a cell phone call and not the road, which is why hands-free's are not safe. And that is hyper-inflated with these new smart devices. You know, you plan to give your device 1/2 second of attention to do a specific task (like switch from camera to movie mode)... however the device has a surprise for you, like it pops up a "Do you want to join <random nearby WiFi network>" ... or you accidentally brush the screen and throw it into a different mode and you struggle to get back. You allocated 1/2 second to the activity, but 2, 5, 10 seconds actually elapsed. Your situational awareness has gone to heck.


Cosplay girls. Get ya everytime.
Not that I'd know anything about that...