It sounds like an old Yakov Smirnov comedy routine, “In Russia, train photographs you,” but I was chasing a train on the Puget Sound & Pacific last night with another other local railfan. It turned out to be a DoD train heading to the sub base at Bangor. I know they were empties due to the lack of placards and how high the cars were riding on the trucks, but it didn’t stop whoever this was from poking his cell photo out from underneath a sheet of plastic (which was in every window of their hack) and getting a photo of me, getting a photo of them. It was poor light, didn’t get any really decent shots at all, but it was neat to see it as I’d never seen one of these trains before.
I'm a former Army officer and have seen all kinds of stuff I can't talk about, so I know how stuff like this works. I'm not the least bit concerned but a paranoid person would have probably been waiting for a knock at the door later...
That hack sure gets around: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rspicture.aspx?id=207578