No Pictures Please – I guess I am in the minority with regard to track side contacts with LEO’s regarding the photography of rolling assets belonging to the railroads and their facilities. While I have been doing this for a while now in a number of places around California, today was the first time that I have ever been approached by a member of the law enforcement community specifically regarding my action(s) of standing on a platform snapping pictures of trains. It seems that Amtrak’s recent revamping of their system wide photo policy has placed their peace officers in quite the quandary, because while they obviously don’t like having their pictures taken, there is really not a whole they can do about it when you are a ticket holding passenger in an area open to the riding public and not interfering with the loading, unloading, or operation of an Amtrak train. In this instance, it was my intent to capture an image of the Red Cap cart coming up the tunnel to the platform, however when the officer chose to face me and commence making gestures with his hand, he unwittingly became the subject of the photo. He was a nice guy about the whole thing though, so I will not be sending off a letter to the Director of Amtrak in Washington D.C. about this experience.
