Guy stands in the path of the Big Boy. This is probably why Train Crews can despise railfans. It doesn't take much to get a foot caught, fall, etc. Heck the guy stumbles up the small pile of gravel.
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Absolutely. There is a right way and wrong way to railfan. He should be fined.
Watching it again, there are a lot of people IMO being unsafe standing close to the tracks. The kids running around on the right side are cause for concern.
Darwin must have been on a coffee break. The guy looked like he is old enough to know better. Good thing it was a slow-moving excursion. This probably illustrates another reason why many railroads do not allow steam engines on their tracks.
The police who were on duty in Watseka Illinois were very low-key and effective. It must be a huge task to try and keep every mile of track safe during this trip.
@MartyE posted:Guy stands in the path of the Big Boy. This is probably why Train Crews can despise railfans. It doesn't take much to get a foot caught, fall, etc. Heck the guy stumbles up the small pile of gravel.
never underestimate stupid people.
One of my accounts (when I was working) was Amtrak. We had to attend the Amtrak safety course (for visitors and new employees) pretty much at every facility the first time we went there. One main point was that a train takes a LONG time to stop. At the 110 MPH speed on the NE Corridor even in emergency mode, that distance is over a mile. At that speed, you see a person at about 1/2 mile away. Sure at 25 MPH it's a faster stop, but if you fall, or snag a foot...
The second point was- after you spend enough time near trains and tracks, you simply don't HEAR a train anymore. Sort of like a ticking clock. After a few months working Amtrak facilities, I was crossing tracks in a yard, and failed to hear an oncoming train- 5 MPH- until the horn blasted. I was the dummy that day.
We saw a lot of stupid on all three of our trips to see 4014. Most of the time, local police were effective in getting people off the tracks, but they couldn't be everywhere.
Most of these people don't even stop to consider that the 4014 is so big that you are not going to get good photos or video when you are standing that close.
Andy
The family went to check out 4014 on its first trip to West Chicago, my son lived in Waukegan at that time, and we came up from NC. We headed out to see it in motion about 30 miles west. A beautiful cloudless day, and for photos and video, we were actually on the wrong side of the tracks with the sun in our face, but we stayed. And glad we did. As we waited, a very long freight was coming up the other track. About 50 people total were on the other side of the grade crossing, and their view of the Big Boy was totally blocked by the now completely stopped freight. A few can be seen on the right in the red circle. At least none of them crawled under the box cars to get a better view. Included the other pic to show I know how to focus, and being on this side of the track how everything was in shadow. Maybe if I had a better camera next time.
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@MartyE posted:Guy stands in the path of the Big Boy. This is probably why Train Crews can despise railfans. It doesn't take much to get a foot caught, fall, etc. Heck the guy stumbles up the small pile of gravel.
They're not railfans Marty, they're idiots! 
One day Darwin will reward them.
Total moron. Can't teach stupid. And what he did is also illegal. It may take a prosecution or two to get the message across.
Pat
And to top it off, the idiot is holding his phone VERTICALLY! Nothing like shooting a massively HORIZONTAL scene vertically. 🤨
This is one reason why I don’t do this any more, not even for the 4014. I have not seen the Big Boy in person, and I have no interest in seeing it. Too much blatant stupidity and self-centeredness in the crowds for me.
I am sure afterwards he will go to Yellowstone and photograph the bison.
We have to stop saying,
"How stupid can you be?"
Way too many people are taking it as a challenge!
maybe this clown want's be a railroad tie when he grows up
I've shared this one before. When I was at Strasburg back in 2019 on my birthday) October), 475 had switched up to the rear of the train that had just pulled in and would be leading it out. This fellow decided to walk by the water tower and cross just after the fenced area was no longer in his way. At the crossing path where the staff were allowing folks to cross when safe, the female staffer shouted, "Sir, get off the tracks, you are not allowed to be walking there. Use the path as it is intended for!"
Well, from her mouth to God's ears this guy starts looking all over the place as he clearly didn't know he was the person that was being shouted at. Well, I opened my(big) mouth and said, "Hey, get off the tracks!" Anyone that knows me knows I have two volumes, loud and annoyingly loud. He did manage to see that he indeed was the person whom was being yelled at, and got off the tracks.
475 pulled out about two minutes later and I shout excellent video just right next to the female staffer safely behind the barrier. I told her that I always listen, pay attention, know where I am allowed to be, and what is off limits. You won't find me walking on the railroad tracks, I did that when I was a kid, all of six or seven with my siblings that were just little older. Yeah, we were trespassing, because that is exactly what it is that those idiots are doing right there.
Behind what was my grandparents place which is now a park, the Black River and Western runs. I have in the past shot video and snapped photos just where the clearly begins, which is clear of the ballast. That probably is trespassing, but it is out of the way maybe a bit more than 8 feet. I've not gone back to that spot, and it has overgrown anyway, for the better I'd say.
@DMASSO posted:I am sure afterwards he will go to Yellowstone and photograph the bison.
And the best place is on the crusty stuff with the steam coming up through the holes.
I agree with Hot Water. On the forum we just see railroad related idiotic stunts, but they are everywhere. Idiotic and dangerous stunts have been going on forever; with the camera phone and internet we get to see more of them.
Back around 2019, UP's other running steam engine #844's pilot struck and killed a woman as she stood outside the rail on the ties recording. Very sad ... including for the crew.
I used to try to accommodate railfans who came to my office and asked permission to photograph. At Barstow, I had to escort them out to the very large and busy diesel service track area, and always tried to make time to do it. At Sweetwater, it was much more low-key, so, if they looked like they had some common sense, I gave them a quiz on safety practices (no running, stepping over -- not on rails, looking both ways, not walking around the end of standing equipment or trains that had just passed) and allowed them to take photos. We never had a problem from that, and I received a few nice notes from some of the railfans. Even though the railfans were no problem there, the snake hunters . . . now they were a different breed of cats. Against the north side of the yard was a bluff, where there were numerous Western Diamondback rattlesnake dens. We were used to looking where we were walking in the yard, and the snakes and the railroad cohabited with no drama or bites. The snake hunters, collecting snakes for the annual rattlesnake roundup were often unwilling to behave in accordance with railroad safety practices, and I normally ran them off and called in their license plate numbers to the Sheriff's Department. The Sheriff appreciated that, as many were not leading citizens of our community, and some got picked up for outstanding warrants when driving off of railroad property.
But this is a different era, and, as has been pointed out, these folks are probably not actually railfans, and our culture has become more egocentric. So the Union Pacific gets a compliment for having its steam program and putting up with all of the crazy behavior of crowds.
As an aside, I only got kicked off the property (before I worked for the railroad) twice.
- I stopped in at the Los Angeles Junction Railway roundhouse and asked permission to photograph their well maintained Alco-GE S2's. The Roundhouse Foreman not only said, "No," but he became very hostile and ordered me off of the property, following me to my car and watching to see that I left as he had ordered.. Sheesh! Maybe I reminded him of his wife's boyfriend, haha.
- And I rode the Santa Fe RDC's from Belen to Albuquerque and followed them on foot, from the depot down to the roundhouse fuel track, where they were being serviced during their layover, before they returned to El Paso. I shot a couple of Kodachromes of them being serviced, as well as a some Kodachromes of retired Alco-GE RSD-5's sitting around the turntable, being cannibalized for parts to keep the active RSD's running in their last few years. A Foreman saw me and told me to leave. He was somewhat cross, too. I swear I was not his wife's boyfriend. I was unaware that the Santa Fe steam locomotive collection was inside the roundhouse, so I'll bet that he had to deal with railfans trying to sneak in and maybe steal trophies. Maybe that affected his attitude. So I walked back down to the depot, had a Fred Harvey lunch (Yum!) and took photos when the cars returned to take on passengers and depart.
My point is that, where the railroad has a lot of action, the supervisors are usually busy and railfan encroachment is low on their priority lists. But those two locations that rolled out the unwelcome mat for me had very little activity, with supervisors not being busy and having time to watch everything.
When a steam locomotive special trip runs, a large crowd of the public starts to converge from all over and come onto the property where nobody ever comes onto the property in normal times. Along the main track between stops, there's nobody to herd them, so some craziness happens, and, still, they are very seldom injured. God is good, so they say, and this supports that belief.
