Robert and friends on the Q list,
Sorry to hear about your unfortunate getting on the list, Robert.
Thanks for the heads-up. And thanks for all you do for the rail
community.
Yes, this is a really good and very important discussion.
As a retired BNSF employee, who heard the stories from folks
involved, there are bad, mean, nasty, rotten people among us who intend to
create mayhem, death and damage actually posing as railfans! Imagine the
audacity of it!
I don’t believe you will find the story written in any article, but after
the local trainmaster and some other employees had run a couple of guys off the
property more than once in Kansas City, they wrote down the license number and
turned it over to Asset Protection. Seems the boys were filming our
fueling areas, the fueling areas at the Airport, and other such
things. Hmmmm. Did they just like fuel trucks?
Nope.
In another case, trespassers were riding on a stack train out of New
Mexico. One of them managed to get killed in the yards at a crew change
point because he did not know how to even get on the train. But his buddy
rode on, only to be spotted by passing trains. They did a couple of rollby
searches for the guy, but could not find him. Easy enough to move from
side to side of a double-stack, moving to the opposite side when the lookee is
on one side. Only when the train pulled past a yard tower were they able
to spot the guy, with his benign backpack. He was not a Mexican and they
figure he was probing.
So. the company has extremely valid reasons to be figuring out who you are
and what you are or are not doing.
Chuck Hatler
KC MO