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Re: Education level & behavior of railfans improving
Author: Industrial Goth
Date: 09-27-2016 - 11:19
Inabsentia Wrote:
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> A good trend I have noticed is that young railfans
> on TO sound positive, educated and generally nice
> to eachother. It looks like a pretty fun hobby
> now and hopefully it is improving.
Do you have demographic data to support your assertion that it is young railfans on TO being positive? It is more likely that people are nicer in TO because it is a somewhat controlled environment, and trolls would rather go to the free sites (like here) to sound off.
> In another episode, when BNSF used one of his
> photos from the internet in an internal (not
> public) booklet on crew ops, he had his lawyer
> friend go after BNSF. The railroad ordered all
> the covers to be ripped off the booklets. Do you
> think crews were happy to have books without
> covers?
Wait what? BNSF steal a photo from a railfan, and it is somehow his fault that the books didn't have the cover of the stolen photo? Don't victim blame. If the crews do not like books without covers, then they should not work for an organization that steals photos. That fact that it was an internal booklet is irrelevant.
>
> Around this same time when this guy was active, I
> was shooting trackside one day on public property.
> A BNSF crew saw me and was pissed and notified
> local security cops. The security people said,
> "we've been having a lot of problems." I had to
> think a bad foamer had been there before me and
> had poisoned the environment. I have not
> railfanned in 10 years because of that. I got the
> same feeling I had in the 80's when I was 15:
> time to find better people to hang with and a
> better hobby.
Most if not all of the times I have been harassed, it has not been because of fellow foamers wreaking it for me. It has been because of unrelated property crime concerns, or usually just someone being overzealous. Just get a drone and stand back from the tracks if there is a problem area.
>
> The railfan hobby is evolving and the young people
> seem higher caliber than even 10 years ago. So
> lets hope the hobby continues to improve and
> hopefully it becomes one where you don't have to
> feel ashamed to be part of it.
Drones have given railfans the greatest tool advancement since HD video. Hopefully this tool will be used carefully, and with spectacular results.
-------------------------------------------------------
> A good trend I have noticed is that young railfans
> on TO sound positive, educated and generally nice
> to eachother. It looks like a pretty fun hobby
> now and hopefully it is improving.
Do you have demographic data to support your assertion that it is young railfans on TO being positive? It is more likely that people are nicer in TO because it is a somewhat controlled environment, and trolls would rather go to the free sites (like here) to sound off.
> In another episode, when BNSF used one of his
> photos from the internet in an internal (not
> public) booklet on crew ops, he had his lawyer
> friend go after BNSF. The railroad ordered all
> the covers to be ripped off the booklets. Do you
> think crews were happy to have books without
> covers?
Wait what? BNSF steal a photo from a railfan, and it is somehow his fault that the books didn't have the cover of the stolen photo? Don't victim blame. If the crews do not like books without covers, then they should not work for an organization that steals photos. That fact that it was an internal booklet is irrelevant.
>
> Around this same time when this guy was active, I
> was shooting trackside one day on public property.
> A BNSF crew saw me and was pissed and notified
> local security cops. The security people said,
> "we've been having a lot of problems." I had to
> think a bad foamer had been there before me and
> had poisoned the environment. I have not
> railfanned in 10 years because of that. I got the
> same feeling I had in the 80's when I was 15:
> time to find better people to hang with and a
> better hobby.
Most if not all of the times I have been harassed, it has not been because of fellow foamers wreaking it for me. It has been because of unrelated property crime concerns, or usually just someone being overzealous. Just get a drone and stand back from the tracks if there is a problem area.
>
> The railfan hobby is evolving and the young people
> seem higher caliber than even 10 years ago. So
> lets hope the hobby continues to improve and
> hopefully it becomes one where you don't have to
> feel ashamed to be part of it.
Drones have given railfans the greatest tool advancement since HD video. Hopefully this tool will be used carefully, and with spectacular results.
