Encounters With Others At Railroad Crossings

[freebrickproductions]

2:Arlington Ave, Independence, MO
a guy in a red truck parked his truck in the middle of the road and began harassing me, threatening to break my camera, as well as wanting to kill me all because I was filming trains (I'm not making it up, the guy was wanting to fight me and kill me). I retaliated and told him I was gonna report him to the cops if he ever lay a hand on me. Thankfully he got back in his truck and drove away only to purposely hit my car. Me and my friend got in the car and took off as fast as we could as he chased us for no reason.

I don't get people like this. Why on earth would anybody threaten to murder and damage the property of some random person they've never met just because they were filming trains? What do they really have to gain from that (other than make themselves look like idiots)? I'm sorry you had to experience that. People can be real jerks sometimes.

There are some crazy people out there. That's why I haven't tried taking pictures or videos at crossings, because you don't know who will happen to come by when you are there.

I honestly don't let people like that worry me, as a good 99% of other people who see you out doing that just simply won't care, or at least just simply won't bother you directly.

[UPking]

2:Arlington Ave, Independence, MO
a guy in a red truck parked his truck in the middle of the road and began harassing me, threatening to break my camera, as well as wanting to kill me all because I was filming trains (I'm not making it up, the guy was wanting to fight me and kill me). I retaliated and told him I was gonna report him to the cops if he ever lay a hand on me. Thankfully he got back in his truck and drove away only to purposely hit my car. Me and my friend got in the car and took off as fast as we could as he chased us for no reason.

I don't get people like this. Why on earth would anybody threaten to murder and damage the property of some random person they've never met just because they were filming trains? What do they really have to gain from that (other than make themselves look like idiots)? I'm sorry you had to experience that. People can be real jerks sometimes.

There are some crazy people out there. That's why I haven't tried taking pictures or videos at crossings, because you don't know who will happen to come by when you are there.

I honestly don't let people like that worry me, as a good 99% of other people who see you out doing that just simply won't care, or at least just simply won't bother you directly.

I know why. Probably was a very -> person (sorry for this but it’s probably true). He think you are a terrorist and is trying to protect the community by trying to stop you, what a fool. Some people of that type will do anything they think is proper and think they are entitled to protect the country. Post 9/11 trauma still remains.

[KCMO Railfan]

*BUMP*. I thought I would update this topic with an incident that occurred today at one of my favorite spots to railfan at. I recently gotten harassed at Claremont Ave today all because I was waiting on a signal maintainer to fix a malfunction since I happen to see that the signals was activated for no reason. As I was departing, some rude moron began following me and started to threaten not only violence towards me, but also murder as the dude looked like he was gonna pull out a gun and shoot me. All this nonsense over the fact I was waiting on not only a signal maintainer to fix a malfunction, but also a train. Goes to show you how bad Independence is getting with stupidity like this. Probably the worst encounter I had at a railroad crossing since that one day I posted about back in 2020 with the incident I had at Arlington Ave.

[freebrickproductions]

*BUMP*. I thought I would update this topic with an incident that occurred today at one of my favorite spots to railfan at. I recently gotten harassed at Claremont Ave today all because I was waiting on a signal maintainer to fix a malfunction since I happen to see that the signals was activated for no reason. As I was departing, some rude moron began following me and started to threaten not only violence towards me, but also murder as the dude looked like he was gonna pull out a gun and shoot me. All this nonsense over the fact I was waiting on not only a signal maintainer to fix a malfunction, but also a train. Goes to show you how bad Independence is getting with stupidity like this. Probably the worst encounter I had at a railroad crossing since that one day I posted about back in 2020 with the incident I had at Arlington Ave.

Yikes! I'm sorry you had to deal with that! Some people really need to learn to just mind their own business...

[PlyingKibbles89]

I have a fun story about an encounter I had recently. I was minding my own business at the 88th Avenue crossing in Westminster, when some guy rolls up to me in his car and stopped. Keep in mind, 88th Avenue is a very busy street. He gets out and tells me to shut my camera off. I tell him it's already off, then he gets out of his car and approaches me. All the traffic is honking at him, so he gets back in and stays there until I point my camera down at the ground, when he finally goes away. I don't know what his deal was, but that is probably my new worst encounter while railfanning. I'm just thankful that street was really busy, or I could've gotten hurt or had my stuff stolen/destroyed.

[freebrickproductions]

I have a fun story about an encounter I had recently. I was minding my own business at the 88th Avenue crossing in Westminster, when some guy rolls up to me in his car and stopped. Keep in mind, 88th Avenue is a very busy street. He gets out and tells me to shut my camera off. I tell him it's already off, then he gets out of his car and approaches me. All the traffic is honking at him, so he gets back in and stays there until I point my camera down at the ground, when he finally goes away. I don't know what his deal was, but that is probably my new worst encounter while railfanning. I'm just thankful that street was really busy, or I could've gotten hurt or had my stuff stolen/destroyed.

My guess is that he thought you were going to steal his information by recording his license plate or something.

[NathanFromEngland]

Was filming in Parbold earlier today, I was trying to get a shot of the actual signal box without standing on the crossing and coming off as suspicious. (due to limited space it was hard to get something convincing) I got spotted by the signaller regardless whilst trying to do that, but he was very friendly and we discussed crossings for a little bit, He was also nice enough to give me a tour of the actual signal box. Sadly I wasn't allowed to take photos or videos inside, but it'll probably be the only time I'll get a look inside a signal box. (That is if I had a license to drive) :P

[freebrickproductions]

Nice! Friendly railroaders are always fun to chat with over here as well.

[ElectroTiel]

I was once recording at a crossing in Trypucie (Podlaskie voivodeship, Poland; crossing no longer exists) when a white Mazda pulled up. The driver claimed to be from the Voivodeship Inspectorate of Building Control in Białystok and told my dad that I couldn't record the crossing because I was filming a construction zone (which it was at the time - the line was being upgraded as per the Rail Baltica project, intended to bring the linespeed to 200km/h), which was obviously bogus. He also claimed that I was "trying to reveal the construction plans", which are supposedly secret (spoiler alert: you can find what was meant to be done in the tender documents, so not exactly a secret - and if he was referring to the blueprints, which are actually secret, then that's another bogus claim). He forbade me from publishing the video (which I begrudgingly agreed with). Dude actually noted down the license plates of the car (not much use of these to be fair, best you can find out is that they belong to a Volkswagen Passat), but it still felt kinda weird.

[NathanFromEngland]

Not sure if this may count as an 'encounter' but while standing around in Formby. I was asked by some people if I knew where a convenience store was. After looking the store up (in which it turns out was a short walk behind me) I told them it was just a short walk up the road (I was wrong as I accidentally forgot to recentre my maps POV on my phone thus making them walk in the wrong direction) Around 5-10 seconds after they crossed over the crossing I realised my mistake only to be interrupted by the crossing activating leaving me stuck on the other side.

After waiting 3-4 minutes I cycled back up and pointed out my mistake. Thankfully, they were friendly and acknowledged the mistake and we parted ways.

On the bright side, I did encounter the usual friendly CCTV operator that I've noticed whenever I've sometimes filmed as I noticed they held the barriers twice when they were initially lowering.