Life and Times of a urban railfan

For the most part I enjoy photographing trains, as a railfan it is just my nature. But with photographing railroaders and trains comes a often unknown responsibility. The responsibility of helping someone keep their job. For the most part as railfans we can get worked up over a door being open on a locomotive, but is it worth calling it in or posting a picture of it ? At what cost does one have to pay to make someone happy? When we photograph trains or the men and women who operate them we must be vigilant and careful of what we post and how we go about it.  Sadly the relationships between railfans and railroaders is deteriorating at a rapid pace, why? Glad you asked. Thirty years ago management turned a blind eye to the relationships between railfans and railroaders and life seemed good, but what happened? Well? Railfans began losing common sense and the diligence to be safe and stay out of the way and a few lawsuits later railroads had to begin cracking down on local crews for...

 With summer being in full swing and a lot of us in travel mode we often times can ignore the dangers of summer weather. While perfect sun and lots of trains make for a railfans delight they also can set the stage for a perfect storm of trouble in more than one way or another. With hot weather one of the first things I want to talk about is thunderstorms, they can sneak up on the unsuspecting railfan and can bring about some nasty surprises such as hail, flash flooding, and even tornadoes Here is a couple of screenshots from my computer of what is considered a Bow Echo type of thunderstorm. A pretty nasty storm If you noticed the storm had not reached me yet, but the dark clouds were ominous and within a few minutes I would be surrounded by high winds and rain. Not only high winds and rain but lightning and thunder as well. Another type of thundershower As you can see from the above this thunderstorm brought  lot of rain around 2am that morning. Now you maybe...