Uploaded by tempjohn1111 on Oct 4, 2009
Saturday afternoon, 10/03/2009, I decided to look for a cool place to get some video of trains with my new (old) D8 Handycam. I saw a spot on Google maps that looked promising, and it was only about a mile from my house, so I went there. It was a public road, with big wide sidewalks on both sides of the overpass, right over the rail yard. Seemed perfect.

So I start taping the only train that is moving, and am still getting the settings right for that time of day, when I notice an armed, uniformed CSX police officer approaching me on the sidewalk. I honestly didn't even know CSX had their own police, and had to put on my glasses to see, yes, cop, gun, uniform ...

He immediately asked for my ID, which I hand over. He collects the information from the license as he asks me why I am filming "his trains". I tell him, "for YouTube ... there are a ton of train videos there and they are fun to watch so I decided to come film some trains."

I ask "Is this private property?" "No," he replies, "this is a public road", while writing down info from my drivers license and asking for my phone number. He then states "I am issuing you a Criminal Trespass Warning."

I don't know what that is exactly. It didn't involve any paperwork or fingerprints ... probably just pretext for placing my personal information into CSX and/or law enforcement computers.

Anyway, I decided it would be better to be on the sofa with the cats than handcuffed and in jail for making videos from the sidewalk, so I left. The officer was cordial, and as non threatening as a uniformed, armed police officer can be whilst demanding ID on a public sidewalk.

So, if I am not safe from police harassment on a sidewalk on a public road, I won't be making any more videos of trains from anywhere, which is maybe what CSX wanted when they empowered their police to approach people on public roads and sidewalks, demand ID, and issue "Criminal Trespass" warnings ...

If the officer had said nothing more than "hey, we really don't want to encourage people to stand on the bridge", I would have moved along, no problem. Even a sign saying "No standing on bridge" would have been sufficient. But armed law enforcement officers demanding and collecting personal information and even mentioning "criminal" ... ridiculous.