Especailly since 9/11, railfanning has ocassionally come under scrutiny from the police. There have been stories of Police bring the FBI in on railfans, confiscating film, cards and camera.
For me, it wasn’t that much; however, today as I was railfanning the BNSF Emporia Sub near Ottawa, I did draw attention from a Franklin County Sheriff’s officer. I did get the standard licence and registration check, however.
Although I had been railfanning at this particular location, and on the nearby Eisenhower Terrace Bridge nearby, for 10 years, this is the first time that I had had a office run the registration check, and, apparantly, the first time the sheriff’s office had noticed anyone out there.
He did not ask me to leave; however, he stuck around to fill out some paperwork, so I decided it to call it a day.
I also apparantly drew attention because I was also spending some time writing webpages on my laptop.
Comments
2 responses to “Drawing attention from the law”
Yeah, that’s really unfortunate. I dont recall ever seeing any cops at that location all those times. And if there was, they never bothered us. Like the lyrics from a Bob Dylan song” The times they are a changin”…..
Same thing happened to me in Vancouver, WA a couple weeks ago: http://www.dogcaught.com/2006/02/24/a-switcher-a-bridge-a-cop/