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Amtrak Photography Contest - Oops, Arrested by Amtrak
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carlosmiller.com/2008/12/27/amtrak-police-arrest-photogra...
Armed with his Canon 5D and his new Lensbaby lens, photographer Duane Kerzic set out to win Amtrak’s annual photo contest this week, hoping to win $1,000 in travel vouchers and have his photo published in Amtrak’s annual calendar.
He ended up getting arrested by Amtrak police; handcuffed to a wall in a holding cell inside New York City’s Penn Station, accused of criminal trespass.
I love Amtrak. I take photos on Amtrak trains and of Amtrak trains all the time. This kind of stuff makes me sick. Typical idiotic management, one hand doesn't know what the other is doing.
Posted at 5:40AM, 7 January 2009 PDT
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good ol government run corporations...
Posted 41 months ago.
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I recently rode the California Zephyr between Chicago and Denver -- and until reading about the Duane Kerzic incident had planned on taking the train again next month on vacation.
If such incidents were the rare exceptions, I could dismiss them as anomalies. However, hardly a month goes by without Amtrak abusing a railfan. Things are simply not going to change.
As a photographer and railfan, why should I patronize a business that abuses its most loyal customers?
I'm taking the plane.
Posted 41 months ago.
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The sad thing is, the plane is worse! I wish things would just get better...
Posted 41 months ago.
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The other sad thing is that hassling photographers has done nothing to make rail travel safer.
For example, while the CTA was continuing its harassment of photographers here in Chicago, "Dr. Chaos" infiltrated the subway tunnels, picked the locks to several storage areas and laid in a supply of cyanide.
But thank goodness we're safe from photographers.
Posted 41 months ago.
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I'd be willing to cut Amtrak some slack if they would simply be more forthcoming about problems and update the traveling public in a timely manner.
Last month, for example, hundreds of passengers were stranded in Chicago and many were left to find their own means of transportation. In response, here's the best that Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman could muster:
"This confluence of events has played havoc with our train equipment, including frozen water systems and snow-packed locomotives, and it has caused problems on the rail lines themselves."
Confluence of events? Well, la-dee-dah, Percy! If Boardman came up with that himself, he desperately needs a PR professional -- and if Amtrak's PR person came up with that, he or she should be fired.
Boardman should have said something like this:
"A major snowstorm with bitter cold has gongealed diesel fuel and frozen water lines, damaged switches, caused power outages and brought a number of our lines to a complete standstill. Amtrak crews are out there in this storm doing all they can to get things moving, but there's really not much we can do until the storm clears and temperatures get warmer. Chicago's airports also are trying to cope with hundreds of canceled flights, and Greyhound has canceled most of its buses in and out of the city. We apologize for the problems this has caused for our customers during the busiest travel days of the year and want to assure them that once we can safely resume operations, Amtrak will get them to their destinations."
We should also have seen Boardman -- or at least his top people in Chicago -- out there talking to passengers, handing out blankets, water, sandwiches and such. If there was video of that, I sure missed it.
Chicago's city government has its problems -- such as its inability to deal with railfan photographers -- but when there's an emergency, we see Mayor Daley and his department heads on TV proactively addressing the problem.
Amtrak could take a lesson from Chicago.
I do love trains and I do love to ride Amtrak.
Originally posted 41 months ago.
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chi_cowboy edited this topic 41 months ago.
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I've been mulling over the Kerzic incident and have decided that most of the time, it's not worth the aggravation to take photos of railroads. Taking pictures out the window from inside the train I'd feel pretty comfortable doing, but the realization that Amtrak police might have arrested me for taking this photo of a CZ locomotive and refusing to delete it doesn't make me willing to become a test case.
It will be interesting to see how the Kerzic incident plays out. There is little public sympathy for rail photographers and I would be surprised if Amtrak acknowledges any wrongdoing.
Originally posted 41 months ago.
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chi_cowboy edited this topic 41 months ago.
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I'm still honked off over that Kerzic incident -- but I've cooled off enough that I just made reservations to take the CZ to Denver again in a couple of weeks.
Posted 41 months ago.
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In my experience out here on the Left coast, I've found that as long as you stay in clearly marked PUBLIC areas, Amtrak (and the commercial railroads) will leave you alone (with or without a camera) for the most part. If you stray onto what is clearly railroad property, though, they'll let you know!
West coast photographer/railfan
@chi_cowboy : the picture of the P42DC is clearly taken from the platform, they shouldn't have bothered you. Go out on the tracks, though, and it's a different story! I have quite a few (and will move to the group at 4/day...) pics of Amtrak (and Amtrak California...) loco's. I've even gotten close enuf to shoot some shots of the maker's plates!
From the story, it seems that the Amtrak police (the Penn Station Division, at least, probably the entire NYC staff...) needs training in both 1) current Amtrak policy re: photography and 2) First amendment rights of photographers in general. They probably also need training in what constitutes "criminal trespass"!
From your comments, the Chicago PD and the Amtrak police's Chicago division probably need the same training - particularly 2)!
I think these Gestapo are trying to enforce now expired provisions in the first Patriot Act - that are both (as mentioned) EXPIRED, and ruled unconstitutional by some of the US Circuit Courts of Appeal...
These are the provisions that prevented you (for a time...) from taking pictures of (for example...) the Golden Gate Bridge from the Tourist Overlook at the North end. It was stupid, because: a) It was easy to sneak one, even when it was being enforced... and b) There's lots of fully detailed, high quality, pictures taken BEFORE the Patriot Act was enacted, available for commercial sale. (heck, you can [or could...] get the blueprints for the GGB!)
Originally posted 36 months ago.
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THE Holy Hand Grenade! edited this topic 36 months ago.
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