ChrisCooper
Established Member
What I don't like about all these guidelines etc is that they don't differentiate between someone spending considerable amounts of time at a station, whether they be photographing or not, or someone who is taking a couple of photos whilst waiting for a train. The latter makes up the vast majority of my railway photography, often just opertunistic shots of something interesting rarther than something I was planning to see and photograph. This hasn't stopped me having some problems in the past, infact ironically, the 3 most recent times I've had problems have been that sort of photos, wheras the couple of times I've actually been hanging around at stations for photographs I've never had problems. I fully agree that if your going to stand around on stations for a long time it's a good idea to tell someone what you are doing, and it's perfectly reasonable if you don't for staff to come and check what you are doing. Taking photos of a couple of trains whilst waiting for your train though is a totally different matter, and it's unreasonable to expect people to get clearance before doing that. This also is relevant to issues such as safety briefings, as has been said if you are a normal passenger with a valid ticket who happens to take photos whilst waiting there is no need for this at all. Overall, a big issue is if photographing is your primary reason for being at the station or secondary, and if you are waiting for a train and have a valid ticket, even if the train isn't due for some time, it's a secondary reason.