Dave,
I too am involved in railroading and have found that the best thing any railfan can
do is "just ask first".
We usually will tell them or if possible show them a safe place to be and still see enough to make them happy.
But as I said else where here on the Gauge, they are their own worst enemies.
You can't blame the railroads for fearing lawsuits. It was last year that one railfan was killed because he stood in the middle of one track to take pictures of a train on another track.
Lets face it, when a little model train hits something the worst you get is broken plastic, when a locomotive weighing almost 500,000lbs hits something, even at low speed there is usually a huge amount of damage.
Last fall in the Milwaukee Wi. area a slow moving W.C. GP38 hit the cab of a semi truck.
According to those who saw it happen the driver of the truck ingnored a stop sign. He was killed, I have several photos of the front of the locomotive, the indentations of the duels of the cab of the truck are very clear to see on the locomotive. The front coupler of the locomotive went directly between them. The train was travling at less than 10 mph when this occured.
When I'm in the cab and going through cities I'm amazed at the amount of people going around the gates, they almost dare us to hit them. It's a very sad part of railroading because sometimes we do hit them, and they loose big time.
Lance
Lance