Last week, I
posted about grad student Naomi Adiv's "Beating The Bounds" thesis project, where she was documenting her walks of the Amtrak Capital Corridor between the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento. Apparently, someone from railroad owners Union Pacific read the post and forwarded it to the security office who, citing safety concerns, told Naomi to stop the project. Naomi recounts the telephone conversation with the Union Pacific security representative on her blog. My favorite part was the end of the call:
(The security officer said,) “Can I ask you a question?" Why would you do this?” I told him I was curious.
I felt badly that my post had seemingly led to the immediate end of Naomi's project. Turns out, she says that being forced to stop walking is just more grist for the research mill. From an email she sent me:
The rail project was shut down just two days after it was posted on boingboing, and I think this brings up some interesting questions about research and publishing on the internet. The first, and most obvious, is that this project was going on for months before anyone at Union Pacific (UP) ever found out about it. Furthermore, I saw and talked to a bunch of UP maintenance people while I was out walking and they didn’t stop me. This isn’t to incriminate them or say that they are doing a bad job, but that people are out there all the time, and the fundamental difference here is that I am publishing my findings. The second is an ethical concern: I have now attracted a lot of attention to this space that I find so special precisely because it is marginal. Does this endanger its marginal quality? Perhaps. I certainly don’t want anyone who is living by the tracks to be pushed out of their already marginal spot because of my research. But is there any qualitative difference to posting it on my own blog and linking it to a much bigger one? Finally, I got some of my best feedback from people who found the work on boingboing, people who didn’t know me or just like the project because they are my friends. I see a lot of potential in this for future research. Academics might balk at this – what we do is not about everyone putting their two cents in – but I have been really pushed by some of the questions and comments sent to me in ways I would not have been otherwise.
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Previously on BB:
• Naomi Adiv's Beating The Bounds project
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Sometimes it seems we are turning into the old Soviet Union.
I recall being amazed when I learned that in the USSR, accurate maps were not available and you could get into huge trouble for photographing public places, because this information could be useful to enemies of the country. Meanwhile, despite the threat of total annihilation fro a Soviet nuclear attack, the US had no such restrictions except for military installations; the thought that information about a railroad line could be dangerous was laughed at, even at the height of the Cold War.
When I was working for a small-town newspaper I had some unmarked, plainsclothed "security" guard for the railways stop and accost me when I took a picture of a stop sign on the line.
He cited all the usual stuff bout turr'ism and what not. At the end of the day I was on a public road and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.
Asking him for his name, identification and some quotes to use in my story resulted in the desired result of seeing him speed quickly away.
railroads are always aggressive about prosecuting people who trespass on their tracks. it's happened to a bunch of people i know, including me. i always figured it was demanded by their insurers.
not so much like the soviet union. this kind of paranoid behvaior brought on by insurance and lawsuits is about as american as it gets.
Nope, sorry inkyblue2, I don't buy that. Naomi's project was going on for months with no problems. It was only until it received some publicity that they suddenly had issues with it. Joe is more on target here.
I'm pretty sure if you read the post it is pretty clear that the railroad's request has nothing to do with national security. The railroad asked her to stop because they didn't want to have to deal with her getting hit by a train.
The way around this is simple; ask the railroad for permission and try to work out some accommodation that allows them to stop worrying about liability. A little bit of social engineering goes a long way.
If she gets struck by a train, the railroad has a huge mess to clean up, as well as numerous liability issues to deal with. Likewise, if the engineer slams on the breaks upon seeing somebody on the tracks, there could be other damages.
Railroad tracks are *always* strictly marked as 'No Trespassing' areas.
Although the maintenance workers might have let it slide, she was very clearly breaking the law and violating the policies of the railroad. She had to have known that there was the potential to get caught and kicked off.
That all said, I was genuinely intrigued by her project, and hope that she can come to some sort of agreement with UP that allows her to continue it safely.
This is about personal safety and nothing more. Take a moment to do a Google search on the words: train hit pedestrian. You'll find article after article about some poor sour who was hit by a train. I know that it's easy to concoct police state theories when we hear that a person is told that they shouldn't be walking along train tracks, but it's really just a matter of the person being told to use common sense. I was chased off train tracks as a kid and it wasn't because they were concerned about national security.
if you are doing something the stupid people might not like, don't tell them until you're done.
I always thought that we had the right-of-way to walk the tracks. Guess not.
:-(
Are there ANY public spaces left?
Remember "Stand by Me"? Yeah, we did stuff like that.
All that aside, she knows the number one rule for research thesis... that happens is good...(for more pages).
Asking him for his name, identification and some quotes to use in my story resulted in the desired result of seeing him speed quickly away.
For the less verbally adept, staring hard at crotch or cleavage, as appropriate, will also send pseudo-authority figures skedaddling. Works a treat with the receipt checkers at electronics stores. But don't try it with cops.
The reality is this: Someone who initiates and starts a project often knows—and has done the work—to understand the scope/limits/dangers of the project.
The problem with the Internet is someone posts an idea/concept like this and then you suddenly have a bunch of people who are too dumb to know they know too little and they simply mimic the initiator, but has no true depth or understanding and will—more often than not—get in a situation that is way above their heads.
All the bemoaning of security guards and paranoid ignores this point. Far too many people who follow Internet trends are out of their league and have no idea what they are getting into.
I recommend anyone engaging in a long-term project they want to share to simply do great documentation while the project is happening but NOT to share any information until the project is over or close to being over.
the amtrak train corridor between berkeley and sacramento is amazing. a continuous, weird collision between nature and industry. the tracks wrap around the eastern side of the SF bay past richmond and martinez and at times sit a few feet from the water. the best thing about train travel is you get to see the backside of things. the mysterious, unauthorized version of how things work. from great blue herons patrolling evaporation ponds at oil refineries to locals fishing and elaborate homeless encampments, there's a lot to see. but the best part is when the train passes through any part of the sacramento river delta. marshes stretch for miles in every direction freely mixed with canals and shipping channels. pollution and nature in full accord. it's a bunch of really weird and beautiful non-places all passing in succession. all the people who are suddenly so interested in abandoned hospitals and such should go for a visit. there's really nothing like an inaccessible non-differentiated space for existential frisson (yeah college vocab).
I don't think I'm out of my league walking along a train track.
I bet if you carry a toy balloon on a string while you walk, people won't bother you
"Why would you do this?" - The guy missed "Being Human 101" classes. Why do people do anything at all that isn't related directly to their survival or species propagation? We do those things because we can't not do them. We're either cursed or blessed with this drive, and which one of those it is depends on a lot of variables.
Not defending SP by any means, but if you live in the Bay Area and you read the news, then you can't be unaware of the fact that lately people seem to be stepping in front of the train almost weekly. And just a few years ago a babysitter walked one boy across the tracks, went back to fetch an infant and the boy followed her. He was killed by the train. So they're a bit touchy about people being on the tracks.
I used to take the train up to Sacramento and Chico, a couple of hours north. Whereas the highways veer inland as the go up through the East Bay, the train hugs the water and even goes through what looks like an abandon, half sunken, outpost. You get to see parts of the Bay you'll never get close to in a car. Pretty cool ride actually.
yep, trains move a lot faster than they look. If nothing else, you owe it to the crew on the train to be alert enough to get far enough away so they can't see you are there in the right of way. It's one job I haven't done (yet) but I can well imagine the heart-in-the-mouth feeling spotting kids on the tracks and not being able to do a damn thing to stop the train.
if you live in the Bay Area and you read the news, then you can't be unaware of the fact that lately people seem to be stepping in front of the train almost weekly.
Try reading the Japanese news. Jumping in front of the train is one of the most popular ways of committing suicide. And the article always mentions how many commuters were inconvenienced.
yeah, but the back story is about how messed up the train drivers get. Should be noted that the odd "suicide" isn't. Stay back from the line even in crowds and keep your knees slightly bent.
I have noticed a few articles about opening the doors while at full speed.
shinkansen?
I hope not.
evening then
Publicity is a lot of the problem. The railroads don't mind a visitor or two, but if visiting gets popular, then they have a serious problem.
In the charming book, We Swam The Grand Canyon, the authors had found cheap rubber suits and were swimming the canyon with no one bothering them. Then, they dropped by the park HQ and the rangers tried to stop them. Their response was more or less: "We're from California. You stop us, and people find out, then you'll have half of the state in the Colorado River. If we succeed, it becomes less interesting." The rangers were terrified and let them continue.
(It's a neat book. They swam the river before the dam cut the flow.)