This is the original forum of the Bristol Railway Archive that existed between 2003 and 2013. I finally rescued it after it seemed unrecoverable after a large crash. I have made it available for viewing. It is locked, all posts to the new version please!
A trainspotter was questioned by police on suspicion of terrorism after taking photos of locos near an oil refinery while on holiday.
He was spotted by cctv and tracked to his camp site in pembrokeshire.
He said they were heavy handed and threatened to send for special branch. They'd had a report of suspicious behavior. No action was taken.
The man is from yatton.
I know plod can be thick sometimes, but honestly since when has a train spotter been seen as a terrorist!!
Get ready guys i can see 12 burly coppers smashing our doors down in the next few days for posting photographs showing trains that may jeapordise the countries security
This sort of thing is happening all too often these days, it's worth bearing in mind that the police cannot confiscate your camera, film or order you to delete an image without a court order. Of course, had the BTP been called, the chap could have enjoyed the rest of his holiday in peace before they turned up !
Just to let you know that it was me that Dyfed Powis Police decided to harrass.
Most of what has been printed in the press, starting off with the Daily Mail's on line pages, was true. However, the bit about me not realising that the engines were anything to do with Murco was obviously not!
Anyway, the story has gone world wide and has actually received far more positive comments and support than I expected.
A number of negative viewers have expressed the concern that I did not show the police the pictures I had taken. Whilst it is true that I refused to go to a police station voluntarily, (I had broken no laws) I did offer to show the pictures to the police that came to the camp site where I was staying and I also offered them a cup of tea, strangely they declined, prefering to threaten me with Special Branch and then leaving without even finding out my identity.
The same police force are also currentley in the news about them arresting a blind man who had threatened to let down the tyres of cars parking on the pavement near his home in Narberth,making life difficult for him.
Ironically the very same place where the police who harrassed and threatened me are based.
Narberth Neighbourhood Policing Team....must be a place where no real crime occurs?!
I was contacted by the Anti-terrorism branch of Avon and Somerset for taking photos and video at Berkeley of the flask trains. It was a few years ago they traced me to my parents, who gave them my number. They phoned a few times asking for me to drop in and see them, eventually i did. They were very understanding and I highlighted that, informed and vigilant eyes of railway enthusiast are more help than obstruction.
There was never any hassle really and I haven't heard anything since, they never saw any photos or video and never asked.
The taking of photos in public places has now become a hotter issue because its affecting the "average" person in the street or tourists etc. More and more examples are making it to mainstream media now, which way this goes, who knows, maybe life for us enthusiast will get a little easier. SGB.
One of several topical cartoons. Click on the arrows.
I was given a copy of the cartoon and have put it in my Dyfed Powis Police folder!!
My official complaint has now been processed and is in the hands of the decision makers......quite what that will be is anyones guess, but at least the flurry of recent media interest is starting to help the cause.
When I recall wandering around various railway sheds in the 70's and 80's with no hassle it makes me wonder why this country has gone down the way it has.
Health n safety, hi viz jackets, professional qualifications required to eat a sarnie.... its all gone way over the top.
Steve
Best of luck with your complaint steve.
Things have got ridiculous, read in newspaper in recent weeks of people getting collar felt for taking photos of buildings in london.
Another chap got pulled ( probably rightly so ) for taking photos of cctv and exits ( think it was underground), guess cops have difficult disisions to make sometimes.-l
I'm afraid all this thread is a comment on our political leaders, so say. They want to have us all live in fear, so we can be watched and it seems there is no shortage of uneducated little twits who are prepared to fill themselves with their own non-sensical self importance in the knowledge that they are performing a vital public function and protecting us.
And they are encouraged by their council bosses, who no doubt relish their perceived important role in the "protection of society", but from what? Who gives them the right to monitor our behaviour in any way? Nobody does ... it's the greatest sign of submission to evil terrorists when these sort of stories surface. To get us to change the way we live ... is exactly what they want.
Fear is the greatest arbiter in politics, certain German politicians proved that in the 1930's and look what they ended up doing. Persecution of the innocent and all that ... they should be bloody well ashamed of themselves, but they simply don't have the sense ... must be educashun, educashun, educashun that has failed them. That's why I choose to live in the USA, where you get a pat on the back for bashing a burglar instead of an 18 month jail sentence.
And Southern Pacific will happily publish your train pics in their staff mag! Even better if you can identify and credit the driver ...
Much as I love Stapleton Road, Narroways and all the other important places of my youth, but I'm afraid it just ain't the same with the CCTV, the razor wire and the security plods etc. I had to leave, because they'd single handedly destroyed my innocent world, and all for the fact of a threat that exists only in their own minds, not in yours or mine ...
I'm aware that this probably isn't the place for overtly political postings and I'm not mentioning anybody in particular - only the whole lot of them.
So, take your own public railway back chaps, it belongs to us. Photograph and be damned, because if it isn't for the independent minded people in this country, who will always do what they want and be damned, we'll lose the battle of common sense.
And I'll never, ever get to sit on Narroways again and watch the trains go by in peace ... at least not without razor wire and a uniformed photography monitor ...
It's called, for grief in pursuing an innocent pastime, discrimination. And there are laws to protect us from that. And it is about time we started to use them ...
Educashun...
wonderful stuff....
gave us the three R's reading writing and arithmatic ( ok one out of three aint bad ) R W A hasn't got the same ring has it.
Also kids that can't speak a sentence without putting "and stuff" on the end because they don't know what else to say.
What anoys me is people who believe the governments line and tell you "if youv'e done nothing wrong then you have nothing to be affraid of"
And if you have been on receiving end of crime, with all the cctv cameras around nothing ever seems to have been caught unless they are all watching out for rail enthusiasts.
an estimated 2000 Professional and amateur photographers have gathered in London's Trafalgar Square to protest against terror stop and searches.
section 44 anti terrorism law
fair do's to them...
The current regime stinks of the horrific bans on photography behind the Iron Curtain back in the 50's and 60's. And that was to stop people "seeing and revealing the truth" of what was really happening. I wouldn't put it past the current politicians of this country for not starting to think of the same form of censureship & control. Especially considering the total mess they have made of our economy.
And yet, they are so say all too happy to support and promote "art"? Who is going to record our history if we can't take pictures of our very own streets freely and without threat of intimidation by the "paid forces"? Where would a top website like this be if we weren't allowed to photograph our "publicly owned" surroundings and share those images?
Fact is, art is only art when the powers that be like and approve of it and put their grubby little government stamp and unreliable funding on it.
I have a feeling that there are going to be scenes in this country soon that the government would very much like nobody to record ... and they know it and that is what is behind all this. The threat from abroad is merely playing into their own hands ...
" I wouldn't put it past the current politicians of this country for not starting to think of the same form of censureship & control. Especially considering the total mess they have made of our economy. "
I think that we are well on our way to state of censorship and control, especialy after reading about government trying to sneak through new law or part of law giving local authorities housing benefit official environmental health squads and even private security firms similar powers to mi5 mi6 armed forces and police to bribe people to "grass up " wrong do-ers. This would enable even down to local councils to pay people to grass up their neighbours for a multitude of misdemenours ( sorry if spelt wrong ). rubbish put out to soon ......
Regulations of investigatory powers act section 12 just a glance at title sends chill down the spine..
nickt wrote:" I wouldn't put it past the current politicians of this country for not starting to think of the same form of censureship & control. Especially considering the total mess they have made of our economy. "
I think that we are well on our way to state of censorship and control, especialy after reading about government trying to sneak through new law or part of law giving local authorities housing benefit official environmental health squads and even private security firms similar powers to mi5 mi6 armed forces and police to bribe people to "grass up " wrong do-ers. This would enable even down to local councils to pay people to grass up their neighbours for a multitude of misdemenours ( sorry if spelt wrong ). rubbish put out to soon ......
Regulations of investigatory powers act section 12 just a glance at title sends chill down the spine..
Whilst I'm always up for a discussion/ argument on politics, especially when I read "conspiracy theories" like this one, is Bristol Rail the proper place to have it?
There were even a couple of quite interesting threads on railways recently and, for local interest, somebody started discussing the S&D on the second one (on page 6):
They'd had a report of suspicious behavior. No action was taken.
