Just to show you something:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmPKfpV7VBQ

What do you think of it?

Cheers,
Mike

Unfortunately I find myself concurring with the first comment on YouTube. While from a fan perspective it is a magnificent video and I appreciate the effort which clearly went in to shooting and editing it, if you did not coordinate it with UP it calls your judgement as a pilot into serious question.

Regrettably,
GME

I agree. I cringed at some of those crowd shots. The extreme wide-angle field of view of the drone's lens always makes it seem like it is much further in the air than it is..... It really isn't. He was flying it virtually right over those people's heads. Not to mention the countless other photographers who are now processing their shots and having to clone out the drone when it appears.

UP had posted a picture on Facebook, a drone was found on top of one of the cars. they were asking whoever owned it to contact them....for the drone's return...ha.

Definitely a lot of bad behavior from drone operators.

I participated in a photo charter last year, where the organizers made a statement during the pre-trip meeting about how they had had horrific issues with a certain photographer's drones during their last charter and were instituting a new rule that if there were two be two runbys at a spot, drones would only be allowed on the second runby. If there was to be only one runby at that locations, drones were not allowed, period. I got talking to the one organizer and on their previous event, a rather famous photographer (I won't name names) who is pretty prominent on Railpictures.net and kept flying his drone fairly low and out in front of the photo line, and when confronted would respond, verbatim, "Drones are the future, and you should just get used to them being in your shot." Having met said photographer on a couple other different unrelated events, I wasn't too surprised to learn it was him and that he had said that.

Early in the railroad video era, during the first year of Chessie's 614 Safety Express trips, a certain late video producer who made his "Mark" in the business went down the access road into 17 Mile Grade to pace 614 up the grade, behind a video producer who had permission to do that and went out of his way to be gone from view of the photographers waiting at the grade crossing at Swanton, MD. This person, on the other hand, stayed right in front of the locomotive all the way past the crowd at the crossing and managed to get into view in other places all the way to Tera Alta. Oh, and he had a bright red or orange van to boot. Well, he parked and went to get something to eat in Tera Alta and came out to find several flat tires on his van. So, the more things change the more they stay the same.

That Mark usually tended to be a stain........

PC

Don't see anything about trains, but as to people watching them:

Code of Federal Regulations

Title 14 Chapter I Subchapter F Part 107 Subpart B § 107.39

Operation over human beings.

No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft over a human being unless—

(a) That human being is directly participating in the operation of the small unmanned aircraft;

(b) That human being is located under a covered structure or inside a stationary vehicle that can provide reasonable protection from a falling small unmanned aircraft; or

(c) The operation meets the requirements of at least one of the operational categories specified in subpart D of this part.

[Amdt. No. 107-8, 86 FR 4382, Jan. 15, 2021]

Phil Mulligan

And more:

§ 107.145 Operations over moving vehicles.

No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft over a human being located inside a moving vehicle unless the following conditions are met:

(a) The operation occurs in accordance with § 107.110 for Category 1 operations; § 107.115 for Category 2 operations; § 107.125 for Category 3 operations; or § 107.140 for Category 4 operations.

(b) For an operation under Category 1, Category 2, or Category 3, the small unmanned aircraft, throughout the operation—

(1) Must remain within or over a closed- or restricted-access site, and all human beings located inside a moving vehicle within the closed- or restricted-access site must be on notice that a small unmanned aircraft may fly over them; or

(2) Must not maintain sustained flight over moving vehicles.

(c) For a Category 4 operation, the small unmanned aircraft must—

(1) Have an airworthiness certificate issued under part 21 of this chapter.

(2) Be operated in accordance with the operating limitations specified in the approved Flight Manual or as otherwise specified by the Administrator. The operating limitations must not prohibit operations over human beings located inside moving vehicles.

Phil Mulligan

The scariest part of all is what's going to happen when these drones become so cheap that tens of thousands of them are bought by every day folks who could care less about rules & regulations??

Seems inevitable ?? Ross Rowland

Remember when we were all promised flying cars 60 years ago? If you wouldn't want to be on the highway with most people operating in two dimensions, can you imagine them trying to navigate in three?

A few years ago on the UP service unit where I worked, upper management would deploy "test teams" to spy on switching operations at the yard here in hopes of quashing our wild west, "get the job done, rules are made to be broken" modus operandi.

Most times, local management would know they were coming and would give us a heads up, to give us a fighting chance at not getting caught "in flagrante delicto".

So, we come to work early one morning... the boss calls the switch foreman on the phone to let him know what trains were coming and what was hot and what was not... and he mentioned that a test team from Omaha was supposed to be in town that day... don't get caught doing stupid shit", he says.

Never saw hide nor hair of them all day, and kinda forgot about it.

Well, they were forgotten until we went to the yard office to get some new paperwork about 2 in the afternoon!!!!

There were 4 guys in there waiting for us... loaded for bear.

I (the engineer) was first on the chopping block.

Those sneaky bastards had been using a drone to watch us work all day... it was a big, industrial sized unit...equipped with cameras with very good optics, lol!!!!!
They had video of me coming down the front steps of the engine, facing outwards... jumping off the bottom step... all "no-no's". They mounted me about that...
The next thing... I had three engines. I only tied down and isolated the leader. Got me on that.
Caught me getting off to line a switch so I could put myself away in a track for lunch while the switchmen were off doing something else... I didn't step across the rails to inspect the switch points to be sure there wasn't anything fouling the points before I threw the switch. A no-no.
That damn drone was right above me watching... and I couldn't hear it (well, the engine noise would probably drown that noise out, anyway).

They tore the switchmen up for about 20 minutes... walking between cars and standing on the ground tying handbrakes, instead of standing outside the rail and using a brake stick.
Not wating til the previous car going down the lead had got in a track and had cleared the lead before letting the next car go... throwing switches immediately after a car had gone down the lead over it.. not waiting for it to clear sufficiently according to the rules in place at that time.

They can see far and wide with their drones, and you have no idea that they're up there.

I would also have had an even bigger piece of the boss as his instructions to you were 'Don't get caught' rather than 'Don't do it.'

GME

It could've been worse. Imagine if it were armed!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambl ... ian-train/

We already see railroaders that hate and loathe railfan photographers and videographers because they--paranoid or not--see them as potential "company spies" in plainclothes, out to "entrap" railroaders for any possible excuse to discipline or fire them. Given some railroad management types we know are out there, that's not an entirely unreasonable paranoia.

Now add drones to the mix--even for a big PR attraction like UP 4014.

I'm waiting for the first one to get shot from the air by a railroader. Except railroaders (normally) don't carry firearms on the job, either......... well, supposedly........ and UP 4014 (among others) doesn't carry coal to throw at them, either..........