76 replies to this topic

[Steve4031]

First of all, what seems to have been missed in the hoopla over the right to photograph is the fact this guy was note even a police officer. The OP stated he used a PASSPORT for ID. Any legitimate cop might would have a badge. (I know that one can buy fake badges, but this idiot didn't even bother to do that). I would not even bother to interact with somebody who did not properly ID themselves. Someone using fake/inappropriate ID in my opinion is only trying to take advantage of a victim and engage in criminal activity.

[access bob]

This can't wait for the Trip Report.

Is there such a thing as an "Amtrak Special Agent?"

This morning (11-9-08) I was boarding Surfliner 775 at SAN when I was accosted at the car door by a seedy little guy with a beard and vaguely reptilian features. He flashed a Passport (why?), then a funny-looking document that indicated he was Amtrak Special Agent Pat. Thinking he was a loony, I said "Cool! My name's Patrick too," and turned to board. He stopped me, and said he had some questions. He was serious. "Oh GREAT," I thought, expecting a hassle about line jumping. I was ready to point out that although I was among the first to board, and not from the line, I had in fact been waiting at the station longer than anybody in the line. As usual, I had been hanging out for pictures of any action (nothing except light rail and station shots until 566 - my 775 - arrived 12 minutes late).
You can imagine the choice reply I muttered under my breath as I finally climbed the stairs, and despite the worst efforts of Amtrak Special Agent Pat, managed to find a window seat in the coach/cafe car.

In retrospect it was interesting, in these tough economic times, to encounter somebody who DESERVES to be unemployed.

To whom do I complain? Don't care if it does any good, I wanna tell somebody at Amtrak how reprehensible this sort of harassment is, especially to someone who has been - and remains, despite this kind of treatment at the hands of idiot hirelings - an avid supporter and customer of Amtrak since its inception.

Patrick;
I am sincerely sorry this happened to you. Let me explain something about RR'ing that you may or may not know. When there is a "budget crunch" the first two departments that our Class 1 hit was maintenance of way and the "special" agents. My first encounter with one was when I was spotting a carload of beer in downtown New Orleans. I heard a rustling in the weeds and threw some ballast to see if it was a wharf rat. Well up stands our special agent in Viet Cong black pajamas packing a sawed off shotgun~ I thought I was back in Nam! He told me he was staking out the beer car and not to let my switch lantern go out or he wouldn't hesitate to blow me away. I went and cut off the engine and went back to the yard office. The yardmaster's response to my howling? "Oh, he's a nut that threw off of the New Orleans force and we got stuck with him." The job pays next to nothing for a law enforcemnt officer and they literally have hundreds of miles to cover. I've seen them jump onto moving trains to drag hobos off. That same beer car goof ball had a hobo handcuffed to a telegraph pole in the yard one night. The mosquitoes were eating the poor guy up. It took four hours for the local parish cops to come pick him up for "trespassing." I've never been able to hold much of an intelligent conversation with many of them except the haz-mat special agents who have some schooling behind them.
I'm not condoning this agent's actions~ just giving you a background as to yes, they do exist, and yes, most of them qualify for a Looney Tunes cartoon.

let me add that the NS special agents have a well deserved reputation of being particularly nasty, stay off NS property, they have taken to arresting fishermen that cross a lightly used branch line to access a public riverfront when there is no road or underpass for example.

and they do arrest for tresspass and they usually make it stick, heard of a fisherman with a $200 fish, the cost of the fine.


was recently in SAN for the big "APTA convention and everyone in all the parts of the transit system were bending over backwards, I was allowed into the shop all sorts of things that would never happen, I commented to an operator if it was always like this, when she stopped laughing she said they had made it clear that the system was not going to have any incidents during the convention, that pretty much anything short of a hijacking was going to be overlooked.

the guy must need to get his quota back up to look good

Bob

[MrFSS]

First of all, what seems to have been missed in the hoopla over the right to photograph is the fact this guy was not even a police officer. The OP stated he used a PASSPORT for ID. Any legitimate cop might would have a badge. (I know that one can buy fake badges, but this idiot didn't even bother to do that). I would not even bother to interact with somebody who did not properly ID themselves. Someone using fake/inappropriate ID in my opinion is only trying to take advantage of a victim and engage in criminal activity.

Patrick - I have to agree, here, I don't think the guy was an Amtrak employee or agent of any type. I think I would have found a conductor real quick to see what was going on.

Did this guy seem to bother any other passengers? Surely some others were taking pictures, too.

Let us know what Amtrak says about all this.

[had8ley]

I definitely smell a rat here and it sounds like you encountered an impersonator of some sort or someone operating well out of his bounds. I would have firmly told him to go find something better to do, and if he so much as laid a hand on me, he would have met the ground so fast he wouldn't have time to think about what happened. At that point the law would have been on your side.

Hold on a minute. Special Agents do exist and are commissioned law enforcement officers. One hand on them and you would have had two hands in cuffs!

[amtrakwolverine]

report it to the police saying you were harassed or approached by the suspicious person. no id just a passport.give a FULL DISCRIPTION of the person. sounds like some nut job who escaped from a mental home.

[amtrakwolverine]

I definitely smell a rat here and it sounds like you encountered an impersonator of some sort or someone operating well out of his bounds. I would have firmly told him to go find something better to do, and if he so much as laid a hand on me, he would have met the ground so fast he wouldn't have time to think about what happened. At that point the law would have been on your side.

Hold on a minute. Special Agents do exist and are commissioned law enforcement officers. One hand on them and you would have had two hands in cuffs!

THEN WHY DID THE GUY USE A PASSPORT INSTEAD OF A REAL BADGE. THE GUY WAS A FAKE.

[ALC_Rail_Writer]

I definitely smell a rat here and it sounds like you encountered an impersonator of some sort or someone operating well out of his bounds. I would have firmly told him to go find something better to do, and if he so much as laid a hand on me, he would have met the ground so fast he wouldn't have time to think about what happened. At that point the law would have been on your side.

Hold on a minute. Special Agents do exist and are commissioned law enforcement officers. One hand on them and you would have had two hands in cuffs!

THEN WHY DID THE GUY USE A PASSPORT INSTEAD OF A REAL BADGE. THE GUY WAS A FAKE.

Didn't he flash a secondary ID? Hmmm...

Wait- who's Patrick? is there a second Patrick on this board here, other than Amtrak Special Agent Patrick Smith?

[MrFSS]

I definitely smell a rat here and it sounds like you encountered an impersonator of some sort or someone operating well out of his bounds. I would have firmly told him to go find something better to do, and if he so much as laid a hand on me, he would have met the ground so fast he wouldn't have time to think about what happened. At that point the law would have been on your side.

Hold on a minute. Special Agents do exist and are commissioned law enforcement officers. One hand on them and you would have had two hands in cuffs!

THEN WHY DID THE GUY USE A PASSPORT INSTEAD OF A REAL BADGE. THE GUY WAS A FAKE.

Didn't he flash a secondary ID? Hmmm...

Wait- who's Patrick? is there a second Patrick on this board here, other than Amtrak Special Agent Patrick Smith?

Whooz is also Patrick, to his close friends PJ!

[ALC_Rail_Writer]

I definitely smell a rat here and it sounds like you encountered an impersonator of some sort or someone operating well out of his bounds. I would have firmly told him to go find something better to do, and if he so much as laid a hand on me, he would have met the ground so fast he wouldn't have time to think about what happened. At that point the law would have been on your side.

Hold on a minute. Special Agents do exist and are commissioned law enforcement officers. One hand on them and you would have had two hands in cuffs!

THEN WHY DID THE GUY USE A PASSPORT INSTEAD OF A REAL BADGE. THE GUY WAS A FAKE.

Didn't he flash a secondary ID? Hmmm...

Wait- who's Patrick? is there a second Patrick on this board here, other than Amtrak Special Agent Patrick Smith?

Whooz is also Patrick, to his close friends PJ!

Ahh! So Patrick the Amtrak Railfan had a negative encounter with Amtrak Special Agent Pat!!

Aye, there's the rub.. The irony continues!

[WhoozOn1st]

Let me briefly restate: The Passport was just the first thing he showed, and that seemed to be almost by accident. Given SAN's location perhaps security clowns have to cross the border on occasion, even though the trains don't. Then came the document that purported whoever the guy was to be Amtrak Special Agent Pat. I'm not a document expert, and it may have been okay; I wouldn't know one way or the other. It was shown from an official-looking, wallet-like credential holder. As for a badge, I honestly don't recall whether the guy was wearing one or not. I was so taken aback by the ambush nature of the encounter, and so intent on being rid of the geek (real agent or otherwise) and getting a seat that I guess the badge issue escaped me at the time.

I've talked with Amtrak bulls on a number of occasions, but they were always easily identifiable as such on platforms. Never seen a plainclothes type (which is the whole point, I guess), much less dealt with one, before.

The issue of possible impersonation didn't occur to me until I was in my seat and had time to sit there fuming over the incident. I'm still really angry, real bull or not, and am waiting 'til I cool off a bit before pursuing the matter. If Amtrak Special Agent Pat was a fake, Amtrak needs to know about it.

[ALC_Rail_Writer]

The issue of possible impersonation didn't occur to me until I was in my seat and had time to sit there fuming over the incident. I'm still really angry, real bull or not, and am waiting 'til I cool off a bit before pursuing the matter. If Amtrak Special Agent Pat was a fake, Amtrak needs to know about it.

Perhaps all of us should have been on that train. We can all call and complain if we were...

But then we only make Amtrak Special Agent Pat sound right... Like railfans are organized.

He thought of this ahead of time! DAMN YOU AMTRAK SPECIAL AGENT Pat!!!!!!

[profwebs]

Wonder what the clown woulda done if you took his picture? From your description, I have an image of the guy in my mond. I know most of you probably haven't watched the movie "How High", but there is a campus security guard in it that I see as SA Pat, lol.

[lrdc9_metroplitan_sub]

Petaluma, it may not show up, but your post is the first on the Google search for it.

[PetalumaLoco]

Petaluma, it may not show up, but your post is the first on the Google search for it.

How bout that, I'm famous!

Edited by PetalumaLoco, 10 November 2008 - 07:24 PM.

[Scrapmuch]

um, where can we see your pictures? that's what I'd like to know!

[Acela150]

Seeing that i'll be down at the station with the worst Amtrak Police officers in the nation i'll try to ask them. If they don't answer me i'll bring up your claim. Some are nice and some are just bullies at 30th street. I had one cop harass me when I was taking pictures of the Barack Obama special running through Wayne, PA. To make it even better I was standing in a septa parking lot and he claimed that I was on Amtrak property. I asked to talk to his on-site supervisor who gave me the same answer that I was on Amtrak property. I got both offercers names and went t 30th street on a septa local that same day and asked to see the Supervisor of all Philadelphia Amtrak Police offercers. She said that the Septa lots were owned by Amtrak which is a whole bunch of BS! But here's where it gets better! I know Radnor townships police chiefs wife. Wayne is in Radnor township. I was able to talk to him about te Septa parking lot incident and both of us went to 30th street with papers that prove the lot is owned by septa. The Amtrak Police stuck with thier story. I wrote a letter to Alex Kummant about my problem. He called me and said that he fired the offecer and the supervisor and gave me a $1000 gift certificate in person when he came up to PHL and had lunch with me and we talked Amtrak for upwards of 3 hours.

To make the story short I got two Amtrak Cops fired!!! That's a big deal!!!

[gswager]

I've seen one plainclothes officer on train once. He was wearing a badge on his belt and a gun.

[ALC_Rail_Writer]

I've seen one plainclothes officer on train once. He was wearing a badge on his belt and a gun.

Wake up it's 1984!

Actually on LD trains, I'm not too upset about plainclothes agents... but I'd rather they not pack heat.

[WhoozOn1st]

um, where can we see your pictures? that's what I'd like to know!

What pictures would you like to see? Scrapmuch, it's fairly important and helpful here at the Amtrak Unlimited Forums to be as specific as possible with requests such as yours. Tell us what pictures you want to see, and I'm certain that somebody will be happy to help out.

"Where can we see your pictures?" in these forums is like going to the library and saying "I'd like to read a book."

Welcome to Amtrak Unlimited!

Edited by WhoozOn1st, 11 November 2008 - 12:35 AM.

[had8ley]

This can't wait for the Trip Report.

Is there such a thing as an "Amtrak Special Agent?"

This morning (11-9-08) I was boarding Surfliner 775 at SAN when I was accosted at the car door by a seedy little guy with a beard and vaguely reptilian features. He flashed a Passport (why?), then a funny-looking document that indicated he was Amtrak Special Agent Pat. Thinking he was a loony, I said "Cool! My name's Patrick too," and turned to board. He stopped me, and said he had some questions. He was serious. "Oh GREAT," I thought, expecting a hassle about line jumping. I was ready to point out that although I was among the first to board, and not from the line, I had in fact been waiting at the station longer than anybody in the line. As usual, I had been hanging out for pictures of any action (nothing except light rail and station shots until 566 - my 775 - arrived 12 minutes late).
You can imagine the choice reply I muttered under my breath as I finally climbed the stairs, and despite the worst efforts of Amtrak Special Agent Pat, managed to find a window seat in the coach/cafe car.

In retrospect it was interesting, in these tough economic times, to encounter somebody who DESERVES to be unemployed.

To whom do I complain? Don't care if it does any good, I wanna tell somebody at Amtrak how reprehensible this sort of harassment is, especially to someone who has been - and remains, despite this kind of treatment at the hands of idiot hirelings - an avid supporter and customer of Amtrak since its inception.

Patrick;
I am sincerely sorry this happened to you. Let me explain something about RR'ing that you may or may not know. When there is a "budget crunch" the first two departments that our Class 1 hit was maintenance of way and the "special" agents. My first encounter with one was when I was spotting a carload of beer in downtown New Orleans. I heard a rustling in the weeds and threw some ballast to see if it was a wharf rat. Well up stands our special agent in Viet Cong black pajamas packing a sawed off shotgun~ I thought I was back in Nam! He told me he was staking out the beer car and not to let my switch lantern go out or he wouldn't hesitate to blow me away. I went and cut off the engine and went back to the yard office. The yardmaster's response to my howling? "Oh, he's a nut that threw off of the New Orleans force and we got stuck with him." The job pays next to nothing for a law enforcemnt officer and they literally have hundreds of miles to cover. I've seen them jump onto moving trains to drag hobos off. That same beer car goof ball had a hobo handcuffed to a telegraph pole in the yard one night. The mosquitoes were eating the poor guy up. It took four hours for the local parish cops to come pick him up for "trespassing." I've never been able to hold much of an intelligent conversation with many of them except the haz-mat special agents who have some schooling behind them.
I'm not condoning this agent's actions~ just giving you a background as to yes, they do exist, and yes, most of them qualify for a Looney Tunes cartoon.

let me add that the NS special agents have a well deserved reputation of being particularly nasty, stay off NS property, they have taken to arresting fishermen that cross a lightly used branch line to access a public riverfront when there is no road or underpass for example.

and they do arrest for tresspass and they usually make it stick, heard of a fisherman with a $200 fish, the cost of the fine.


was recently in SAN for the big "APTA convention and everyone in all the parts of the transit system were bending over backwards, I was allowed into the shop all sorts of things that would never happen, I commented to an operator if it was always like this, when she stopped laughing she said they had made it clear that the system was not going to have any incidents during the convention, that pretty much anything short of a hijacking was going to be overlooked.

the guy must need to get his quota back up to look good

Bob

Railroaders call the NS the "**** Southern" and for good reason. Although they have won the Harriman Award for safety for the past 18 or so years they fire you if you get hurt~ go figure that one out! It's a tough place to work and I'm sure they have elevated a lot of employees blood pressures from what I have witnessed in their rules classes. (If you deliver a train in interchange to them in New Orleans you have to take their rules classes. The trainmaster was such a jerk he must have ace'd his Gestapo test.)