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You wouldn’t stand in the middle of the road to take a photo of a truck, so why risk your life and do the same with trains?
That’s the question the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) is asking this Rail Safety Week (11-17 August), releasing a user-friendly guide to help photographers and filmmakers stay safe when capturing images close to the rail corridor.
With a simple, 12-step checklist and other tips and information, ARTC CEO John Fullerton said the guide is about encouraging safe behaviour around the rail corridor in the hope to reduce incidents and help prevent near hits, or worse.
“We still see too many people enter the rail corridor or exhibit risky behaviour in either their actions or imagery,” Mr Fullerton said.
“Every year across Australia we see more than 5,000 incidents of trespass on the rail network, that’s over 13 trespasses each day, or one every two hours.
“Unfortunately, some of these incidents involve photographers and filmmakers, of all persuasions, trying to take that ‘perfect shot'”.
“This puts their own safety at risk as well as those of others, and they often have a direct impact on the reliability of rail operations.”
Tragedy does, and has happened, Mr Fullerton said.
“Many people remain unaware that entering into the rail corridor is an illegal activity that constitutes trespass. Worse still, it can result in serious injury or death if that person is struck by a train.
“By promoting safe behaviours around the rail corridor through our actions, in our imagery and in our stories, we can hopefully start reducing these kinds of avoidable incidents.”