Safety and sense A guide to Urban Over-landing

 

 Common sense is a not so common commodity anymore 

In this blog I will go over some safety tips for Urban over-landing..........

Urban Over-landing can be dangerous going to a city to railfan or even stop overnight to get some rest can turn a otherwise a fun uneventful trip into a bad time. Railfanning and traveling to cities has taught me to be aware and with our upcoming  Blog  and YouTube Series I have developed a system to help you make the most of the trips we made this is part 1 of a 3 part series and in this blog I will go over what I call T.O.A.S.T or Total Overall Assessed Safe Trip scale. 

Urban over-landing can be dangerous, one must always be aware 

            I developed the scale based on factors such as, crime, facilities, food and entertainment,proximity to tracks and overall environment. One or more factors can get a rating escalated or de-escalated. Basically it is four color categories.... Red......Orange.....Yellow........Green. Almost always most places will be a yellow meaning you always have to be aware. Very rarely if at all, will be a Green. Lets Go over every color in detail starting with the worst.....Red!!!

RED: 

    This can be assigned if there is a high crime area or you are close to a track with no safety protocols or railings. This is one you may not want to take the  family,  stay overnight or even after the sun goes down. You must have your head on a swivel and a CCW might definitely be your friend in this case. Alot of Urban areas including my town will get this rating one-time or another. 

ORANGE: 

    This parallels Red closely still while it is a safer rating it still isn't a fully comfortable place to relax or even break out expensive gear. It can be escalated to Red quickly and later on  I will discuss this more in detail..

YELLOW: 

    Most places will get this as trains are still dangerous machines. Factors also include the ability  to take family with caution and of course most facilities will be minimal including food and bathroom. 

GREEN: 

    Some non train trips will get assigned this and some places where it's OK to spend the night but  always remember that crime and bad things still can happen anywhere.......Always be Alert 

    So with this out of the way let's go into how something is rated.........

    Our trip assessment begins with looking at the towns area does it have a lot of crime and drug use? Large homeless population? Are the tracks close by? Let's take a example from my favorite spot in the picture at the beginning of this blog. 

I rated this area ORANGE/RED why? One we have a high crime rate and while during daylight hours it is minimal it still exist with many bad people walking through. Second while in a public area the tracks are easily accessible to small children and also no food or bathroom facilities are available. This area also has large homeless camp under the bridge opposite of the tracks and behind the locomotives cab, At night this area goes to RED as it's not well lit, police patrols are minimal and calls for help may go unanswered for long periods of time if they have a high call volume. 

    

    Let's finish with when we give a area a rating that can change but do your homework and check out the area ahead with another person, maybe even leaving the family home in some cases. This rating will always be found on the beginning of a blog story containing a trip or a day trackside. As always though remember God is in control Stay Healty and Stay Blessed......