I've gotten a LOT of flak from guys, RR employees and non-RR employees about posting this. The only things I feel the need to say in response are the following:
1. I always mind my own business when I'm out there fanning. I don't bother crews, I don't ask for horn shows, I don't jump around and scream like an idiot, and I certainly don't stand out by doing anything like wearing a damn furry suit. I don't even focus my camera on the crews unless they do something to catch my attention, like wave, or yell at me like this guy, which brings me to my second point.
2. This conductor asked for the attention. If you watch through the full video that I am going to post below, you will see clearly that on the first train where he is on-duty, I don't actually pan the camera around until he yells at me. When the M9s come through, (mind you, he is off duty now and deadheading) you can clearly see him pushing his way past the on-duty crew members in the cab to open the window just to yell at me and give me the finger. Again, I didn't even focus the pan of my camera on him until I realized he was yelling at me, and had I not changed the focus of the pan, I would never have caught him flipping me the bird.
So with these two facts in mind, I can only conclude that the people defending him, giving him excuses (having a bad day), or just simply ragging on me for exposing him are stuck in a mindset where people shouldn't be held broadly accountable for their actions. This is typically sheep mentality, comparable to cops that side with Pantaleo even though he killed a non-violent guy using a banned technique. Remember that being a conductor on a passenger railroad requires you to be courteous and professional, NO MATTER how sour your mood is. If you are in uniform, you represent the company and what the company stands for. The actions of this conductor qualify as "conduct unbecoming" in the eyes of the company, and rightfully so. I happen to also work in a customer service position, and if anything like this happened at my workplace, you can bet that the guilty party would be shown the door the very same day.
Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that I've been asked to stop filming dozens of times by railroad employees who don't know better, but they have for the most part always maintained decorum and professionalism, and we both go our separate ways, no incident. A couple of those encounters I have on camera, therefore on YouTube, but you've never heard about them because like I said, they remained professional.
Everything I record, I post. I don't go out of my way to film people breaking rules or acting like jerks, but if it just so happens that this kind of behavior makes its way into my frame, I am also not going to go out of my way to delete the footage to protect the idiot. They should know better. If that makes me a rat/snitch, etc, then so be it. This is me being fair.
I know I've made a lot of enemies because of this incident. I don't really care. I have a lot of other people, particularly people who are also railroaders or work in the transit sector who are agreeing with me on this. If you are in the business of being an apologist for this kind of person and behavior, I don't care to know you or take advice from you. We live in the digital age now. Things you probably could have gotten away with 20-30 years ago aren't going to fly today. Better catch up to the times. As one of my RTO friends states, wrong is wrong, no matter who does it.