Safety whilst railfanning.

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Something thats i've been thinking about recently is a trip to the states for a family holiday & of course squeezing in some railfanning but how safe is it? There are areas in the uk which can be quite rough & i class as a no go zone. We have a problem with knife crime & certain areas of the country are quite bad. Areas in Glasgow up in Scotland are terribly bad with knife crime & guns becoming more common. Once me & my wife we're visiting friends in Manchester & returning home we stopped to fill up with gas & there was a gang fight in the gas station. Both me & my wife were very shaken by this & because we didnt know the area we was in we wasnt aware of what can happen.
With all this in mind how safe is it in the states because gun crime is common place & certain areas are no go zones what so ever with gangs shooting each other daily. How as a tourist can you know that the area your in is safe & also enjoy railfanning without the worry of being attacked or having cameras etc stolen. Maybe the things we see in the uk are over the top to what it is like in the states but i think that this is something worth asking so you can enjoy something without worry.

Cheers

Simon

It would help to know specifically WHERE you're going. when you say LA, New York, or Florida, those are all HUGE places, and one cannot really tell you where it it safe or not without actually knowing what you want to see.

I don't know many good spots WITHIN New York City (in fact, there isn't much in the way of "heavy rail" in places like Manhattan, other than Penn Station, and its all underground). However, the suburbs around it have many picturesque spots. On good spot to see variety is in Bound Brook, NJ. Here, there is a junction between NS and CSX, where freights travel between the port of New Jersey & New York for destinations in the west. Literally right next to these lines are NJ transit tracks hosting regular commuter Push-pulls, with some of the diesels operating there being the oldest regular passenger power in the country.