From the article, it sounds like they have video of him walking towards the switch, running back, and then setting up to video the area. They don’t have him actually tampering with the switch
Comment on Teenager Accused of Derailing Train and Posting Crash Video Online
solrize@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Saw reddit thread about this. Long discussion there. Evidence against the guy is kind of weak. He is a train buff, he has a youtube channel full of train videos, he goes out with a camera and tripod and films trains as they go by, and posts the videos. He has been doing that for years. This time the train went off the track. That appeared in his video and he called it in, so they think he did it. The suspicious things were that he knew the train derailed because of a rail switch being in the wrong position (he said that was obvious, idk) and that he knew where the switch was (according to reddit, that is something that a rail nerd filming a particular location is perfectly likely to know).
So, unless they have something stronger than what I saw earlier, I’m not convinced.
silence7@slrpnk.net 3 months ago
baltakatei@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if selection bias is at work and they had visited various switch locations and decided to film in places where and when they suspected there was likely to be a failure. See yovo68ʼs 11foot8 bridge videos for an example.
Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 3 months ago
Sure, but maybe yovo68 built that bridge there to catch tall vehicles?
Has anyone really checked they aren’t an 80 year old that foresaw the rise of YouTube and used anti-bus sentiment to convince a bunch of racist city planners to give them a steady supply of funny videos? Maybe they knew they could monetize it and that was their retirement plan? Inquiring idiots would like to know!
BleatingZombie@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I’m happy I’m not the only one with this opinion. I just unsubscribed from a youtuber who summed it up with “Bascially, they have footage of him running up to the lever and switching it” which is not true
Another source said that the missing padlock wad evidence of tampering. To me it sounds like evidence of someone not finishing their job (potentially leaving the lever in the wrong orientation and forgetting to put the padlock back on)
solrize@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I just repeated what people were saying on Reddit. :)