Acceptable Use Policy

Last updated: 2026-05-17.

This Acceptable Use Policy (the “AUP”) describes conduct and content that is prohibited on Railfans Live and its regional subdomains (collectively, the “Service”), operated by Dynamanic LLC. The AUP is part of, and incorporated by reference into, our Terms of Service. Violations may result in content removal, account suspension or termination, loss of reputation score, and reporting to law enforcement when warranted.

1. The Short Version

Railfans Live is a community for railfans and train enthusiasts. Post your sightings, photos, and trip notes; help moderate; be decent. Don't encourage trespass, don't harass anyone, don't upload content you don't have rights to, and don't try to break the platform. The sections below spell these out.

2. Safety and Trespass

The Service exists to help you watch trains lawfully and safely. You agree that you will not:

post content that encourages, instructs, or glorifies trespass on railroad right-of-way, yards, bridges, tunnels, restricted platforms, or any other private or restricted property;
submit railfan spots whose only viable vantage point requires trespass; spots must be from a public, legally accessible vantage;
post content encouraging others to interfere with train operations, tamper with signals, place objects on tracks, or otherwise disrupt rail service;
post content that encourages dangerous “train chasing” driving, running across active tracks, ignoring crossing gates, or photographing from between locomotives and rolling stock.

See our Safety Disclaimer for additional safety expectations. Spot submissions that violate this section will be rejected by moderators; repeated violations will result in account termination.

3. Illegal Content and Activity

You will not use the Service to:

post or share content that is unlawful, including child sexual abuse material, content that facilitates human trafficking, credible threats of violence, or content that infringes export controls or sanctions;
engage in fraud, money laundering, or evade fees or chargebacks;
violate any applicable local, state, federal, or international law or regulation.

We cooperate with valid legal process and may report illegal content to law enforcement and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) as required by law.

4. Harassment, Doxxing, and Hate

You will not use the Service to:

harass, bully, threaten, stalk, or intimidate any person or group;
dox another person — publish their home address, workplace, government identifiers, phone number, license plate, or other private information without consent;
identify, photograph, or surveil rail crew members or other identifiable individuals against their wishes, including posting photographs of employees through cab windows where the focus is the person rather than the equipment;
post content that promotes hatred or violence against people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, age, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

5. Intellectual Property and Impersonation

You will not:

upload photographs or videos you did not create and do not have permission to post;
remove watermarks, credits, or copyright notices from media;
impersonate a railroad, transit agency, employee, news outlet, or another user, or operate an account that falsely implies official affiliation with a carrier;
claim heritage-unit catches, rare-mileage credits, or other railfan accomplishments belonging to someone else.

6. Misinformation and Live-Data Abuse

Railfans Live distinguishes between “live-tracked” carriers (those exposing working real-time feeds) and “community-tracked” carriers (freight roads and unwired passenger operations whose trains are visible only via user sightings). You will not:

fabricate sightings, locomotive numbers, or GPS coordinates;
post sightings designed to mislead other users, news outlets, or the operating railroad;
attempt to represent community sightings as official tracking data, or scrape and republish them in ways that imply official status;
claim or imply unauthorized access to non-public railroad dispatching, ATCS, PTC, or similar systems.

7. Platform Integrity

You will not, and will not permit any third party to:

attempt to gain unauthorized access to any portion of the Service, other accounts, or our infrastructure;
probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service except through a responsible-disclosure channel we authorize in writing;
interfere with or disrupt the Service, including by sending viruses, worms, denial-of-service payloads, or excessive automated traffic;
scrape or bulk-download the Service's content beyond the allowances of our public API and robots.txt;
re-sell, rebrand, or relabel the Service or its data without our written permission;
circumvent rate limits, paid feature gates, account suspensions, or moderation actions.

8. AI Abuse

AI-assisted features (sighting cleanup, spot summaries, trip planning, moderation) are provided to help genuine railfans. You will not use them to generate fabricated sightings, fake locomotive numbers, prompt-inject our systems, exfiltrate prompts, or generate content that would otherwise violate this AUP.

9. Enforcement

We may, at our discretion and without prior notice, remove offending content, restrict features (uploads, alerts, AI features), suspend or terminate accounts, reverse reputation gains, and refuse refunds for paid periods during which the account was in material breach. Repeated or severe violations result in permanent bans. Data retention after enforcement follows our Privacy Policy.

Report violations to abuse@railfans.live.