A crossing incident is by law a trespassing case, and local law enforcement has no authority over the data recorder. That belongs entirely to the carrier. After an incident, there is a secure chain of custody protocol regarding that hard drive because it will be evidence for the defense (the carrier) in a lawsuit if necessary.
As much as the local LEOs are accustomed to their authority, in these incidents they have none regarding the train, the crew, or the evidence (though a lot of them seem to have not got the memo).
I am no legal expert and I am sure these regulations change by locality but this makes no sense to me.
Law enforcement can’t request a court ordered search warrant for that evidence? FAA Investigators can and do for the black box pertaining to aircraft accidents but I guess I have never heard of one not being voluntarily handed over.
That doesn’t seem to be an attorney-client privilege situation, which is about the only route I know of to withhold evidence when under a subpeona.
Hell if I know….
Well, sure - if there's reason to believe that a crime was committed then I suppose that a warrant could be obtained after the fact. But I'm struggling to think of one example of a crossing collision even looking like an actual crime. Not saying it's impossible, but highly unlikely. In any case, that hard drive goes into a locked case and goes to the corporate legal department, where the only key to that case is held. That data is not allowed to be tampered with by anybody, including local law enforcement.
Your problem here is that (just like some first responders) you are conflating a civil matter with a criminal or traffic enforcement matter. Local law has no authority to enforce any imagined traffic control over interstate railroads or their train crews. They wouldn't even know where to start. Sure, it's been tried - but they always get slapped down, and for good reason.
One of the things an experienced rail learns is how to tell an officer "no" without getting tasered, tackled, or shot. We (the smart ones) don't even hand over our ID when requested for very important reasons. Heck, I wouldn't even give my name. It's fun to watch their faces when you respectfully don't comply.
