I just found myself clicking on a NYC subway thread in GQ, and realised my hand on the mouse was in autopilot when I clicked it. It was a link tha had to be clicked.
So who else here is a fan of the iron horse? Railway/Railroad buffs, trainspotters, countrymen… Stand up and be counted!
You might be reduced to raptures of joy by the beauty of steam. Perhaps (as with me), early electric traction is your thing. Maybe you love the sound of a triple-headed diesel-electric heavy freight powering up a grade, or you are blown away by the Shinkansen. Is quirky narrow gauge your cup of tea? Are you the guy with the 35mm camera on the overbridge with your son early in the morning as a famous train powers by below?
Surely I’m not alone. Help me reclaim our stake in nerddom from the techies.
And has anybody else discovered the joys of PC-based train sim?
Train geek checking in. I’m a fan of the roads in the SE US; have an HO scale model railroad under construction, and am a big fan of MS Train Simulator. Oh, and I spent 3 years with a tourist railroad as a brakeman and fireman while in college and freshout.
I’m just learning to tell one engine from another, but Mr. Peregrine is one of you. He’s got loads of train videos and spends hours and hours on Train Simulator. This evening he was showing me the difference between BNSF’s Heritage One and Heritage Two paint schemes. The HO models, currently packed away, are mostly Milwaukee Road.
I am proud to call myself a railfan. I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t interested in trains. My favorite railroad is the Great Northern Railway–no longer with us as such, thanks to the Burlington Northern merger in 1970. I collect lots of different railroadiana–magazines, books, timetables, videos and especially the Lionel electric trains that I couldn’t afford as a child in the 1950s. It is a wonderful hobby.
I’ll admit I’m a bit of a train geek too. I have always enjoyed trains, and I especially enjoy travelling on the heritage steam train, 3801. I try to go on 3801 tours every year. In fact, my next trip on the 3801 is to the Blue Mountains on Melbourne Cup Day.
I’ve also always wanted to set aside an entire room in my house for electric model train sets, kind of like Gomez Addams had…minus the TNT.
I’m not much of a railfan, but I am a big fan of the NYC subway. I can tell you all about the differences between IRT and BMT signalling, car classes, why the R-slant-40 is cooler than the R-46, and why Bombardier didn’t get the R-160 contract (their MDBF numbers on the R-142s suck. Kawasaki R-142As kick their ass, man)
I also have visited some of the abandoned stations (not always legally) and I know where most of the major switches are, and have dreamt up possible but unlikely new routing combinations (optimized for my commute, of course.)
My mom totally didn’t understand it when I got all excited because I saw a half set of redbirds being towed passed a B-division platform at TSQ! (It was going to Carona Yard for maintenance, most likely.)
Aaah 3801. I hear ya! (though TLD secretly prefers the non-streamlined 38s). “Driving” 3801 Penrith to Lithgow on Microsoft Train Simulator is good fun though…
Actually, for my next geeky train run, I want to travel on one of the Sydney Electric Traction Society’s “red rattler” tours. Strange that something I took for granted less than a decade ago is now the subject of a historical society, but there y’ go. There is something about the sound of one of those 1920s beasties powering up the incredibly steep grade out of Wynyard onto the Harbour Bridge, and then making the entire steel structure of the bridge roar*. Or accelerating out of a station in the rain, with wheel slip. The asbestos :eek: brake shoes they used made for highly polished wheels, and a certain skill in driving. Front motor car would pass under the overbridge and the wheels’d grip, stretching the train slightly, and making some wonderful sounds. Then she’d come out the other side, and the middle power cars would be under the bridge, compressing the couplings again… then the rear of the train would get grip. The Tangaras don’t do this with their disc brakes (silly things still jump off the rails tho).
These days, of course, yer trapped inside the air-conditioned, sealed shell of a Tangara. 'taint the same.
There is an old pub almost directly below the bridge. The passing trains can make a full glass of beer skitter across the bar. Cool that.
I suppose I’m a fan, in that I like to read about and study the history. Mostly Canadian railroads, in my case.
I also prefer taking the train over flying. It’s not always possible, but I’ve discovered that I can get to the train station much more easily than I can get to the airport. So, if I need to go to Ottawa, Montreal, or Windsor (or any place in between), I tend to take the train.
But I don’t restrict myself to those short hops. Already this year, I’ve taken the train eastbound to Halifax, and westbound to Edmonton. I have to say that the train has to be the best mode of long-distance travel: instead of lineups, security checkpoints, small seats, and bad meals, I’m enjoying a nicely-cooked meal in the dining car, followed (perhaps) by a nightcap or two in the bar. Later, I’ll stretch out in a bed for a good night’s sleep. Now, that’s a nice way to travel!
I may not have the model trains, and I may not volunteer with the local historical railway. But I guess you could still call me a fan.
