Do You Get Made Fun Of?

absoutley. i love to pull out model railroader magaziene and see the puzzeled and sometimes disgusted looks on peoples faces. its earned me nothing but odd questions(ranging from some that actually make sense to ones that are just plain rude) and ridecule. its a good thing i dont care. im proud to be different. saying"i like trains" is a good way to bring a conversation to a screeching halt. you wouldnt look at me and think that i liked, forget was OBSESSED with trains. im sort of a metal head, and i wear those Tripp pants. im just weird. im a loner. i sit alone at lunch, my face buried in the latest model railroader. other than trains and classic cars, im not really interested in much. im pretty boring, so a conversation with me will quickly turn to trains. thus it quickly ends. who cares. trains are better than people, anywayse.
GEARHEAD426

I don't get made fun of...because I don't ever talk about it in school. It's not that I'm afraid to talk about it; there's just never a need to talk about it in school. Why start a conversation about something with your friends if they are not interested in it? Besides, railfanning isn't my only hobby. I love sports and girls and tv shows and movies and all things that teenage guys like. That's what my friends like too, so we talk about that stuff. Everybody here is a railfan, so we talk about trains here. Few people, if any, at school are railfans, so we don't talk about trains there.

I'm not ashamed of my interest in trains at all. In fact, my liking of trains keeps me feeling young. I hope to possess this interest for the rest of my life so I never have to feel like I'm getting old.

yeah, same here. none of my friends at school are into it, so why should i talk about it? actually, i'm not a very talkatave person to begin with...

gearhead, you sound just like me. I wear the tripp pants and was all goth/punk when i was in hs, still am now. But then i sorta put my train hobbies on hold for a while. One day i broke out the box and bought in one of my first HO santa fe locos to school cuz I wanted to show one of my friends something interesting about it. Its very old. I could not tell you how many people asked me that day, "uhh why the hell do you have a train with you, thats so lame." i have been made fun of for my passion since i started school, some accpeted it and said it was cool but the majority of the loosers said it was dumb. I have always been a unique interesting, and different person so i think the train hobby fits me well. Not as common as video games, but much cooler.

good god, i never thought there was another goth/punk/rocker/metalhead/ railhead anywhere. im also a gearhead(duh) and a mopar fanatic.

Well you have met him. Id say im pritty close to being a gearhead as well. I have a chevy suburban and a vw jetta. my suburban is my funbox that i put my extra time and stuff into. amazing the people you will meet on these forums!

I'm in college and alot of people when I tell them I travel, they ask me how long a drive or which airport I'm flying out of, and I tell them Penn Station.

Then they ask why I'm taking the train and I tell them for whichever reason (they vary by where I'm going) and I've actually had 1 person say they will look into Amtrak/Marc next time.

That's the limit of what happens to me.

Some kids at my school boast to each other about there favorite cars have 444HP and an other 550HP. I tell them that I like the diesels with 5,000HP. They nearly fall out of their seats when I say the last 0.

Thats always the best shut down. I get that from kids about their stupid hondas. Oh my honda is a turbo 1.5 liter. Well guess what my mountain dew has more liters than your honda, my jettas lugnuts require more tourque than your honda can produce, and even though my suburban is 220hp its still got more haul ass and can haul more asses very easily.

Or as a trains going by were all sitting there in a car and they are like oh that things slow. Yea? well it can do 130 easy and that ALP44 toaster thats half the size of one of the passenger cars, has 6,000 horsepower. I really know how to shut people up with that one.

One of the best things is not to look like a foamer. In life that will not be good at all!

I've had quite a bit of success by not advertising myself. Example, when I went with my friend to DC, I casually walked up to the parking garage and started spotting from there. It also helps with conductors or other railroad people. Start by playing it dumb, then slowly (slowly being the key word) ask trhem tougher questions. Up until the age of 11 or so, I used to be able to honk the LIRR M1 horns with regularity at the crossings just by being my sweet innocent self. Also did it with the M2 for the NHV I got quite good at it, too! Hit the "W" markings every time. Two longs, a short, another long.

i got the horn on a cab ride from oyster bay to mineola once, but that's as far as i've gotten. that was a long time ago, it was in a switcher.

This is an issue with me. I do get made fun of at school when wearing railroad gear. Talking about it makes me look like a retard.


conrail1990.rrpicturearchives.net

i just don't wear rr gear at school. well, that's mostly because i have hats and my conductor uniform for the seashore trolley museum, neither of which i'm going to wear at school. if i had a shirt or something i'd prolly wear it.

i don't get any crap about it.....most of my friends think its cool that i work for a railroad....although...all of my friends are JROTC cadets, and were all kinda wierd.

I have never been made fun of in my life for it, most people don't know that I am a rail fan, and that I'm one of the tallest strongest kids in my class probably doesn't hurt either (well it would hurt them )
but the ones that do know are impressed that I just get on the train and go places with out even really having a destination and that I know my way around Philly like I do.