Look Me In the Eye - John Elder Robison

http://books.google.com/books?id=pw7uD- ... &q&f=false

This book is not rail hobby related, but rather is an autobiography telling how the author has lived with the disease of autism (Aspberger's) throughout his life.

Search through the chapters to find that ttled "My Life as a Train". Here the author talks of railfanning with his Son along the Boston and Albany to the West of Springfield. He also notes that persons afflicted with autism enjoy and are comfortable around trains and sort of suggests that many railfans are afflicted by the disease to one extent or the other.

Today's New York Times has a front page article regarding autism and rail hobbyists:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/nyreg ... train.html

Brief passage:

• Ravi Greene can tell you how to get anywhere in New York City by transit — like the beach, on the 6 train.
  
  “The 6 goes elevated from Whitlock Avenue to Pelham Bay Park,” he explains. “And at Pelham Bay Park, you can transfer for a Bx29 or a Bx12 — the Bx12 to Orchard Beach.”
  
  Ravi has drafted elaborate proposals for expanded bus service in Brooklyn, and has memorized the exact date that the W train stopped running in 2010.
  
  And he is only 5 years old.
  
  Like many children with autism spectrum disorders, Ravi is fascinated by trains and buses, entranced by their motion and predictability. And for years, these children crowded the exhibitions of the modest New York Transit Museum, chattering about schedules and engine components and old subway maps.
  
  “This is really their element,” said Ravi’s mother, Juliana Boehm, who brings Ravi and Oliver, his 8-year-old brother, who is also on the autism spectrum, to the museum almost weekly. “If I suggested another activity,” she added, “it may have provoked anxiety.”
  ....

How much more proof is needed to establish there is clearly a link between this disorder and the railfan hobby. Autism is prevalent in one of 150 births, and is heavily weighted towards boys.

On my annual charity donation list:

http://www.autismspeaks.org/