So WHY are you a rail fan?

Don31 wrote:I just never grew up.

THE best answer!! I can think of a ton of other things to do that are nothing but detrimental to your life, LOL. Besides, sometimes not growing up keeps one from going nuts and taking life too damn seriously like a lot of people. Got hooked on trains first by dad putting HO layouts up at Christmas time as a kid. The rest, is history.......

....and I'm one of those people that took minimal pics as a kid and wish I spent more time in the 90's railfanning big blue. In the spring of 2000, I realized I better do that NOW! Thankfully a LOT of my beloved GP's stayed blue until last year (thank you NS!).

bluedash2 wrote:....and I'm one of those people that took minimal pics as a kid and wish I spent more time in the 90's railfanning big blue. In the spring of 2000, I realized I better do that NOW! Thankfully a LOT of my beloved GP's stayed blue until last year (thank you NS!).

I know that feeling, thats why I'm thankful for spending numerous days taking tons of CNJ pics during its last 5 years. To this day I regret terribly the fact that I never put that same effort into getting pics of the PC and LV. The CNJ and the LV ran through my town and the PC was only 5 minutes away, so I had no excuse.

I probably got interested in trains while attending college in a rust belt town in Northern Indiana 20+ years ago. Railroading was so far off of all of my peers' radar screens, I wanted to be a contrarian and take interest in something no other 21 year-old I knew was into. Surrounded by industrial decay, I became fascinated with the detrius of what previous generations had built and allowed to die around me. Maybe that's why I've been a fan of the Penn Central, which I consider the child of the final death throes of traditional "golden age" railroading. Someone also called my PC fascination "post-modern."

I grew up 1 mile from the Rahway train station and remember watching the black GG1s blast by in the 1970s. Back then, trains were just a dirty, dangerous form of transportation to and from a dirty, dangerous place like Manhattan. I took zero interest in them as a kid.

Being a 5th generation railroader might have had an influance in my being a railroad enthusiast.

Because trains are big, heavy, and powerful. They are alive (especially steam), they roar and rumble, clunk and clack and squeal. You can sense the power by the way the ground vibrates and the air moves as one pulls into a station, in a way that no car or truck can. And they go places: across scenic landscapes, through farmland and woods, over mountains, through mountains, over rivers on mighty bridges, alongside rivers, and under rivers. Day, twilight, and night. Through all kinds of weather. To remote places, where a fellow can be alone with his thoughts. Maybe too they represent a past that is fading away (as evidenced by all the abandoned ROWs in my area), a past that seemed simpler, and where the world's troubles seemd smaller, or a least farther away.

Jtgshu wrote:

Don31 wrote:I just never grew up.

I like that answer Me neither!!!

I second that and add to it....It pays well...lol

...as an Elizabeth and E'Port rat, I LOVED watching the colorful variety of action and was so happy to take the RDC to Bayonne before that closed down. So for all the photos I took at E'Port, how I wish we'd had video cams back then... or that I'd brought my little super-8 movie camera. All the great movies I COULD HAVE HAD --- if only the technology existed.
It's not as interesting as it once was. We don't have all those great mixed consists rattling under the NEC at Elizabeth, we don't have E'Port, we don't have the RRRR.. we only have a fairly homogenous NS/CSX with the occasional interseting visitor. It's still fun - and I will ALWAYS stop to watch a train - and I hope my new young son gets "the itch" like his dad did - but how I'd love to spend a week or so back in 1969 with my 1080 HD.

Another reason is having been trackside as a very young lad to see the last of the steam parade in Cape May County . I can just almost remember my father taking this shot of Reading G-3 # 214 with rake of PRSL coaches amign track speed on the way to Wildwood on the Cape May Branch.

Steam man wrote:Another reason is having been trackside as a very young lad to see the last of the steam parade in Cape May County . I can just almost remember my father taking this shot of Reading G-3 # 214 with rake of PRSL coaches amign track speed on the way to Wildwood on the Cape May Branch.

THAT is a cool shot!

So many reasons, but I think it started in the mid-1950s, when the Pennsy K4s were still alive on the NY&LB. (and to a little kid, they were ALIVE!) I lived near that busy line for most of my life and saw so many different types of power in constant turnover. CNJ pass trains with Trainmasters, Baby Trainmasters, and GP7s. Freights with GP7S and RS3s on the point. Pennsy pass power of Sharknoses and E-units, and RS11s on freight duty. Lots of passenger trains all day, and a couple peddler freights. Lots of variety.

As I grew up, I just couldn't get enough. I met the crossing watchmen still working, I talked with freight crews and got a few cab rides, rode CNJ flat-top caboose 91382 from Bradley Beach to Red Bank (safely hidden inside), a cab ride in an RS3 from Bradley to Belmar and back to drill a few cars, getting to sit inside a PRR E7 parked by our house, waiting for a breakdown ahead to be cleared (Dad got an 8mm film of me doing that, I was about 7 or 8). So much "train stuff" around me.

I parlayed this into a working membership at a railroad museum, eventually becoming licensed as a steam loco engineer.

I still believe it is a great hobby and pasttime. And yes, like so many others, I kick myself for not having a camera with me all those times.

This is the answer I give to my friends "I just am". Then they ask me what train I'd marry. I'd say, "I'm marrying a woman, not a train."
But I do agree that I just haven't grown up

P.S. I apologize for the bump. I needed to answer this one!

GSC, if this was FB, I'd give you a LIKE for that post. The second most heard statement from railfans who started young must definitely be "If only I'd had a camera at the time...". Same here. ALL those times I simply went to "look" at trains at E'Port or Broad St Elizabeth (usually while waiting for a train)... The amount of "stuff" I missed, I lament to this day. And if I'd really thought it through, I'd have brought the super-8... All the great lineups and all that history... (still can't drive by E'port without a huge nostalgic sigh of sadness... that was railroad nirvana for me).
Very happy to still be a railfan, all these years later.

I just am, seeing a train go by brings out the little kid in me. Back to the days when my mom used to take me trackside on the Conrail Lehigh Line to watch one or two trains go by while my sisters were at school practicing. Or when my dad would take me to Bridgewater Station after a Somerset Patriots game to watch one or two NJT trains roll by. The conductors would always ask if we were getting on board and my dad would always say nope, just here to watch!

Always enjoyed seeing the headlight twinkling in the distance then a few moments later hearing the horn blare and then to see Big Blue locomotives blow through the crossing. I was a huge fan of Conrail growing up in the late 90s. Now it kills me to see Big Blue gone but I still love seeing those trains!

Now I have my own car and drive down to Bound Brook whenever I get the chance to and just sit there for a while and watch the parade of trains go by, still getting that kid feeling when I see a headlight appear down towards Port Reading Junction. Ive never been able to fully explain why, but anywhere I go, seeing a train puts a smile on my face.

Speaking of being a railfan.... Do any of the members know of a DVD/VHS of a run through CNJ Elizabeth, to EPort and beyond? I have an old VHS somewhere of some CNJ action at those stations, but are there any "cab ride" videos or anything showing the actual "ride" through Elizabeth, to the port and on to the bridge?
BigDell