Quest For Rare Mileage

[Gilbert B Norman]

Today's Wall Street Journal has a front page article regarding hobby rail travel:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... 17408.html

Brief passage:

• HAZENS, N.H.—Some people collect stamps, others collect bird sightings and a few count the state capitol buildings they visit. Mike Rose is riding a train to this remote railroad junction in the White Mountains of New Hampshire to track railroad miles.
  
  Mr. Rose's journey takes him past steep cliffs, towering trestles and cascading brooks. Vitally important is that he is riding over this track for the first time and can therefore add it to his collection. "I got the mileage—that's all that counts," says Mr. Rose, a 65-year-old Toledo, Ohio, tool and die maker.
  
  ..Mr. Rose is a "rare mileage" collector, one of about 300 in the country. Such collectors strive to ride as much of the U.S. rail system as they can, often chartering special trains to access routes ordinarily off-limits to passengers. Collectors mark off the routes they ride on rail maps and record interesting sights—an unusual bridge or a complicated track layout, for example

[David Benton]

Thank you for the link , Mr Norman . I was able to read the whole article without subscription .
I must say i would be surprised if there is only 300 or so rare mileage collectors in the USA .I wonder what the basis for this figure is . membership of some club , or attendance on most rare mileage trips ???
Finally , in this age of google earth , and street views , i wonder if rare mileage trips will survive ,perhaps the younger generation do their "rare mileage travel " via google earth . Certainly i've done my share of it . Not that i can really claim to belong to the younger generation .