Hobbyists or Terrorists? Railfans Find it Hard to Pursue Passion in
Post-September 11 World
Commuter Weekly, June 29, 2004
Some people like tinkering with old cars. Others love collecting stamps
and coins or building model airplanes. Bird watchers, on the other hand,
love watching and “collecting” bird species. Then, there are railfans-also
known as train spotters, foamers (as in, “foaming at the mouth” when they
see a train) and railbuffs. No matter what you call them, there are an
estimated 175,000 railfans in the U.S., almost all of whom are men, and
they all share one common passion: trains. Clubs, Web sites and even
vacation excursions all serve to feed their passion for trains.
According to Rob Buckman, a railfan and owner of 3RI, a Web site
dedicated
to railroad images, the casual observer might not notice that trains are
all that different. You’ve seen one train … you’ve seen them all, right?
But, stresses Buckman, “Rarely will two trains be exactly alike. The
engines pulling that train blocking the crossing and made you late for
work? They might have been GP38-2s, an engine that is quickly fading from
the scene like the steam engines of years gone by. Who cares? It is the
same type of person who cares and knows about the old muscle cars, like an
Olds Cutlass 442 or Barracuda.”
For many years, railfans were largely left alone, allowed to document
their train sightings with cameras (most railfans are photographers,
documenting trains through their lenses), and sometimes documenting engine
paint schemes, engine numbers, number of cars, and train frequency in
well-worn notebooks. But then came September 11, and, much later, train
bombings in Madrid, Spain. Suddenly, an innocent pastime became viewed as
maybe something a bit more sinister. Could that man with a camera really
be a terrorist plottin