Here’s an article from the Trib.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-train-hobbyists_slider_10-2oct05,0,3316264.story
That’s a repeat of the story that appeared Wednesday in the LA Times. The Times and Trib are, of course, owned by the same company.
Jack
There is nothing wrong with a group of folks getting together to have a tailgate party and watch trains go by. Problem is a some of these folks get too serious in this, think they know everything there is to know about the rr. Back in the 1980’s/1990’s, I spent a small share of free time taking pics of passing trains, had a had scanner and the like but did not consider myself a rr expert. When I became a industry employee a decade ago, I did not know a thing on operating rules–that is I learned everything from scratch. I did not know the terms of CTC, Track Warrant, restricted speed, dual control switch, going in between and many other things. I simply learned by listening in rules class, reading what I was taught, took notes, asked questions and applied to what I learned hands on. The issue with so called foamers is that I have come across so many of them that think they have a big head because they have a rule book that describes all what a worker needs to know but just like I asked one of them once to explain the correct order of signals leading up to a red block, this person thought you went from a green block directly to a red block in normal operating conditions. My advice is to simply watch & enjoy what is seen passing by but leave it at that.
Merriam-Webster online has no definition of “gunzel.” The closest word is “gunsel” which doesn’t bear interpreting for a general audience.
Has anyone heard anyone use the term “gunzel” to refer to a rail fanatic?? - a.s.
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Here’s the term “gunzel” as it appeared in the Tribune article whose link is above:
"But there are hundreds of thousands of them [us] around the world-hobbyists known, variously, as railfans, cranks, trainspotters and gunzels." (emphasis added)
A friend of mine who isn’t technically a railfan but very suppotive of my hobby/addiction searched several sites and it appears that the term “gunzel” is from Australian slang. “Gunning” means taking pictures (compare “shooting” in U.S. usage).
There are passenger gunners, freight gunners, and the individual foamer Down Under is a “gunzel.” (note the “z”).
Those of you on the West Coast, have you heard this usage? A good deal of research for the article mentioned was done in Southern Cal (despite its being published through the “Tribune News Service” let’s remember the L.A. TIMES owns the Chgo TRIBUNE). Is gunzel becoming a term for a photographic fanner? Since so many terms have hopped Sydney-L.A. in the past 35-45 years, I would’t be surprised if “Gunzel” is a recent arrival to these shores.
I also credit the article in question for calling us “railfans” (one word) although the official dictionary definition still uses two words (“rail fans”).
I’ve seen “railfan” often as one word. Really, i rarely see it as 2. Gunzel…never heard that one either.
“Railfan” has been my experience after 4 - 5 years in the hobby. It never occurred to me that “railfan” was written out as two words until last week’s Wall Street Journal feature article about the Metrolink crash used “rail fans.” The journalist probably followed the definition in a collegiate dictionary like mine, when it did say “rail fan.” But railfans never say “rail fans”. This is a good example in which usage has overriden “what the authority says” and “rail fan” is probably archaic or close to it, with “railfan” current diction. Hope the online and HC dictionaries take note!
I don’t think “gunzel” has made it to the Midwest and I’m not sure what, if any, information it conveys beyond “railfan.”
Anyone out there hearing “gunzel” to mean an avid fanner? - a.s.
I’m a regular visitor to several Australian websites and I’ve run across “gunzel” on those sites.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gunzel
Basically a railfan in Australia, but started out more as what we generally refer to as a “foamer” nowadays.
I’m proud of our avocation/hobby/passion. People reading this are already more up on the lingo than the average professional journalist (if you saw the WALL STREET JOURNAL article week before last, you know what I mean). At least the L.A. TIMES (later TRIB) article used the term “gunzel,” but it didn’t define it beyond “railfan.” Now I know.
Thanks, guys.
When we kicked this around over on the Model Railroader forum, Mark Newton identified the originators of this usage of gunzel, explained the origins and pretty well put the subject to bed. Seems that it was originally specific to TRAM fanatics! I wonder just who that reporter was talking to…
Chuck
FRN’s!
Now you know why Michiganders call summering Illinois People “FIP’s”! - a.s.
I have no problem being called a Gunzel, FRN, FIP, railfan, foamer, etc., etc., just be sure to call me for dinner!
On some days, in particular on Saturdays and/or Sundays, Eola can look like a local version of Foamerton…would that be Foamola, or Eolafoam or something else!
thats why i cant stay at a place like tunnel inn or station inn , to many know it alls , hampton inn thats fine for me.
Up here we call them "F.I.B.'s. [:-,]
We FIB’s get no respect…no respect at all…and we still continue to support the Cheeshead economy by bringing our money north of the Cheddar Curtain!
Google the word “gunzels” and you’ll get more info than you want!
Never been called a gunzel…but, I think I like it.[:-,]
Today I received in the mail a much better (IMHO) version of the TRIB’s feature whose link begins this thread. The ST. PETERSBURG TIMES edition of Sunday, October 5, is where it ran, under the caption “Fans from All Sides of the Tracks”. There was editing in or for Chicago: The shortest paragaph in the Trib’s version is a severely cut down simplification of two paragraphs that ran in St. Pete. Also, the article is about 25 percent again larger, lots of grafs that expand on the story.
The upshot is to distinguish foamers from railfans, allow that the nomenclature is flexible (some people are both, for example) and also not to make us sound like such a tiny cult. Kids and adults are identified.
Overall, article’s a really nice half-pager with a color photo spanning the page, right below caption. Source indicated is Los Angeles Times, author(s) unfortunately identified. (It may bear repeating that the L.A. TIMES owns the TRIB and we get a lot of these features showing up in both papers.)
Ironic that St. Pete’s readers would come out with a better understanding of foamerdom, understand we aren’t kooks (well, very few) and also that it’s a relatively wholesome hobby, all told. The longer article even touches on BNSF’s CRS system (Citizen Reponse) and makes the point that the RR’s don’t necessarily hate us, but it doesn’t mention CRS by name. Yet Chicago’s busy readers get skimped on the more human side of foamerdom/fandom, and this most busy of freight transfer towns (still?) and the most significant Amtrak hub outside the northeast, doesn’t show the personal side of things.
Maybe it’s an economic thing or a class thing, I don’t know. But the TRIB will do what the TRIB will do, and that’s one reason [soapbox] this household has switched to the [the other big daily paper].