I was wondering if anyhting funny has happened to any of you when you went out to take pics or anyhting?
Why do you not post yours 1st so we know what you are looking for? [:o)][:D][:p]
[quote]
Originally posted by 06archerd
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I was out railfanning, and we waited about 30 minutes for a train. My dad said we should leave and i said no, the train comes in 2 minutes! So we got in the car, and exactly 2 minutes later, the train comes around the curve at 60 MPH so i started [censored][banghead][soapbox] so i missed a photo , but we chased it[8D]
spbed lol.
I think I posted my funny experience with a friend of mine before but I can’t remember so I’ll do it again.
About a month ago me and a friend of mine Carl went to Abrams yard which is right oustide of Valley Forge and Conshohocken, PA. We were walking around the outer permiter of the yard and of course we didn’t see any trains but we did see two guys on ATVs approach us. So we both decided to play a joke on them. We had straight looks on our faces (Carl had the straightest look) and as soon as the guys got close Carl took the scanner and pretended to transmit over it that people were tresspassing. And man you should of seen the look on their faces. One of them looked back at me sor worried and I mean they really high tailed it out of the yard. We both cracked up. (I guess you would of had to been there to understand how funny it was). But of course we didn’t see any trains that day.
Well one day i took a trip down to ellinor to take some pics i followed an empty grain train out of strong city and i got to ellinor to way ahead of it so i got ready to take some pics and the lead engine came bye it was a bn gp28m and the engineer stuck the whole top part of his body and was yelling somehting at me and waving his hands and laughing. Come to find out it was and engineer i know he was just being funny, i got a good laugh out of it.
Found a hidden electric fence out in the country once, nearly blew off the jewels, sure felt like it did.
OUCH!!![:O]
I got one.Me and my grandpa watched a UP coal drag at Rochelle.We were raceing it to my aunt’s house.We lost the train on the way there.About 15 mintuins later it comes by.(My aunt lives by the tracks)
Nearly got blown off the platform at cold spring NY when an Amtrak Empire came by at 90+mph
OK thanks so far in my railfan experiences I have not yet come up with anything that I would say was funny.
You can see where I have been so far this year by clicking on my signature then going thru the galleries.
[:o)][:p][:)]
[quote]
Originally posted by CSXrules4eva
spbed lol.
I was out railfanning with some friends about 10 years ago. A large group of people where waiting for the morning Amtrak at the Chatsworth Station for the train out of Los Angeles going to Santa Barbara. It was a foggy morning. Southern Pacific would run a freight train from Los Angeles to Oakland, mostly with TOFC traffic. Well, we all heard the train’s whistle. I was sitting in my car and could tell thy difference between a freight whistle and a passenger whistle by sound. The passengers grabed their bags unable to see the train and went closer to the tracks for the passenger train. Instead it was the freight train (symbolled 1LABAF) rolled by. Everybody ran back into the parking lot. I guess you had to be there, but we laughed like hell for a couple weeks afterward.
Yes and some advice along with it. If you are in the middle of no where and need the washroom and find a bush near by, make sure a hornet’s nest isn’t in it…
When I was fifteen, Dad and I did the Eurail thing. Since then-Communist East Germany did not recognize the Eurail system, we had to buy our own tickets to get from Berlin to the border at Helmstedt/Marienborn and the West. [:0]
We had been warned not to snap any photos of trains, bridges, etc., as that regime was excessively security-minded (ahem!). Or maybe the East German gov’t didn’t want folks to know how much steam the main lines were using back then, in 1970. I got one or two locos out my (openable) window and prayed for peace. [:-^][:-^]
Towards the end of our trip, I querulously asked the conductor if I may take a picture of the engine at the head of the train. He all but clicked his heels and said, “Of course! You are in VEST Chermany now!” [^]
I had every permission, but the steamer must have been left at the border; we had by then acquired a rather ugly red Diesel. [^][:0]
Ok, here is one [:)]
I have only been into the train thing a couple of years. Both the model part and the railfanning part. There is spot close to our home were the kiddo and I go on somehwat biweekely basis to see some local action. One day, I stopped by myself to see if there woul be anything later that nite so make the kid and I could come back. I was looking at a new switch they put in when I see a lady, (mid-50’s) and boy around 10 or so. They were walkign toward where I was the wrong way, also walkign acorss the the main and two sets fo track. Obivously, they had no idea what they were doing.
They walk up to me and we start talking. Turns out, the kid is somewhat of specail need type and she is a social worker. The kid loves trains, and she wanted to bring them to see the GP-38’s parked for the nites work. She was relieved to see me since the kid had lots of questions that she couldnt ansewer, so I told the kid, ask me… And he just pops them off one affter another. I could barely keep up. We covered everything from the swtich to the horns, how big a fuel tank, the ballast, ties, size of engine, how it works, all the hoses, lever, whatchamajiggys and do-dads. 20 minutes this went on of him just firing away and it took everyting I had to keep up. The lady was so relived I could fill his brain, and in the middle of him asking, I was responding to her questions. I was trying to tell her the best places to go, the proper way of doing things, (Like not walking acorss the Main on a curve, as an example) She was thrilled becuase she had no idea how, who or what, to ask to get this little guy close to the trains.
So then the kid got tired of me and goes off and is looking at the engine and its just the lady and I. She thanks me dearly for the time and helping out. She offers to call my boss and explain how nice I was. The rest went somethign like this…
“Oh 'mam, thats ok, I am the boss. I work alone at my shop” I respond
"You m
I had a great one yesterday! I was just south of Cameron, Wisconsin on the old C&NW, as I had just seen the headlight of an oncoming Wisconsin Northern train from parallel CTH-SS (formerly US-53). As I was waiting by the crossing, a Charter cable-TV truck comes up to the crossing, the window comes down, and the driver asks, “Is that a train coming?” I answered yes, to which he replied, “I thought this line was dead!” Nope, one train a day I said!
Anyways, I got some great pictures from a two-day trip I just got back from, I’ll get them up on my website by next weekend!
-Mark
www.fuzzyworld3.com
I was standing next to a Shay at Cass Scenic RR, with my camcorder on my shoulder. I was looking through the viewfinder and concentrating on something down the track in front of me. The engineer of the loco I was next to blew the whistle, and when I turned my head to see what the noise was about, all I could see was THIS LARGE BLACK THING RIGHT AT MY SHOULDER! (it was the camcorder)! I jumped about a foot! I know the engineer must have got a good laugh!
One time my father and I were parked on the Pepper street overpass (West Colton yard) watching trains one afternoon. There was nobody else there. Then a cop shows up and parks caddycorner from us and sits there for about ten minuets. After that he slowly drives up the road past us. He seemed to have no interest in us but he drove up and down the road several times going real slow. In between trains we were sitting in the car with the AC on. This cop pulls up behind us and sits there for a couple minuets. At this point I’m wondering WTF. Then he gets out of the car and walks up to my window, stands there looking all around for a few seconds, then asked us if we had seen anything suspicious. With a perfectly straight face I said"yea,the last (Southern Pacific) train had all Union Pacific power." He looked at me like I was speaking another language and just walked away without saying a word. My dad started laughing before he was out of earshot and I busted a gut as soon as he couldn’t hear me. It was so funny. What do you say to a question like that?
Last summer when the Grand Excursion was going on in Rock Island, they brought in Milw 261. Took stepson down to East Moline for his first view of working steam. Took up a spot near John Deere East Moline works with about a dozen other foamers who had tripods all set up and spots “claimed”. Was on a nice curve for good shots. First ICE came from west with switcher on side line. Was 3 blocks away, blew horn at crossing. All the local non foamers with kids all started looking in that direction going " Here it comes!" Then an EM cop pulls up in squad, parks right in front of all the tripods and starts to get out. Instant mad foamers. After a few remarks he decides he better park squad somewhere else. An added not really funny side bar: We both ended up getting chiggars to the waistline from standing in 5 inch tall grass. Ugggh!
While not really funny, it kinda shows what the tourists dont see.
I volunteer for the North Shore Scenic Railroad and Lake Superior RR Museum and one day i was helping load soda onto the train when the engineer, (a veteran) gets the signal to " bringer forward" to the platform. So im standing in the open air car right next to the engine, DMIR #193, and hes bringing her forward and my gawd there was so much slack, i almost fell over , she was shakin so bad. Boy did i give the engineer crap about that one.
My dad and I were on a train chasing trip where we went from LA up to Sandpoint then down to Soldier Summit. We were set up at a spot just east of Sandpoint on the MRL. These two guys came along from somewhere west of us playing cross country golf. I thought it was hilarious. They were dressed in normal clothes and did not look like golfers but each one of them had a driver. They would hit the ball to the east along the right of way then go search for there balls and do it all over again advancing several hundred feet at a time. These guys covered quite a bit of ground. A couple days later we came across the same two guys like 50 miles further east, still doing the same thing. I guess they were golfing railfans.