I always have at least one of my most current magazines with me at school to read during free moments, and, suprisingly, have occasionally had someone ask to look at one. I also tend to try to relate topics in Science and History to model and real trains, where relevant and apropriate, so I’m known for that.
I wear cool golf shirts with logos - CNJ, DL&W, etc. - on them. They actually get people talking sometimes. It’s nice to educate people about railroads. Also, Norfolk Southern has great caps, etc. available, too.
I have pics of trains and cad drawings which are cool since I am a draftsman.
I took the bigboy cad drawing and made it into a challenger.
I also wear a Up belt buckle have a UP denim jacket and my train hat with enough pins to require card board inside to support it
Besides the sticker on my hard hat that says I LOVE TRAINS, I have many CSX, Chessie, and Seaboard System shirts and jackets I wear to work!
I talk a lot about trains, and usually go one saying some technical spec that no one else understands. I also talk about my job, since I work at a train store. Been talking about trains since I learned how, my first words were “Choo choo.” And I don’t plan to stop.
~[8]~ TrainFreak409 ~[8]~
I wear a vest to all the train shows that is covered w/patches & pins of many railroads.
I wear a Walmart cap to work that has train pins on it & I dispay some of my layout photo’s on the bulletin board in the warehouse. The vendors especially like the large color photo of the Walmart Dist. center that is on my layout. They always tell everyone it’s the new DC in Arcadia. It’s got about 10 HO scale Walmart semi’s sitting next to it.
Everyone at my work place knows I’m into trains in a big way. The workers bring all their kids, parents, grandparents, wives, girlfriends & such on my day off, plus my layouts been in the local paper a few times. So, I guess you can say" I’m a train nutt".
Larry
except for the models on my shelves, I don’t show that I’m a railfan 
i have one friend who is into model cars i believe, he doesn’t tell anyone really either. i’m still in high school so this hobby isn’t something a lot of HSers do. maybe once i get out of college and everything i’ll show it off. i’m also a jock to. i only play one sport but if i wouldn’t i could be a 4 sport athlete, just chose to stick to one or maybe 2 this year.
thats how i am. i don’t like to cause a lot of commotion and i don’t like to flaunt what i do. if i feel like telling someone i will otherwise i’ll keep it to myself and if someone is in my room and asks what is in the other room upstairs i’ll show them and say its my hobby.
I’m fifteen, in eleventh grade, and everyone in the school knows what my hobby is–after all, I am cofounder and president of my school’s railfan club. I don’t go up to people saying, “Hello, I’m a railfan,” but I make no secret of it either.
Yeah, some people JUST DON’T GET IT, but the majority of those who know of it are understanding, even if they do kid about it a little.
Those from the steam age are usually happy that someone is still interested in steam locomotives. For everyone else, once they realize that your interest has more to do with history and mechanics than “choo-choo trains,” they should leave you alone. Of course, the world still has rude personages, but they are just as common among “adults” as among my classmates.
I know that many in the middle and high school grades are concerned that admitting to being a railfan will make them seem purile (I am no exception from this concern), but I have found two things:
1.) Most of those who would condemn you as purile are under the belief that railroads are obsolete, unsightful holdovers from decades ago; have never ridden a train in their life and have had no more experience with railroads than being stopped at a grade crossing; and are themselves immature, purile people; and
2.) It is more immature to deny your chosen hobby (and to win the approval of those who are members of what a described in the last statement of point one) than to embrace a perfectly respectable pasttime.
Happy railfanning!
-Daniel Parks
I used to have a bumper sticker “Model Railroader on Board” and that got me into conversations a couple of times. When still active I had my own office with a model of an EMD E-unit on my desk and a numer of enlarged photographs that I personally took at Tehatchapi. Everybody in the office knew I was a train hobbyist and I even wrote an article about model railroading for the company magazine. Now, when asked about the way I spend my retirement time I tell about my hobby, but as soon as I sense that people find this a bit silly for a grown man I stress and even exaggorate the electronic aspect of the hobby and that makes it a serious passtime again .Electronics is complicated and even mysterious to many peolple so anyone working with electronics must be taken seriously.
I run a website for it.
I have some train pics in my room, 2 display cases full of trains, a 7x11 foot layout, and whenever my friends come over they compliment me on my train collection. so I guess my hobby is’nt a problem for me[:D]
Actually I’m in my twenty’s and have kept it a secret since the begining.
Nothing.
Never catch me wearing an “engineer’s hat”, any RR related T-shirt and especially one of those vests plastered with logos. My wife has standing instructions to shoot me if I ever dress like a railfan.
I don’t.
I have a few locomotive posters on the wall, thats as far as it goes.
I don’t walk around advertising it.
i might get some of the pictures i’ve taken blown up so i can put them on my wall. thats about it. i have a calender.
i think everyone has a secret hobby that they don’t want people to know about. this is mine.