early friday morning I was standing outside the yuard office at the south yard in Council Bluffs iowa, we had just yarded MPRCB 03 and were waiting for a ride to Fremont to tie up. I was watching a yard job kicking cars down the lead, When I remembered seeing the same thing at Gobson yard in south Omaha when I was about 5 or 6 years old. And my question is Can you remember what ir was that gave you the trainwatching .railfam bug? Was it seeing a train watching, a local switch a string of cars was there one thuing that stands out that made you say WOW Thanks Larry
larry
my brother took me down to the tracks to see the N&W trains on former nkp track in celina ohio.In 1976 our family moved to defiance ohio 3 houses from the B&O and the Depot.They had a small yard behind the depot and it was on a hill.Also the crews on westbounds had to wait at FC had to wait for hot eastbounds(jettrains).So they would park at the depot and go to get ice cream or KFC.The yard and the depot are now gone.Great place to grow up as a kid.
stay safe
joe
I don’t know what it was exactly for me. I have alot of railroad related type memories because my dad was a big train buff, and it was always part of growing up. We had the train room with the HO layout, his collection of old Lionel and American Flyer trains, and other railroad memorobilia.
When we would visit my grandparent’s house in Brookfield, Dad would take us down to the train station to watch trains on the then Burlington Northern.
I am not so much into the technical end of railfanning (I still can’t tell most what most locomotives are) I can only positively identify an SD-40, SD-70, or the new SD-70ACe. It was always more of a fascination with the whole of railroad operations… it was a big mystery to me. I remember back when I was in 5th grade and my friend and I build a little clubhouse along the ICG right of way through my hometown, and we spent many a summer day just hanging out and watching trains. Sometimes we would venture up to Proviso Yard, about a mile north of my house, and we would spend alot of time retracing the old C&GW/C&AE right of way through Berkely/Hillside. I love to be trackside, and the anticipation of the approaching headlight. I always used to wonder about the “how’s” and “why’s” of railroading. I just loved to watch trains go by and wonder where it was going, and what it was taking, what was in each car, and would imagine the places the train would be going. I would pore over maps, and bombard my dad with questions about what railroad went where, especially those that were close by. Occasionally he would take us to the IHB, along where CP LaGrange is, and I still have memories of seeing locomotives from what are now “fallen flags”, used to wonder where those trains were going. I remember being up in Bensenville at the old Fireman’s Hall, watching the old Milwaukee Road in action (or, by that time, what was left of it). I also rem
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what causes excitement with railroading. But ponder this:
Since railfans are overwhelmingly males, perhaps it is the male mechanical satisfaction they receive. One sees a large object moving, and they also see what holds up that object, the wheels, actually rolling! Instinctively, their male nature is satisfied because what they see makes sense, it is so logical. And THAT thrills them!
That makes sense to me… As a rule, males are more logical, among other things. I would have to say that is probably the reason why men like construction equipment, cars, and pretty much anything with a motor. It’s also probably the power, size, and just brute force that trains possess…watching a freight train haul along at 60+ mph, never fails to fascinate me…
First off my mom was a teacher in San Francisco and she had tons of literature from the AAR so we had train stuff all over the house. Secondly, when I was maybe 3-4 years old she started taking me to San Francisco to watch the trains, ships, and car ferries. She would also take me down to SFO to watch the planes. I think we were the only ones there on a Friday night who actually parked there to watch airplanes.[:P] The western terminus of I-80 was being built about a mile from our house so she would take me down to watch the heavy equipment doing all the grading.
Anything that moves freight with big power facsinates me. I can sit on the banks of the Mississippi and watch towboats all day long. Ships are awe inspiring to me. Just being at an airport amazes me what with all the activity (Probably what large train stations used to be like). All this stuff that I like can be blamed on my mom.
I can’t remember that far back, but walking out to the EL main in Decatur, IN with my dad and watching an eastbounder roar past with an F7A on the lead definitely “set the hook” for me.
the other thing that sticks out in my memory was growing up in Kearney nebraska in the mid to late 60s and early 70s along the union Pacific mainlaine . Watching the big A;cos and the DD35s and 6900s run thru town but the thing that realyy impressed me was the turbines the G E Bigbkows they looked like a cloud of black s,oke with a headlight attacked . The E units on the Streamliners and on trains 5 and 6 the mail trains Life was a lot simpler back then GO HUSKERS Larry
I guess you’d have to say that it was probably ingrained in me from birth. My earliest memories of seeing trains were out of the living room window at our house. Mind you, the tracks were over a quarter-mile away, but the house was on a hill, with flat land between said hill and the tracks, and nothing intervening. The view was something like 15 carlengths of train that could be seen at once. The trains I remember the best were the local freights, which seldom filled the entire view. My parents apparently taught me something about them, because I knew to run to the window when the horn sounded, and I knew what I was looking at–my earliest memories had me shouting out the type of car as it came into view: “Engine! Box car! Box car! Gondola car! Tank car! Hopper car! Caboose! Caboose!” (yes, there were two cabooses on these locals, because a different crew handled the train in each direction). I definitely knew the different cars (I didn’t see many covered hopper cars, but knew what they were by the time I was six). My training books were probably the Lionel and American Flyer catalogs of the time, which I presume could be picked up at the toy departments of retailers back then (I could read by the time I was three, so photo captions were not a problem). In spite of the “Diesels” I saw in these catalogs and other books (from the library?), my idea of a diesel locomotive was the one I saw on my freight trains–a C&O BL2. Just a year or so ago I was shown a drawing I had made in either Kindergarten or first grade–the train had a blue-and-yellow diagonally-divided rectangle for an engine, a red box car, a black tank car, and a red caboose. I had known enough to put four circles underneath the cars for the wheels.
That was the way I liked my trains when I was little–small, distant, and quiet. On the occasions when I was taken closer to them, I was scared of
I was at a picnic with my family in Garfield Park on the southside of Indy. I ran through some bushes and there was the Pennsy Indy-Louisville line. A light in the distance and Pennsy’s “Southwind” came by. I loved the sight, the sound and, believe it or not, the smell. That was it for me.
The Marx trainset that ran around the bottom of the Christmas tree every year didn’t hurt, nor did seeing the C&O running through town when I was in junior high. I think what set it in cement, though, was the ICG main running through Rantoul, IL while I was in tech school at Chanute AFB, and the availability of RR magazines in the base bookstore.
What got me into volunteering was a cab ride I bought on our PBS merchandise auction.
Now I’m a conductor. Go figure.
Just watching the daily wayfreight on the Milwaukee Road’s branchline between Cedar Rapids and Calmar in my hometown of Edgewood as a little tyke was enough to get me hooked at an early age. Plus the fact that my older brother had an American Flyer trainset didn’t hurt either.
Omaha, Nebr. - Thursday, 11 Sept. 2008.
I love this armchair, pop-psychology stuff alright, but why do so many railfans splinter off into some crazy subgroups like
- Diesel Fanciers,
- Steam Nuts,
- Traction Phreaques, and
- The Rapid Transit Lunatic Fringe?
P.S. (You’ll find me somewhere between the latter two groups.)
Why do some people like Ford, other
I don’t know where mine came from. I’m the only one in the family with it. I have a line below my house that goes to the generating station, so that kinda helped things.
My mom gave birth to me at home in Hanahan, SC in 1966. My dad (Navy) was out to sea, so my 16-year old sister had to drive mom & newborn to the hospital. My sister tells me she was worried because I was not crying, but on the way to the Naval Hospital in N. Charleston, she crossed some railroad tracks at about 70mph which caused me to start crying to her relief. To this day she says that’s why I like trains so much. Since I can’t remember any time not liking trains, I’ll go with her story! Jamie