As I’m new on here and trying to get the feel from everyone, here’s a question: Do you guys enjoy real trains? I am sure for most of you the answer is yes. But a couple people I have run into don’t really pay too much attention to the real ones, rather just love the hobby. I really enjoy watching trains. I am not a “gear head” type, though. I don’t know one locomotive from another but I have always been fascinated by them.
Also, if you do enjoy them, can you pin point something that made you love them? For me it was because my grandparents have a cottage in Ontario, Canada. So for years when I was little my parents would take me there. The cottage was about 45 minutes from my home in suburban Detroit. The front of the house faces Lake St. Clair and the back of the house faced the railroad tracks. There were 2 tracks and huge freights used to rumble through there at the rate of at least one every two hours, sometimes every hour. I guess that’s where my love of trains began. Maybe the fear a young kid had of these huge, noisy machines made me in awe of them.
Now I go back there less frequently than I’d like. But one of the tracks was pulled up in about 1992 leaving only one track. There is another track about a mile down that you can see through the vast, flat cornfields of Ontario which has some freight traffic, but now the one remaining rail just yards from the cottage is mostly silenced. Via Rail uses it and about 4 to 5 trains come to and fro every day. That’s still a fair number but not quite as breathtaking as 10 per day and late at night when two freights would go by and illumniate and shake the cottage!!
I lived near the LIRR main line pretty much all my life… The EMU commuter trains would speed through and you’d hear the whoooosh of the train going by at high speed for a few seconds… But when the diesel passenger or freight train comes through, you’d know it-- You would hear a 2000hp normally-aspirated diesel engine pounding away, 10 times louder than a jackhammer, shaking the houses around the track with the noise. That would be a Long Island Railroad GP38-2 hauling a train past where I am.
Which might explain why my favorite diesel engine is the GP38-2 (and I got 10 of those Athearn Geeps on my roster)! [:D]
I still like real trains as well as the hobby. I wouldn’t say I go out of my way to railfan, but if I get lucky enough to get caught up at a grade crossing…
I have a fascination with trucks too, I think it has to do with imagining where they are headed. Where will that train end up? When I was a kid, I couldn’t tell you, now I can.
MIne come from spending summer vacations with my grandfather who worked on the PRR, PC. He retired before ConRail. My great Uncle stayed on until 1985 retiring from CR. As a kid, we got to watch the Buckeye Yard work from the control tower. My grandfather took us exploring the yard, and we got to ride the switchers.
I didn’t really get into trains until the late 1980s or so. But, I remember going to the train station in downtown Pittsburgh when I was younger, and my great-grandmother lived roughly 2 houses from the Monongahela tracks in Waynesburg, PA. Imagine getting to watch coal trains fly through town at night as a 4-5 year old. I missed seeing the ex-NYC sharks (Baldwin RF16s) by a few years though–they were gone by '74. I wasn’t “hatched” until '76
But, I think my occasional visits to the train station with my parents to pick up my grandparents is what did it. I remember just how run-down the former PRR station really was. In those days, you could drive into the waiting room. PRR and PC let the station fall apart.
Through a window, I could see some sort of switcher. I have no idea what type it was, but it was always belching out huge black clouds. Motive power consisted mainly of F40s, but sometimes E units showed up, along with colorful cars. They were rare though. I can still hear those F40s howling away. As a little kid, they seemed larger than life.
I lived (and still do) not too far from the Montour tracks just outside Pittsburgh. I don’t remember much about the Montour, other than the occasional train sighting near South Park, or the nightly train whistles on the old P&WV (N&W but Montour ran on it).
we have a word for those that love the real thing…it’s called “railfanning”…and i do it a lot…not only do i enjoy them but it helps me with my modeling…on site sketches or pictures of the real thing can easily be put on the model by refering back to them…I love trains because i grew up with them…my entire family except my dad were railroad workers and I had the priviledge of living at the tracks the entire time i was growing up…an SP limestone train ran to and from the quarry twice a day that i could see from my backyard fence…I would wait for hours just to see the train…i remember alco RS-3’s and RS11’s …GP7 's & 9’s, F7 A & B units, and just about anything else SP ran during the early 60’s and 70’s before i moved away…i even got to see my engineer uncle on occasion taking the train to the quarry…chuck
I have always loved trains, There is no one memory that I can recall that started my love.
I seem to have spent most of my life near the CN/GT Holly sub. From Waterford to Pontiac to Royal Oak.
I used to visit friends near this track as a kid and squash pennies on it. Now I bring my son and daughter on walks that always seem to cross this track. As we are walking, I find myself secretly praying a train will go by. The track is active, but not as much as it used to be.
I have a love for real trains.
My Dad had a love for real trains.
He’d take me to CPR’s Agincourt Yard to watch the switchers move about. Never got a cab ride though.
Where ever I go, I usually look out for trains. Even CN ones as I sometimes see CPR locomotives on the Kingston Sub on occasion.
When I saw 2816 for the first time in person, I fell in love with steam. Now I want a BLI plastic version of a CPR Hudson or Pacific, if they ever come out with one. If not, I’ll have to save my pennies & get a brass one.
I do love real trains. You have to be up close and personal (that does not mean get in front of a moving train) so that you can get a real appreciation for the scale models we love so much. Railfanning is as much an important part of the hobby too IMO.
I’ve loved real trains since I first noticed them, about the time I was learning to talk.
Of course, they were all over - L trains overhead, freights on a depressed Class 1 right-of-way, subway trains downtown, even trolley cars until the bus interests killed them.
Today, I still train watch every chance I get. (My wife has come to hate the ‘tally-ho’ term I use when we’re freeway cruising - “Ditch Lights!”)
I love to see, and ride behind, working steam, but, strangely enough, seeing the identical loco static and dead leaves me cold. Sort of the difference between watching a live critter and seeing the same thing stuffed. (For an N&W 4-8-0, give me Strasburg any day over either Roanoke or Abingdon.)
I’m a “real train” lover also. Shame on me, but I haven’t taken the time to do any railfanning lately. I guess I need to set aside a day in the near future and get caught up.
I am in awe of locomotives. If you’ve ever stood on a platform as a freight train rumbles through (especially if they are moving at a descent clip) you can’t help be impressed by the power. You can feel the weight as the ground vibrates beneath your feet. In fact, it sometimes is a little frightening (what a nancy boy I am!), but if you’ve done this you know what I mean.
I don’t think I’d be a model railroader if I didn’t like the real thing.
I love the real thing too. As a kid I guess what fascinated me was that something so large could actually move under its own power, yet alone pull a mile long train of freight behind it! I could hear the diesel horn blow from our house and I’d ride my bike down to the tracks fast as I could to watch the trains and wave at the engineer.
One time I kept hearing horns tooting but no trains were visible when I got trackside (PRR/Conrail tracks east-west thru Lima, Ohio). I began following the tracks eastward and wound up at Lima’s Amtrak station and the intersection of the Chessie System (north-south). I’d never seen railroad “diamonds” before. The first time a Chessie freight came pounding thru them I was hooked! I rode up there almost every day that summer to railfan. Too bad I had no camera… I could have gotten some great photo’s!
I grew up after the steam era so most of my experiences are with diesels, but steam loco’s are in my blood (growing up in the hometown of the Lima Locomotive Works might have something to do with it [:)]). After seeing many of them in museums as a kid I now seek out operational steam whenever I can. I’m eagerly awaiting the next excursion of recently restored NKP 765 later this year (hopefully).
I’m a steam fan who prefers passenger trains and if possible, streamlined locos… so the opportunities to see my trains of choice in the ‘real life’ version are limited to a few museums and essentially nil in terms of actually operating. I greatly enjoy the excursion railroads that still run steam and carry people.
Mind you, I still railfan and get a charge out of any train, even if it’s a modern diesel rumbling past pulling a load of freight. Luckily I live in a good area for all this - central PA. I can head to Altoona and Juniata for railfanning and horseshoe curve. I can get to Strasburg for the strasburg RR and museums. Steamtown USA is a bit of a treck (90 mins) but certainly within easy reach… So I get my fill.
I love regular trains as well as model trains. My experiance was as a kid, one would go by my house to pick up and drop off box cars for a Burlington cotton mill in Sherman, TX.
I’d go and watch the engine all the time.
I use to like to make the engineer blow his horn also.
I guess I was impressed with trains as a kid. People would say when giving directions, “Yeah just drive down first street and turn left at the Turntable”. It was just part of common language. Later on, my sons were small and we used to sit and watch trains and their movements through various yards, and mainlines, and watch the trains move through famous “Cajon Pass” near San Bernardino. Now they are grown, but I still am impressed when I see a train roll by. The other day I seen a long Container train thunder by. It had 4 UP diesels, nice and impressive. Where I live in So. Cal, this is a merging point of UP, SP and SF, which now as everyone knows, has changed due to mergers, but still there are big and small yards, industry spurs, and thousands of miles of mainline track. I like to watch videos too of trains, especially Steam Locos. I am keeping my eyes and ears open for any Steam Locos that might operate for “Show”. I have been trying to put my finger on what exactly it is about trains that is exhilerating but I have not figured it all out yet.
