Top 10: A Little Train Humor

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I was really bored today, so I came up with this list of Top 10 Reasons to be a Railfan:

  1. It’s one of the few hobbies where warrants are considered a good thing
  2. You get to visit grand and exciting places, like beautiful Rochelle, Illinois
  3. You’ll be able to tell people where Rochelle, Illinois is.
  4. Chicks dig a guy who can say “Tehachapi”.
  5. It gives you an excuse to go to Chicago.
  6. You can say the word “reefer” without people getting the wrong idea.
  7. The conversations between the yard people and the van drivers beat out “Howard Stern” any day.
  8. You can put your high school knowledge of country backroads to better use than outrunning the cops.
  9. Great way to get a suntan.

And the #1 Reason for Being a Railfan…Dude, they’re trains!

2

Not bad! You ought to send it to Letterman.

3

you left out the chances it gives to eat at some of America’s finest (?) restaurants and pee in some of America’s filthiest gas station restrooms! You also left out the chance to meet some of the loonies who for some reason are not railfans but like to hang around railfans. Yikes!
Seriously, another top 10 reason is that railfanning also offers great opportunities for bird and animal watching. At a popular railfan spot in Milwaukee, when the trains are not running we watch the red-tailed hawks do barrel-rolls and dive bomb runs, and not long ago we watched a coyote pick up a roadside garbage bag of dirty diapers and run off with it. Good fun!
Dave

4

Thanks for the chuckles.

Here’s one more: Railfanning is one of only two “hobbies” I know of that make the earth move, and the other one’s none of your business.

5

In there somewhere, probably should be:
Good excuse to escape the “honey-do” ritual on the weekends!

6

Chix dig trains?

7

You Bet! And my very favorite is the Big Boy!
They don’t make them like that any more…which is probably for the best, but wi***hey still sounded like that!

8

While it must be true that some chix like trains,I don’t believe I would hang around yards,terminals etc…to meet them:Multi-state lottery odds are better.

9

The first time I went to the area known as Dayton’s Bluff for train watching in the Twin Cities (after moving here in 1999), two men saw me and exclaimed: “Never saw no women here before!”
My reply: “Get used to it.”
When funding allows, I go out rail fanning all over the Twin Cities. Sometimes I encounter men who are civil, sometimes I just avoid contact.
And yes, chix like trains.
A good example: In late 2000, a female FedEx driver came up to my apartment with some computer equipment, saw my train layout, and was very interested.

10

Exactly what was the female FedEx driver interested in?

11

I would not say that trains are not an inexpensive hobby. Most railfans subscribe to one, possibly to two or three magazines.

Then there are books and videos/dvd’s, then of course there are the trips (if it is part of your work or as your holiday, then the cost is ‘sunk’).
Most would also have a few toy trains, and possibly a layout.

So you can see it is a drain on finances.

How many of the men here have wives/girlfriends who are interested in trains?

Jason.

12

But you can still get hot, sweaty and dirty doing both!!!

Trains, like women, can be exciting, but also expensive, noisy and whatever…

Yo can also check-out the recolonisation by plants of abandoned lines.

Jason.

13

and men are NOT exciting, expensive, noisy and whatever?

14

Guys we have to remember that Jenny watches everything we say here!

15

gotta change that name - to maybe Pete…then you would never know I wasn’t one of the guys!

16

I say leave your name. I personally find railfanning very sexy. Nothing like the rhythm of a grain train crossing a junction to get things going (just call me Don Juan de UP)

17

I thought that it was all meant to be light-hearted!! But I guess I have no sense of humor. Out of interest, how many girls do like railroading?

Jason.

18

Sometimes the people on the forums are almost as much fun as watching trains!!

19

Hmmmm. With comments like that, maybe you better NOT change your screen name to “Pete.” Keep it Jenny/Mookie please

20

at the risk of angering someone with my frivolous comments - I am blushing…