The question came up on a different forum by somebody who obviously is not a railfan. Why do we like trains?
I sat thinking about it and honestly I could not answer. Maybe for the same reason I like classic cars, and old airplanes. I think it bothers my GF that I like Thomas just about as much as my youngest child does. lol
Anyone else have a take on it?
It never ceases to amaze me how that much weight can move that fast.
My like of trains is growing from my model railroading and the one thing that makes foam at the mouth is the cylinder count… 700 plus cubic inches x 16 cylinders!
Why do people like cars? Why do people like airplanes? Why do people like collecting coins? Why do people like baseball? Why do people like horse racing? Why do people like gambling? Why do people like bird watching? Why do people like soap operas? Why do people like Elvis? Why do people like rap music? Why do people insist on calling "rap, “music”? Why do people ask why people like trains?
When you can answer all of those questions (and more) with just one answer, then you will have the real reason. Until then…
A steam locomotive suddenly appeared from behind a building, blowing the whistle and blasting steam down under the car I was in… when I was just 3 and a half years old! Scared me completely AIRBORNE, landing in my granddad’s lap screaming “MOMMY!”. Watching trains is just a means of raising my adrenaline level by reminding me of that late evening… Not much different than the way bungee jumping or skydiving does for other people.
Why do I like trains? Maybe it’s like the late, great David P. Morgan said, “Things that move are a lot more interesting than things that don’t!” Maybe it’s the history they represent, and I’ve always been fascinated by history. You couldn’t make up fiction to compare to some things that happened for real! But in my case maybe it’s because of the second oldest memory I have. The first is of a very pretty lady at the kitchen sink, and a very handsome man kissing her goodbye as he was leaving for work. The second is of a steam locomotive. I couldn’t have been more than three years old (1956). I was sitting in the front seat of my fathers 1950 Ford, and we were stopped at a grade crossing. I know now it was in Bergenfield NJ on the old New York Central’s West Shore line. I looked out the window and there it was, big, black, headlight centered on the smokebox, and the stack going “WOOOMF, WOOMF, WOOMF!”. I wasn’t frightened, I was fascinated, and I’ve been a “steam freak” ever since.
When I was a child I was able to walk up and touch the lead engine of the Silver Meteor. The way the earth seemed to move when standing close to this engine was amazing!
There are as many reasons as there are railfans, exactly the same.
I grew up in the 40’s and 50’s in the NYC area with plenty of subways, trolleys, commuter and intercity trains to ride (needed to get around) and see and plenty of freight to see. Yeah, the Lionel was around the Xmas tree and semi perminent in the attic. A Maerklen set also allowed for fun and games. But the 12 inch to the foot layout outside my bedroom window in the form the Denville Jct. Interlocking of the DL&W, was better than toys because it was all “automatic” and constant 24/7.
Why the fascination with trains?
It is the larger world being connected. It is a ballet of enterprise, industry, energy and ingenuity that performs not only in large metropolitan centers, but through hamlets in the middle of nowhere and the even less in between.
It is the force that drove settlement over 2/3 of North America. The pattern the railroad laid down remains. It is the abuse of its power creating resentment and conflicts. It is the comprise and tragedy of regulating its power.
In the last quarter of the 20th century it is renaissance. It is the reaffirmation of freedom stimulating enterprise to new standards of productivity and profit to the benefit of a world power’s economy.
It is innovation. Innovation in business management , technology and every aspect related to its very being. Yes, its very presence creates awe.
Tons of metal in motion. The structures over nature’s barriers boggle. The cathedrals to its riders stand as the industrial age answer to the middle ages Gothic structures of faith. Few agnostics 50 years ago could image the railroad’s worshipers returning to its pews in motion. It is happening.
Its fascination has a rich past and bright future. Why that fascination? A better question is why not.
Because they enable me to make a nice living. Seriously though I have been interested in trains ever since I can remember, long before I chose this as a career. They’re big, powerful and loud, what’s not to like. I love running 50 mph and looking back as my train rolls through curves kicking up dust.
i suppose the formative experiences that led to a lifelong interest in trains were these: 1. Riding the CA&E electrics and C&NW steam commuter trains into the city as a child with my parents. 2. Watching the CB&Q long distance trains (streamlined and steam) stop at the Aurora, IL depot with my uncle.
I like the thought behind Victrola1’s answer.
It’s also a technology with tremendous potential, a mere fraction of which has been utilized to date. Someone - David P. Morgan, perhaps - once wrote that the railroad was the greatest civilizing influence on the undeveloped world (Africa or India), because it is a non-violent method of introducing the locals to mathematics, time, physics, organizations, science, literacy, etc. I’ll also add that a lot of the engineering disciplines and Anglo-American jurisprudence (law) evolved to deal with the challenges and issues created by the railroad industry and its technology, organization, structure, and operations.
To quote someone else:
“To those who understand, no explanation is necessary; to those who don’t , no explanation will suffice.”
Finally, I’m wondering what is the significance of the graphic in the Original Post ? “Aspies” is short for “Asperger’s Syndrome” - simplistically, think of it as autism “light”. A long time ago a significant correlation was observed between people who like trains and have either Asperger’s or autism - both also known as being “on the spectrum” - but I am not aware of any cause-and-effect or linking theory having been established. Coincidentally, a leading author on Asperger’s - John Elder Robison - is just out with a new book - “Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian” - and I think the cover illustration ties in with this point - see: http://www.johnrobison.com/
To borrow the quote that Paul North Posted:
"To those who understand, no explanation is necessary; to those who don’t , no explanation will suffice."[Y][Y]
I have been fortunate to grow up in an environment populated with Trains_._ Living in Memphs, Tn. in the 1950’s, it was a short bike ride to go to the IC RR’s East Freight Bypass and sit and watch the Southbound trains battling the grade as the headed to Johnston Yard (now Harrison Yard). Living in Mass, it was the trolleys at Milton, Ma. Mattapan was just a short distance away. We got our firrst American Flyer trains,in '53. I’d guess that hooked me.
My best friend in Tulsa,Ok. lived on the Midland Valley line to West Tulsa, and the refineries. There was always something going by to watch.
Back in Memphis, The Southern’s Forest Yard provided plenty of interest; a reward for a bicycle ride to Buntyn Station or the Normal area, There was always my friend, the Yardmaster at Friscos’ Tennessee Yard, after I got my drivers license.
Then down to the East end of the Bridges. The old bridge watchman could tell railroad stories as long as you could stay. The big crossing was just a hundred yards away ( where the IC’s lines north and south crossed everybody elses lines (SP/Frisco/MoPac). I had good friends who were also train buffs and was fortunate to be able to ride behind the" SR 1401 on the ‘Sentimental Journeys’ Got to see the ’ Best Friend of Charleston’ when it was in town to rededicate the Memphis& Charleston’s Station in the 60’s.
Drove a truck for lots of miles, but a train would always turn my head. Now, in retirement I enjoy seeing, and hearing the traffic across the way on the BNSF’s Transcon.
Yep! I’m fascinated and hooked!
I can more easily explain my interest in public safety than I can trains - but Paul’s quote fits there, too.
My father was a volunteer firefighter and a reserve police officer - I saw the inside of both and I guess you could say it’s “in my blood.” I must have passed it on, because my son is a firefighter now as well.
As for trains, I think it probably goes back to that train under the Christmas tree each year, but it really didn’t blossom until I had some time (and money) to invest.
Later this month I’ll have the opportunity to live many fans’ dreams as I take my first turn as a student engineer.
Because I get to go to work and do this (im the conductor, note the aviators [8D])
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmir_321/5245585996/in/photostream/
Also as conductor, I get to do things like this:
I don’t know…I just do.
I don’t.
Maybe.
It’s hard to explain it all, but there was one turning point that gave me a great interest in railroading: when I was fifteen, my brother who was not much older than I traveled by train (on a pass which our mother obtained because our father had worked for the ACL) from Charlotte, N. C., to New Orleans to Chattanooga and back to Charlotte, to visit our brother in Baton Roouge and an uncle in Chattanooga. Riding the all-day train from Birmingham to New Orleans, I tmost of the time standing at the rear, watching where we had been. It was wonderful to be moved along, without worry, from here to there.
Even though we spent two nights in coaches with walkover seats (the second night in such a car, my brother took the seat at the end of the car and was ble to stretch out) and only one in a coach with reclining seats, I was hooked for life.
We had two meals in diners–breakfast out of Birmingham on the way to Chattanooga, and dinner in the diner out of Chattanooga (going through the Missionary Ridge tunnel as we sat in the diner). While we were in Chattanooga, I learned something about how to play canasta, and offered to make a foursome when three young ladies in the lounge car on the Royal Palm were looking for a fourth (sad to say, I made a poor partner).
Two years later, I traveled by myself from Baton Rouge to Charlotte, again on a pass–and I spent the night from Atlanta to Charlotte stretched out on the seat at the end of the car, my most comfortable night ever when riding coach!
I felt that I was fortunate when living in Wesson, Miss., and Reform, Ala., to be able to interact with many railroad men–station agents and men in road service–and I was able to make up, in part, from not having trains to play with when young by playing with the real thing after I grew up.
Indeed, railroading had given me such an interest that for a time I thought that nothing could be better than to be a passenger conductor. Sad to say, I got only halfway there; most
4th Generation to be involved with the steel wheel on the steel rail.
Great-grandfather was a Horse Car Conductor in the late 19th Century. Grandfather and Father had long careers with same Class I that I hired out on…but it ends with me.
My son and I share a different interest of racing fast cars on race tracks, but he has no interest in railroading despite having applied at one time for a carman’s job on BNSF.
I am not sure why I like today’s diesel-hauled trains, but I do. I think it’s at least partially a transference of the emotional involvement I felt with steam. Until I was eleven, I grew up in Tela, Honduras. This was a railroad town–everything was owned by the railroad, and everyone who lived there worked for the railroad. There were no roads connecting with any other towns, so if you went anywhere, you went by rail. The railroad’s basic mission was to deliver bananas from the interior to load onto ships at the wharf in Tela, and this was where the emotional involvement begins. At the end of the day they would make up trains of empties to send back, and sometimes the locomotives would have trouble getting their trains started. I’d lie awake nights listening to the engine struggling, stalling, backing up to try again, sometimes with drivers slipping, and sometimes having to whistle for help. Once he got out of the yard and onto the main, he’d gradually pick up speed as the sounds faded off into the distance, and I would get a warm, fuzzy feeling–he made it!
Today, looking at the area on Google Earth. all the track has been removed, and the dock is in ruins.
Zugmann, I think I kind of sort of understand your answer. When in high school, I became interested in electronics, and would read everything I could on it and enjoyed repairing radios and TV sets (all vacuum tubes back then) for freinds and neighbors. When I retired after working as an electronic technician, I realized that I had all kinds of stuff around the house that needed fixing, and I enjoyed working on them again. You can get saturated with something when you’re too close to it. So, when you retire might start playing with trains; or maybe you’ll move to a mountain top and never see one again.