…you weather paper cutouts of trains, and measure them for scale.
…you have the frequencies memorized.
You pretend you are a freight train when you go grocery shopping. Bottled goods are tanks cars, boxes are box cars, bags of flour and rice are covered hoppers, etc…
…you post something that’s already been posted[;)]
You pretend the 8 gears on your bike are throttle settings (Which doesn’t work too well!)
You turn in a picture of a locomotive in art class and the wierdest art teacher in the school thinks that you are wierder than him.(this has actually happenend.)
…you spend WAY TOO MUCH time here in the forums.[(-D]
…the train whistle blowing in the distance is an excuse to get out of the house for awhile…to… uhhh run all those errands you wanted me to run, honey…yeah…
I DID THAT TOO!!! lol
you’ve braved freezing weather and snow on a bike just to see if what you heard was really a whistle
You try to figure out how to put a Geep control stand in your Freightliner truck cab and have it do something.Or plan to paint your house cream with red trim like B&O structures.You have so many RR books you forget what ones you have.Your non-railfan friends take pictures of trains or locos and give them to you.You see if there is a RR museum or something RR related close to where your load has to go.
When driving to work you pass over a CSX line (ex Reading NY Shortline),and an NS line (Ex PRR Trenton Cutoff) and when you see no real trains you pretend a train from one of the predecessor roads is passing by. For example, I saw a six car set of Reading Blueliners and and E44 powered coal train this morning! On the way home I saw a PRR GG1 couple to an Alco S-1 and a Reading camelback. Please tell me this is normal…
You are driving along on an interstate or an ordinary road and you impersonate a talking defect detector! I have also done this on a fan trip on a line that didn’t even have radios,let alone a talker! ( “Arcade and Attica Monkey Run New York No Defects total axle count 25. Train speed 15 over.” The Conductor, that had a phone replied to it and later, AFTER he got off duty we laughed about how a pair of riders were looking in a book of frequencies for A&A’s frequency-By the way, it hasn’t got one!) Then, there is naming the various voices such as the infamous Mr. Dork, used by Conrail, NYS&W and Guilford! Then there is just babbling: “Lackawanna, Wayland, New York Track 1 No Defects total axle count 432. Train speed 40, over”… I think i might have …Then the ultimate ones: “New York Central Bay View New York Track 1 no defects total axle count 70 train speed 79,over”, then the reply:" NYC 25 track 1 No defects, out. “Followed by :“New York Central Bay View New York Track 2 no defects total axle count 72 train speed 79, over”.” NYC 26 By the Bay ,no defects, out."
when you can tell a locomotive by its horn/whistle, or by how much exhaust it puts out.