You know you're a railfan when...

Trains Magazine General Discussion
21

1/ You go through yellow because to you they are clear to stop.

2/ You install a coffee machine in your car so you can railfan in the winter.

3/ You get off a bus because you notice a train is coming

4/ You make your animals ride on your G scale layout and dress them in train outfits

5/ Your idea of excersise is running 3 blocks to catch a train.

6/ You bring a bunch of other railfans and start doing the wave and hold up a lighter after a train goes by.

7/ You talk lude on the phone and ask the other person if it takes place at a BNSF mainline or a UP mainline.

8/ You have a bar in your reckroom and serve drinks to your guests on a moving lionel train set.

9/ You install a phone outside so you don’t miss a call while watching trains.

10/ Your answering machine says “…sorry I not hope right now because I’m watching trains…”

11/ You take your familly to Walt Disney and find that a CSX train on the way with an AC6000CW and some other interesting power in the highlight of your day.

12/ Your parents and grandparents make fun of you

13/ You purposely forget things at the store so you have an excuse to go watch trains some more

14/ You think a pig farm is a nickname for TOFC terminal.

22

See Junctionfan’s #11 above.
For me it was going on a 4th grade field trip to a dairy, and the most memorable thing was a Santa Fe train going by on the mainline (Riverside, CA late 60s)

23

You break the family budget by buying an ALCO S-6 and then insisting that your wife help you to install batterys just so you can hear it run… for an hour.
Randy

24

You bad order a locomotive on the service tracks and have your coworkers work to seperate the consist just so you can get a photo of the locomotive by itself.
Randy

25

When you give some idiot a fat lip for complaining about trains blocking the crossing. (obviously he doesn’t have my appreciation for the machines).
(I could get my 3rd star this way) !!!
Randy

26

[#ditto]Let us not resort to violence toward the unknowing and uncultured for never being taught the proper appreacation of fine engineering and functional beauty. Let us rather be sad[:(] for they must be pittied [#dots]for not knowing what is important to know about such things. A fat lip, no, but deep wi***hat they would become more enlightened. [swg][:-^]yes[2c]

27

Either that or I was gonna get one !!!
Randy

28

Glad to hear that there was no physical damage

29

1/ An SD70Mac is your idea of a babe magnet

2/ Some one says to you “nice caboose” and you look at the tracks to see if one has gone by.

3/ You install a train horn in your vehicle

4/ You have a pair of binoculars and you have a choice of looking at a hot woman or a train and you choose the train.

5/ Your favourite place to drink beer is by the tracks

6/ You phone in sick for work because you know a special train is going through that day ie the Hudson

7/ Your familly doesn’t like trains but start to pick up on the terminology.

8/ You lease an RV just because you don’t want to leave the tracks at night

9/ Your kids say its time to go home but you say I want to stay longer.

10/ If you are late and someone asks your wife “do you think he is cheating on you” and your wife responds confidently “no he’s just watching trains”.

30

Or in some cases sitting on the porch watching a train go by,then it stops to make a switch,pick-up orders,change crew members,etc.,then seeing these people honk their horns for the train to move,or in some cases,getting me p-offed,by them turning in my driveway[:(!] cause they cant wait a few seconds for the train to cross,or when it does,it only is the locomotive or in some cases a few cars,then it passes,then they have to wait to turn onto the road due to many other cars that are wanting to cross the tracks,or better yet,watching cars go ONTO the tracks,when there is a sign stating, " DO NOT STOP ON THE TRACKS"[D)],and wishing a train was right there that very minute to knock some sense into these people[banghead]

31

Uncultered,unrefined people.They don’t know what gives!
Randy,I’m glad you didn’t get a ‘fat lip’ but sometimes that’s what
it takes.[:)]

32

That one is cool[8D]

I’ve been trying to talk to the city fathers,about putting a ‘caboose’ in
my back yard.[:)]

33

1/ You spend New Years by the tracks

2/ You right down reporting marks and the number of the railcar to make your own equipment registry log (I do that)

3/ You start a conversation and it ends up turning into a conversation about trains

4/ You see a pair of SD90Mac and start to grunt like Tim Allen from Home Improvement

5/ You trip over boxes of train stuff

6/ You rent a U-Haul storage unit because there is no more room in the house for you train photographs

7/ You vote for politicians base on how they act toward the rail industry

8/ You learn alot about chemistry from looking at the stenciling of tank cars

9/ It’s 50 below and you still go out for trains

10/ Engine crews contimplate a restraining order against you for stalking them when they work

11/ You go to watch a symphony orchestra and wonder if their is an engineer with the conductor

12/ When you walk you pretend you are a train and start honking at things and open and close your hands like an NS or CSX ditch lights

13/ You hurry folk into the passenger trains so other trains can go by faster and you don’t work for Amtrak or Via

14/ You don’t work for the railroad but inspect the track anyways

15/ You know where the train is going before dispatch does

16/ You make bets on which track the next train will come on

17/ You get eye strain from staring to hard at the tracks

18/ Your answer to the eye strain is look further away down the tracks

19/ You are sick as a dog and could be on your death bed and ask the nurse if she saw any trains today

20/ You pray in church for trains

34

When you try to register for your wedding at a hobby store

35

Junctionfan
Both catholic churches in Defiance are near RR tracks.God has to be a railfan.
stay safe
Joe

36

I bet you if when you die, if you ask God if your spirit can go railfanning once in awhile, he would say yes.

To continue…

1/ You order a pizza to where you are watching trains

2/ You are a lawyer and in your closing arguements you compare the facts of the case to a railfanning experience

3/ You hold a private funeral service for wrecked railcars and locomotives

4/ You start a petition for your local T.V station to do a railfanning show

5/ If you are in school, you try to do a book report on Model Railroader or Trains

6/ You keep a railfanning journal around with you as if it was the Bible

7/ You bring a weed wacker and branch cutters with you so you can take a better picture

8/ You go through railroad garbage bins to find something worth keeping

9/ When you hear the train whistle, you smile uncontrollably and get goose bumps

10/ You plan familly trips around good railfanning days

37

I know of a trains-only shop that does wedding and birthday registries

You know your a railfan if
1.)Your hiking in the woods with a group and someone yells “Its a black snake” And you look around for the coal train.
2.)You go to get an air conditioner and ask why the one on display has the name spelled wrong
3.)You get that air conditioner even though they spelled “Train” wrong, just because it can still be pronounced as such
4.)You got the air conditioner to replace a motor in yur ride-on scale Acela layout
5.)When you can hear a scanner in a MOW truck on the other side of the tracks and know exactly where the next train is at that moment through it
6.)When you want to discuss weither FEF-3s or J3Es were better units
7.)When yoiu understand what I just said

38

…when you plan your route for work to end up somewhere near the tracks…i drive truck (yea yea, i’m the “enemy”…lol)…i haul gravel, asphalt, etc. in the summer…anyway, i was in joliet today, drove over the ex-sante fe, under the UP and over the CSX line to ottawa, IL all day. didn’t see a one, just the last car of a dozen or so. i was pissed[:(!]

39

For everbody,particularly Junctionfan,Your #5 sounds like me around 1967,I had to write an essay in my junior year of school,and wrote one on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. We had to read them aloud in class,I don’t think the other kids cared,or payed
any attention. But I had fun,researching it.[:)]

40

1/ You fall asleep during the movie because it is boring but get all excited when the trains start showing up.

2/ You think a training room is a place of model railroading

3/ You only buy surround sound because of your train videos

4/ There is no such thing is too many trains to watch

5/ You panic because you can’t find your camera and you see a headlight

6/ You railfan near a hornet’s nest, get stung but decide despite the pain it was worth it

7/ A jeep cherokee sounds like an intreaging new EMD 4 axle engine

8/ You are told that you are as useful as a slug and take it as a compliment

9/ Someone says you have a B.O problem and think to yourself what do I have to do with the Baltimore and Ohio railroad

10/ Your familly checks up on you by calling the railroad instead of the police.

11/ You go through a quarter of gas to chase 1 train

12/ You consider installing a cathader in your car

13/ You are oblivious to all other things around but the train

14/ You play a recording of train sounds as relaxing therapy

15/ You correct children’s books because they author got the terminology wrong or the illustrator made the locomotive wrong.