A couple of months ago, I took — and passed, thank you very much — my rules exam at the Illinois Railway Museum. That's right, I'm now a baby brakeman learning as much as I can about railroading operations with the goal of marking up to conductor and, eventually, engineer. The path here has been logical, at least for me.As an introduction, let me address two questions I'm asked more often than some people wash their cars: Do I really like trains, and how did I get involved in this hobby? Yes, I ...