ANTI"BUFF"? WHY?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Wichita
.Today,I satisfy my fix by riding in trailing units and on the porch of a grain hoppers.

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH! Wichita, PLEASE, please. Don't ride hopper portches. I don't know who'd be letting you ride trailing units; on my road, I could be fired for allowing nonemployees on my engine...any one of my engines. On my road, we're not allowed to ride the end of ANY car except a ballast car with railinged porches. If an old brakesman could fall off, so could a hobbyist. Sudden, violent slack could send you sailing. Have you ever been stopped by the RR police and had your name taken? THAT might be why they didn't want to hire you.

[edblysard]

Man,
Lots of different responses.
And witchita, Skeets is trying to save your life.
I work in yard service, I switch and kick cars all day. A lot of my job requires me to ride the side of car. Catch the word side?
If your on the porch of any car, you have broken the plane of the car body, and are in the dead zone. We call it that on purpose. If anything goes wrong, and your in there, your dead. This stuff does not give you a second chance.
I shove 100+ cars around all day, without air in the brakes, if you dont know its coming, the slack can snap you off the train just as easy as you flick a skeeter off your arm.
And if I catch you in or on my train, I dont play, I call the cops. Not because I dont like fans, but because your putting yourself and my crew in danger. What happens when you catch your shoe lace in the cut lever while your climbing up the ladder, and unknowingly uncouple the cars ahead of you? Guess who is riding the point of 50 lose cars, and when I tell my engineer to ease up, guess what happens? I get to try to stop 50 loaded railcars with nothing but handbrakes. Even at 10mph, it isnt fun, or funny.
Think thats stupid, or made up? It isnt, it happened to me the first year was railroading. Scared me half to death, could have killed someone.
Now, if you want to take my picture, or shoot some of my train, I dont mind, just do it from public property.
As for the dislike and distain shown fans, well, let you in on a not to well kept secret. Most railroaders are fans, they just will not admit it. Not because they are embarassed, but because most management above trainmasters didnt come from the ranks, but were hired from outside the culture, and like someone mentioned, they feel a fan cant or wont take the job seriously.
Where I work, we have a yardmaster who not only is a fan, but a modeler, like myself, he forgot to mention this on his application. But now that we are here, and have shown the brass we do take our job seriously, they dont bug us.
Heck, they even allowed me to shoot photos of the windmill train for UP when we unloaded it off the ship, and onto the TTX flats.
Most of us dont mind fans, we just dont like the rabid ones, who do steal anything not bolted down, and some things that are. Had one try to steal the old SP sign off a steel girder bridge. He just didnt notice the bridge was less than 100 feet from our police dept offices. Dedicated, but dumb.
The do steal switches, the old harp stand style goes really quick.
And nothing chaps me more that a fan who steps out in the middle of my track, while I am shoving around to the yard, to snap a photo, never realizing he has his back to a oncoming train coming around the curve on the other track.
Which leaves me little choice, stop, and leave him a way out when he realizes the position hes in, or keep going, and hope he gets a little snap as to where he is, and how much danger he is in, and moves before its to late.
It not so much that we dont like fans, heck, most of the older fans here got cab rides when they were kids, but attitudes have changed, on both side of the track. Where once fans respected the trains, and the danger they represented, and were cautious, now days, they exhibit the same numb attitude people do in parking lots. They just walk out of the store, in front of moving traffic, and expect you to stop.
Most of the hardcore fans here wouldnt steal anything from the railroad, after all, its "their" railroad too. And if they did find something, such as a switch lantren, it became a artifact for their collection. Now days, the new fans dont mind prying off a builders plate, heck, the last time our cops caught some one stealing one of the last harpstands we had out here, he wasnt worried that his actions could cause a derailment, or kill someone. He was more upset that the welder he was stealing the stand for had already paid him for it, and now would want his money back. The welder? He was making mailbox stands out of them, and selling them as "real" railroad stuff.
Go to E-Bay, and type in railroad. Hope you got a lot of time to look, you can buy just about anything now, most of it stolen.
Railroad products are no longer collectiable artifacts, they have become a sellable commodity, with the seller going to just about any length to get his product.
With all that, is it any wonder that when we see someone on property that isnt one of us, we get suspicious?
Now, with all that said, do this.
Count the number of railroaders here on this site.
I have at least three engineers posting in the last six hours, and at least five conductors, not counting me, three of them from Canada, two of them women,in the same time.
At least four retired railroaders in the last 4 hours, three of them on this subject thread alone.
So if we really didnt like trains, or fans for that matter, what are we doing here?
Stay Frosty,
Ed

[sooblue]

I applied for a RR job building bridges for the BN back in the mid 70s
If I had gone in there and said "I hate the RRs, the last thing I want is to work for them.
You'll never catch me LOOKIN because I detest anything connected with the RRs"
I might have gotten that job. Nuts, now I'm too old.
Sooblue

[ironhorseman]

From reading Trains Magazine I've gathered a little understanding of the attitudes of railroaders. I read those stories of experiences people have sent in and it generally seems the "bosses" sometimes have ego problems and also like to make the workers miserable which, in turn, the workers like to get back at them by telling them off or pulling a prank at least once in their career. A passenger train worker lets his supervisor oversleep then wakes him up as the train pulls out. He knows he'll be in trouble when the super. gets back, but it was worth. Another story is about a woman who worked in the yards and had a nice supervisor everyone liked until he retired and an ego-maniac took his place and everyone's life was miserable again. (It's late and I'm not gonna go dig the article out right now.)

There are many such stories and railroading is a tough business and I can see now why some railroaders are grumpy. You can't say that this business attracts such personality types because every job has these natually (for lack of a better word) "anal" people.

If you were to make a list of romantic jobs you'd begin to list dangererous ones. Firefighter. Test pilot. Railroader. That's what's so captivating about railroads. A little bit frightening, but at the same time captivating.

For someone can't understand what's so facinating about railroads, and why there are "buffs," just go look at any construction site to see how many guys stand around staring at those machines moving earth and erecting steel beams and stone blocks. Or go to an airshow sometime and see how many people came just to look at airplanes. Trains are just as mesmerizing. Big heavy machines moving tons of freight across thousands of miles.

A RaiFan's Perspective
by ironhorseman

Trains command a certain awe and respect. A diesel engine is not like asteam engine, but is a species in it's own right. A diesel engine has a deep, grumbling roar in its belly. It's unmistakable scent of diesel fuel breezes along the right of way as the engine glides down the road of steel, displaying its colorful coat of reds, silvers, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and even the occasional intimadating black. It's call is even more deafening than its roar. Green and amber and red block signal lights reflect themselves off the rail miles into the distance in the twilight after at the end of a long, hot summer's day, standing vigil for that next train. Down by the lonely depot I wait for the parade of engines and containers that will pass shortly which came from far off lands in the east I've never been destined for places across a vast ocean I've never seen. The aroma of creosent oil, the brilliant display of freight, and the ear popping sound of speeding freight cars whizzing by is hypnotising and entertaining at the same time. This is free entertainment. It's exciting to see something moving through a town where not much moves at all. And to marvel that something that was once in China makes a regular pass through this small town.

Thank you railroaders for keeping the trains moving and shipping the products around the continent in order to make our lives more comfortable.

[edblysard]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ironhorseman

From reading Trains Magazine I've gathered a little understanding of the attitudes of railroaders. I read those stories of experiences people have sent in and it generally seems the "bosses" sometimes have ego problems and also like to make the workers miserable which, in turn, the workers like to get back at them by telling them off or pulling a prank at least once in their career. A passenger train worker lets his supervisor oversleep then wakes him up as the train pulls out. He knows he'll be in trouble when the super. gets back, but it was worth. Another story is about a woman who worked in the yards and had a nice supervisor everyone liked until he retired and an ego-maniac took his place and everyone's life was miserable again. (It's late and I'm not gonna go dig the article out right now.)

There are many such stories and railroading is a tough business and I can see now why some railroaders are grumpy. You can't say that this business attracts such personality types because every job has these natually (for lack of a better word) "anal" people.

If you were to make a list of romantic jobs you'd begin to list dangererous ones. Firefighter. Test pilot. Railroader. That's what's so captivating about railroads. A little bit frightening, but at the same time captivating.

For someone can't understand what's so facinating about railroads, and why there are "buffs," just go look at any construction site to see how many guys stand around staring at those machines moving earth and erecting steel beams and stone blocks. Or go to an airshow sometime and see how many people came just to look at airplanes. Trains are just as mesmerizing. Big heavy machines moving tons of freight across thousands of miles.

A RaiFan's Perspective
by ironhorseman

Trains command a certain awe and respect. A diesel engine is not like asteam engine, but is a species in it's own right. A diesel engine has a deep, grumbling roar in its belly. It's unmistakable scent of diesel fuel breezes along the right of way as the engine glides down the road of steel, displaying its colorful coat of reds, silvers, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and even the occasional intimadating black. It's call is even more deafening than its roar. Green and amber and red block signal lights reflect themselves off the rail miles into the distance in the twilight after at the end of a long, hot summer's day, standing vigil for that next train. Down by the lonely depot I wait for the parade of engines and containers that will pass shortly which came from far off lands in the east I've never been destined for places across a vast ocean I've never seen. The aroma of creosent oil, the brilliant display of freight, and the ear popping sound of speeding freight cars whizzing by is hypnotising and entertaining at the same time. This is free entertainment. It's exciting to see something moving through a town where not much moves at all. And to marvel that something that was once in China makes a regular pass through this small town.

Thank you railroaders for keeping the trains moving and shipping the products around the continent in order to make our lives more comfortable.

Your refrence to the smell of cresote triggered a lot of memories. I cant help it, but every time I get a whiff of it, my mind runs off to the old navy docks in San Deigo, and all the railroad tracks I have wandered along. Both lead to far away places, full of promises kept, and promises to come, dangerous and delightful at the same time. All of that just from the smell of cresote. Oh well, I am a pretty cheap date.[:D]

[JoeKoh]

take pictures leave footprints.
stay safe
joe

[BentnoseWillie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by JoeKoh

take pictures leave footprints.
stay safe
joe

I'll amend that:

Take pictures
Leave footprints
Bring coffee

Haven't been turned away yet [:)]

[JoeKoh]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BentnoseWillie

QUOTE: Originally posted by JoeKoh

take pictures leave footprints.
stay safe
joe

I'll amend that:

Take pictures
Leave footprints
Bring coffee

Haven't been turned away yet [:)]

[:D]I've taken pictures of old ge engines on a ballast train smoking out the misquitoes[8D]
stay safe
joe

[Anonymous]

I got lucky, saw an ad in the local newspaper, filled out an app.. Got an interview about 3 weeks later. 1 1/2 hour later i had the job and started about a month later

[Yampa2003]

Try coming over to Europe and getting a job on the railroad. Railfans are a lot more welcome. I reckon in the Operations department of one British company that more 50% are railfans of one kind or another. The only hindrance is if you apply for a Management Trainee post, then its a no-go. But some of them don't last long, soon get disillusioned with working all hours of the day or night.

[Anonymous]

Too bad we railfanshave such a bad reputation. It does seem like some of us deserve it. But others , like me, if I do say so myself, are not harmful at all. I enjoy trains, enjoy knwoing about about their passnger equipment, etc have been fascinated by trains since I was 3. But I do not bohter anything (I am not of a mechanical bent, that probably helps that). The most "dangerousu" thing I ever do is take pictures.


When I was very young, (I am 58) when a train stopped in the station I would meekly lie to the porters and say "I have never been on a train before...may I go inside and look around?" And they usually said "yes". Of course I would not even ask for that if the train was due to leave soon(I already knew the schedules, etc). That is abut the most dangerous thing I ever did.

[Trainnut484]

I guess growing up in a small town brings some sort of advantage to railfan there at trackside, and not told to leave by an trainman or special agent. The special agent, yard crew, and some road crew members recognized me and my old pickup truck I drove. They saw it or me and knew what I was doing there and why. Now, the city police were a different factor. They never understood what or who railfans were until a few years ago. Also, some members of the general public has never heard of railfans. Even when they live close to the tracks LOL.