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Railfans vs. Foamers.
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As a railroad employee, I always lumped all of the fans into one distinct category with arbitrary layers/gradations. Like the German language, I viewed the term "railfan" as the polite form (Sie) of address when conversing with a congenial and mild-mannered fan. The term "foamer" was more derrogatory/informal (du) and reserved for those who (as mustanggt pointed out) earned a paycheck at Mickey D's and yet seemed to profess more knowledge about the inner workings of the Railroad than I did. The worst grade of fan was the "railnut", which I reserved for the select few foamers/rivet-counters who risked removing themselves from the gene pool just to get the perfect snapshot of the "Dash-9 with Four Grabirons instead of Three" or the equivalent.
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