Flintlock76 When your skin crawls and your blood pressure rises (Especially if you're a steam freak) when a TV reporter says "The train sounded its whistle..." referring to an accident or incident on a contemporary rail line. It's not a whistle. It's a HORN. H-O-R-N. Blasphemy!
When your skin crawls and your blood pressure rises (Especially if you're a steam freak) when a TV reporter says "The train sounded its whistle..." referring to an accident or incident on a contemporary rail line.
It's not a whistle. It's a HORN. H-O-R-N. Blasphemy!
Speaking of horns, you notice that multiple football teams (including Rutgers University) sound a train horn after big plays. RU has a three-bell horn that I can't easily identify, but Purdue uses my favorite, a Nathan M-5!
You're watching TV or a movie and you hear a train horn but its the wrong pattern for a crossing!
Regards - Steve
Or there's a train in a scene, and you're trying to figure out (or already know) what museum equipment is being used! (example - A League of Their Own)
[quote user="Fred M Cain"]
SD70Dude You are happy to get stopped at crossings.
You are happy to get stopped at crossings.
If you sit and enjoy reading all of these posts and just smile because they are all you.
In response to CShaveRR:
Wow, five trains for one crossing stop? The ultimate railfan "inconvenience"! And totally worth it.
If you are setting with the wife watching TV at home and the local freight blows the horn at one of several crossings and the wife says, listen, did you hear it, they are playing your song.
When I hired on as a boiler inspector with The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company in 1991, the logo was a 4-4-0 sans tender numbered 1866 (when the company was founded) in an oval. It drove me nuts how everyone referred to it as a "train." I had to give up telling people that it's a locomotive that's not going to get very far without a fuel supply.
Ulrich SD70Dude You are happy to get stopped at crossings. Yeah, I can relate to that one.
SD70Dude You are happy to get stopped at crossings. Yeah, I can relate to that one.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Overmod Flintlock76 Best show in town, and it was free! I couldn't count the number of times I bicycled to North Hackensack for lunch or dinner at McDonalds to get the 'honorary steam engine' experience from one or more U34CHs. Why go anywhere else with such a show right across the drive-through lane?
Flintlock76 Best show in town, and it was free!
I couldn't count the number of times I bicycled to North Hackensack for lunch or dinner at McDonalds to get the 'honorary steam engine' experience from one or more U34CHs. Why go anywhere else with such a show right across the drive-through lane?
Well, the Mickey-D's is still there, so's the Pascack Valley Line, as active as ever. The U34CHs? Well, as Lucius would say, "Gone with the snows of yesteryear."
But it's not all bad. A buddy of mine was at that same Mickey-D's earlier this year and saw the NJ Transit CNJ Heritage GP40! The downside?
"Dammit! I didn't have my camera!"
But if you want to relive those days Anchor Videos has a DVD of a head-end ride on the Pascack Valley Line, shot from the cab of a UH34CH! It was shot in 1990, but things haven't changed too much, a lot of what's seen is recognizable to guys like you and me.
I watched it about a dozen times after buying it at a trainshow the previous weekend!
www.train-video.com Look under "Railroad Video Productions.)
Flintlock76Best show in town, and it was free!
if your daughter and her boyfriend (now husband) still kid you about the time you drove into a train station depot parking lot while on vacation with them without any rhyme or reason because you knew it was the time Amtrak was due and the boyfriend was completely mystified as to why anyone would do that.
Lithonia OperatorIf when you're on a road trip, and it's time to pull over and have some lunch from your cooler, you ALWAYS find a location next to railroad tracks.
Been there, done that! When I was working and covering Richmond's West End I used to take my lunch break in a mall parking lot right next to the CSX (ex-RF&P) mainline. And I wasn't the only one doing so! I saw a fair amount of "regulars" over the years.
But not during the summer. There was no shade and summers here can be brutal!
Best show in town, and it was free! And in this age of run-through power you never knew what might come through.
You grouse about the current meal selection on an Amtrak train, prominently associating the word "Anderson" with various more or less profane terms, whether you would find it 'perfectly fine and delicious' on any other train.
You think the current meal selection on an Amtrak train is perfectly fine and delicious.
You might just be a railfan if you are very nearly involved in a head-on collision after veering left of center because you were focused on the darn train tracks running alongside the road instead of on your driving.
I am ashamed to have to admit that I did that once. Lucky for me there was no accident. The guy in the oncoming car really laid on his horn. He was not very happy with me. :)
-FMC
You might be a railfan if....
The head-end power looks light and just know there has to be mid-train power.
You hear the "squawk box" 9 miles to the west and know exactly how much time you have 'til the train rolls past your "spot."
From the time the train rolls past your spot, you know you have exactly 2.5 to 3 minutes until you hear the box to the east.
Yeah... its pretty bad!
If when you're on a road trip, and it's time to pull over and have some lunch from your cooler, you ALWAYS find a location next to railroad tracks. If necessary, even ones with full-fledged trees growing between the rails.
Paul of Covington SD70Dude You are happy to get stopped at crossings. I once got held up at a crossing for about half an hour. I waited and waited and finally gave up and crossed the tracks when nothing came by.
I once got held up at a crossing for about half an hour. I waited and waited and finally gave up and crossed the tracks when nothing came by.
Funny!
...you thought you had died and gone to heaven the first time you were invited by an engineer into the cab of his locomotive, let alone go for a ride!
CShaveRR ...your two-year-old daughter corrects a well-meaning elderly lady, "That's not a choo-choo, it's a freight!" (I only wish it had been a scoot--she knew that, too!)
...your two-year-old daughter corrects a well-meaning elderly lady, "That's not a choo-choo, it's a freight!" (I only wish it had been a scoot--she knew that, too!)
I don't remember it, but my parents have told me that I used to do this when I was a small child.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
BaltACD steve-in-kville adkrr64 When you cringe when someone in the media, when obviously referring to the engineer, instead calls them "conductor" or "driver". That's a big one with me as well. You know its bad when you watch the local ATCS monitor and you question why the dispatcher is alighning switches a certain way, that at the time doesn't make sense. Only to realize later that the dispatcher knew what they were doing after all! Thus the problem of Engineers dispatching the railroad they are operating on from behind their control stand, and they don't have the view that even ATCS has.
steve-in-kville adkrr64 When you cringe when someone in the media, when obviously referring to the engineer, instead calls them "conductor" or "driver". That's a big one with me as well. You know its bad when you watch the local ATCS monitor and you question why the dispatcher is alighning switches a certain way, that at the time doesn't make sense. Only to realize later that the dispatcher knew what they were doing after all!
adkrr64 When you cringe when someone in the media, when obviously referring to the engineer, instead calls them "conductor" or "driver".
When you cringe when someone in the media, when obviously referring to the engineer, instead calls them "conductor" or "driver".
That's a big one with me as well.
You know its bad when you watch the local ATCS monitor and you question why the dispatcher is alighning switches a certain way, that at the time doesn't make sense. Only to realize later that the dispatcher knew what they were doing after all!
Thus the problem of Engineers dispatching the railroad they are operating on from behind their control stand, and they don't have the view that even ATCS has.
You know it's a good move when the dispatcher comes on and tells you, "This wasn't my idea, but here's what we're going to do..."
Jeff
Yeah, I can relate to that one.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
tree68 Flintlock76 When your skin crawls and your blood pressure rises (Especially if you're a steam freak) when a TV reporter says "The train sounded its whistle..." referring to an accident or incident on a contemporary rail line. It's not a whistle. It's a HORN. H-O-R-N. Blasphemy! Yet we call them whistle posts, and they have a W on them...
Yet we call them whistle posts, and they have a W on them...
That's different. Remember "Fiddler On The Roof" and what Tevye says?
"Tradition!"
...you have to take your spouse with you to places like the Post Office, so you don't lose your place in line when you run out to check a passing train after announcing to the whole lobby (well, kind of), "That's not a scoot!"
BaltACDThus the problem of Engineers dispatching the railroad they are operating on from behind their control stand, and they don't have the view that even ATCS has.
Almost as bad as dispatchers trying to run trains from behind their computer screen: "I need you to give me a good move!".
"I have 30 cars, and am shoving into a 10mph restricted industrial track - that not how that works!!!"
I've been on both sides.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
When a train blowing for a crossing a mile from your house distracts you from a conversation you're in the middle of...
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
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