Have you ever regretted becoming a railfan?

Question

I've sometimes wished that I never took a liking to trains after having to watch track after track being abandoned and ripped up. I wish that I just took them for granted like the non-railfan and been spared the knowledge of the slow decline of the railways. I should have got into NFL football or Basketball or some other pastime not in decline. Do you ever feel this way? Any comments or suggestions on staying positive about the rails?

Answer 1

Try having the RR you work on and your Dad worked on all his life ripped up. It hurts.

Railroading in the United States is very a healthy industry though.

There are line abandonments, some were totally unnecessary and done for purely financial gain and some were such low density llines that it was simply the only option.

Nostalgia for the old days is not such a bad thing, but look forward, Railroads are not a museum although sometimes it seems like it with the old equipment and dinosaurs (like me) working on them LOL.

The past is gone forever, look back, have a beer, swap a few lies bit move forward.

The future of RRing in America is bright overall.

Answer 2

I'm not a railfan.  What I do regret is that more railfans don't understand they need to stay off tracks and right of ways.  I regret that more railfans don't understand when I stop my train in a siding I am not there to answer their questions about the railroad.  I regret that so many railfans think following my train 100 miles up the road (like you're some type of freaked out stalker) is enjoyable for the crew who are only trying to make a living.  I regret that railfans have such a meaningless life that they spend holidays standing next to the track to take pictures instead of home enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with their family like I wish I was doing instead of having to work.  

Get my point?

Answer 3

I can certainly see what you mean in regards to the railroads' decline in the 1970s and the ripple effect it has had even today with lines that should still be in place as their vitality remains so (i.e., the Milwaukee Road's Pacific Extension and Baltimore & Ohio's St. Louis main line come to mind).  Having said that, this is now the past and as Derail has stated the railroads are indeed making a very strong comeback and they are now finding themselves in the unfamiliar position of having capacity shortages with so much traffic!  So, who knows, perhaps we will see lines return to service as the Class Is are, as we speak, spending millions to expand capacity along key main lines (the Norfolk Southern's Heartland Corridor and southeastern project comes to mind along with CSX's intention to triple track a key southeastern route as well).  As for me, I find it pretty exciting right now to be a railfan as there is so much happening with the industry, it is literally booming, and likely will continue for many years to come.

Answer 4

I have been a rail-fan of sorts since 1970 when I took my first train ride on the Southern Pacific Penisula Communter and watched the box-cars move in and out of the Libby-Fruit plant in my hometown of Sunnyvale.  We also visited Big-Trees & Roaring-Camp in Felton... and as I grew up we would see the coal running out of Utah and Wyoming on our family-trips to Montana.

After 14 years in the Navy (1985-1999) I returned to the Bay Area and commuted to work each day on the "new" CALTRAIN... and noticed how EVERY spur was deserted, and how little freight moves on rails thru the Penisula...

I also started riding ACE to Stockton to simplify my visits to my lil Brother up in Calaveras County... THERE I saw the endless lines of intermodal cars mixed with coal-units, sugar-tankers, lumber bulkheads, and even good old box-cars.

The rails have declined in some big cities... and have consolidated, by-passing some rail-towns... but they are STILL the back-bone of the Nation.

This led me to start and N-scale R.R at home... and I'm now an endless reader / researcher of current operations as well as historical changes.

Answer 5

I'm not a railfan, but I am a railroad conductor. You have a misunderstanding. The railroads are not declining at all. They have changed. They changed like many industries have changed. But this Country would come to a crawl without the railroads. They haul massive amounts of goods, materials, and minerals - infact more so than ever before. Our Nation's demands call for this mass tonnage to be carried across the Country now, instead of lesser tonnages going only 100 miles or less. And that's what has changed. The railroad industry is quite healthy.

Answer 6

You must be getting old like me.  I miss the excitement of  the steam locos and, to a lesser extent , the E series and F series diesels. These DASH locos do nothing for me. When I lived out west, I rode the Chama line (Mikados), the Durango & Silverton, and the oil-fired steam locos from Williams to the Grand Canyon.

Now I don't even take AMTRAK without getting a sleeper.

Snuck a ride in a boxcar once, and the train took me a couple hundred miles farther than I wanted to go---never slowed down enough to let me jump off.   Now I stay at home and make plans to set up my N guage railroad some day.

Answer 7

I work for the railroad (CP Rail System) and am a railfan (have been one since I was a kid back in the 60's and 70's).  I've never regretted being a fan though I can attest to your pain of seeing some of your fav lines ripped up - it's a hard thing to deal with.  I wonder sometimes IF the Milwaukee Road had kept the mainline from Green Island (IA.) to Council Bluffs that it might now be very attractive to the UP so that it might be able to alleviate some of the congestion on its Overland Route mainline just a few miles to the south.  However, my #1 fav mainline - the former MILW mainline from Samoa (Sabula, Iowa) to La Crescent, Minnesota is alive and quite well (thank you) after being on life support between 1979 and early 1981.  So sometimes things do work out okay.