Ross Nizlek, age 20
Burlington, Vt.
I am a 27-year-old railfan and have been fascinated by all things trains-related since I was quite young. You might say that I never lost the interest in trains that many boys have.
Jeff Kolb, age 27
Redwood City, Calif.
I grew up just a little over a block from four sets of railroad tracks (two belong to CSX and two belong to NS) and just a short distance from the Union Station in Marion, Ohio. I would stand in my front yard and watch the trains pass or go down to the tracks and watch them up close. I remember as a kid that sometimes a steam engine with passenger cars would pass by in the summer, and I always tried to listen for that unique whistle. I also grew up hearing stories about my relatives who worked for the Erie Railroad. My great-great grandfather moved to Marion in order to keep his job as an engineer on the Erie railroad. My great-grandfather was a brakeman for the Erie. I learned to love riding the rails when I took Amtrak to Philmont Scout Ranch in Raton, N.M. It gave me a different perspective and appreciation for railroading.
Adam Willauer, age 27
Marion, Ohio
I owe my love of trains partially to my mother, Ann Williams, who took me zigzagging across the country many times throughout the years. However, I believe that a love for train travel is something I was born with. With my mother I have traveled the length of the Cardinal, California Zephyr, Southwest Chief, Empire Builder, and Coast Starlight. When I was 10, a trip on the Chief to Albuquerque, N.M., turned out to be an unexpected blessing. I was very shy as a child, and in the lounge and diner cars of Amtrak I learned how to become outgoing and more social. On Amtrak, it was quite alright to take ‘the long way’. What a dream it was to open my eyes at night and look out to see the lights of Cincinnati bobbing by as the sleeper car swayed and the whistle blew many cars ahead!
Bethany Barnett, age 19
Staunton, Va.
I have my wonderful father to thank for giving me the “bug” for trains. My father has 28 years of service with a major Class I railroad and is also a long time model railroader himself. I am lucky to be old enough to have seen the Norfolk Southern steam excursions in the ’80s and ’90s, but I am still just as passionate about the modern day operations I still witness today.
Keith Kaiser, age 27
Buda, Texas
My fascination with trains was always there. I can remember thinking of it as a great privilege, when my parents stopped at a railroad crossing as a train rumbled by. In 1988, I was 10 years old and the railroad was the Southern Pacific. The greatest railroad event in my life happened to me around April of that year: The “Blitz Local” complete with an old, friendly conductor: Rufus Thomas.
They dropped the caboose onto a separate spur and that’s where I got a chance to talk to a real life conductor, Mr. Thomas. He noticed me and my friends staking out the tracks and invited us to take a quick tour of the inner workings of the caboose as he spewed out a condensed story of the SP. I absorbed every word, yet at the same time I was in such awe that I barely heard a word.
I think I floated home that day. I had officially ridden the rails (and in the process, Mr. Thomas probably violated a dozen safety, policy and procedure rules). But I didn’t care. I was a conductor in training and I had my group of friends who could back up my story should someone accuse me of telling tall tales at school.
Last summer, I decided to enter our local fair’s photo contest for the first time. I had to go out and take some photos of trains in action and any railroad related subject, so I decided to visit my old stomping grounds: The West switch at Lancaster.Times had surely changed since 1988. Roads that dead-ended back then had transformed into gigantic overpasses.
Then I noticed something on a sign I had never seen before. One of the switches, now probably unused for years had some markings. Not the modern graffiti most common to the railroad. This was different. On the sign was a name and various dates, each mark a little weathered than the other: Rufus 1967, Rufus 1970, Rufus 1978. Rufus Thomas, conductor and crew member of the Blitz Local had carved his name into that sign on several occasions spanning several years. This I needed to document.
I was losing light but tried to snap a few pictures of his evidence from almost 30 years before. With the flash and my amateur hand, I managed to catch just a glare and not the intended markings. I decided to head back in a few days when I had the light and a day off from work.
A few days later I returned to the old look out post and much to my disappointment discovered the sign at the switch has been vandalized by some careless youngster with a can of Krylon. I was three days too late. Whomever it was, painted over the history of the conductor, one Rufus Thomas, and with it, stole some of my history as well.
Eric Patton, age 29
Lancaster, Calif.
It all started back when my dad was young. My grandfather wasn’t that into trains. One day while he and my dad were passing through Clinton, Conn., my grandfather stopped by the tracks to show my dad the trains (this was the old New Haven Railroad at the time). After the first train thundered by, my dad was hooked. It was as he said a blast of all five senses at once. You can smell the ties on a hot day and the exhaust from the later model EMD engines. You can hear the dynamic brakes and the squealing flanges from the trains going down grade. You can see the long 5000-foot, 25,000-ton snake of iron and steel moving simultaneously in one motion. You can feel the ground shake as this huge behemoth rushes by and only taste a small portion of what railfanning has to offer.
As my dad was once brought trackside, I was too. Now I plan train trips and find excuses to go trackside for awhile, always reading Trains magazine and deciphering scanner transmissions. I am interested in trains for the same reasons as my dad was. Yet you have to admit, there is something interesting about two people moving millions of dollars worth of merchandise, or a whole economy resting on the shoulders of one business. It is an impressive thing to wonder about.
Nathan Harris, age 14
Glastonbury, Conn.
My interest in railroading was held constant by the daily Conrail local that passed the playground at my pre-school in Maryland. In fact, my primary and secondary schools were also located within sight and sound of the tracks, and I would often escape from class with the bathroom as my stated destination and somewhere I could see the tracks as the actual.
It was in fifth or sixth grade that I fired off a letter to the good folks at Conrail telling them how much I enjoyed their trains and how I rode my bike to see them every day. Six Penn Center Plaza responded in a big way, sending me an enormous shipping envelope full of Conrail pictures, memorabilia, Stanley Crane’s Rise From the Wreckage, employee catalogs, marketing presentations, company magazines and even a locomotive roster book to which I took to memorizing. It was also around that time that I stumbled into Trains magazine and a few other railfan publications for sale on a local magazine rack. I read everything on which I could get my hands, cover to cover.
It was during Railfest ’95 that I convinced my ridiculously-accommodating parents to drive six hours from our house to spend a weekend in a Conrail fan’s heaven, or as the rest of the world knows it, Altoona, Pa. Thanks to Conrail and the railroad ‘media’, I was officially a railfan, not just a kid who liked trains.
Shortly after, I received a radio scanner for my birthday. There were now voices to the machines, men behind the movement, and little did I know that the personification of these powerful metal beasts would change my life forever. Recognizing me from the same spot to which I had always ridden my bike, it was on an election day off of school, when I was summoned into the cab of a Conrail GP38, that began a great transformation. The next night I was sitting in the house, aware that the local was coming south and without a ride, when the scanner came to life with, “I don’t see you Scott, where are you tonight, Scott?” In shock as to what had occurred, I ran upstairs and told my mother, who quickly ended her long-distance phone call to wheel me down to the next town just in time to run to the tracks waving my lantern as a GP38-2/SD40-2 pair rocked a 60-car train down the stick rail at the 25 mph track speed that then seemed to me like 100. The engineer gave a huge wave, the conductor ran to the window shining his lantern in return and the radio again came to life with, “We won’t be back tonight, Scott, but we’ll see you tomorrow.”
I became accepted by all of the guys, welcome in any office, any cab, any yard, even on the phone calling to ask what time certain trains were called. When excursion trains came in, I was not only welcomed by the freight crew doing the piloting, but walked around with the local trainmasters and road foreman and was introduced to the Amtrak management on board as if I truly belonged there.
Scott Harris, age 23
Salisbury, Md.
I am old enough to remember cabooses running down the former Baltimore &Ohio/Chessie line between Deshler and Toledo, Ohio, near my grandparents until about the mid to late ’80s. I can still remember the day Dad broke the news to me that Conrail had stopped using cabooses through my hometown of Bowling Green, Ohio, while sitting in the local Dairy Queen next to the tracks.
It was dad stopping and waiting at those B&O tracks on the way to and from grandma and grandpa’s when ever my brothers or I saw a headlight in the distance. Listening to grandma and grandpa tell stories about steam trains racing by and riding on long-departed passenger trains ‘back in the day’. Finally dad taking us to DQ to get some ice cream, a cheeseburger, and catch a train. The final piece for me was the employees – nameless men and women on those trains. The gesture of a simple wave back or an extra ‘toot’ on the horn as the train went screaming by cemented a lasting love for trains.
Bryan Christy, age 31
Bowling Green, Ohio
My son was 31 in May, but still I think his story is worth telling. He is the offspring of two lifelong railfans, grandson of a mechanic on the Pennsylvania Railroad and great-grandson of an engineer who worked out of Altoona, Pa. He was baptized with cinders from the Freedom Train in Morrisville, Pa., and took his first steps at the Horseshoe Curve in Altoona at the age of 14 months. Afraid that the noise of the train pounding up grade would frighten someone not used to it, I stayed back by the stairs. My little guy would have none of that, and, abandoning me, he ran, not walked, to join his dad at the fence to wave at the train. Our annual vacations were planned with trains in mind, and the college search started with a map of the PRR middle division – Conrail by then.
Claire Crowning Sheild Ashcroft, mother of Tristan Ashcroft, age 31
Glasgow, Pa.
The HO train set my grandparents gave me when I was 2 years old or seeing trains as I traveled around town probably piqued my interest. What really got me interested in trains was when we moved into our new house and my parents promised that I could build a layout in the basement. The 4-foot by 8-foot layout has turned into a 10-foot by 20-foot layout based on a prototype railroad. Model railroading and railfanning are my favorite hobbies.
I love it all, the people, the locomotives, the freight cars and the many other aspects of it. In my railfanning adventures, I have met many great people. I’ve made friends that will last a lifetime – everyone from railroad engineers to everyday railfans. I’ve met them all.
Andrew Kersting, age 18
Rockford, Mich.
I’m soon to be 30 years old in September, and believe my interest in trains started back when my dad was an engineer on the Rock Island. He’s told me countless times that when I was 2-years-old, I helped him work the lead switch job out of Peoria one morning. Also, numerous times he took me to Chillicothe to watch the crew changes on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe main line. Whatever it was, I believe my love for trains has grown due to the time I spent with my father.
Andrew Seaton, age 29
Pekin, Ill.
Other than the love of my life, Jennifer, I have always loved three things: trains, police and the St. Louis Cardinals. As a 22-year-old sworn and certified police officer, I can say that I do not live near tracks, have no railroaders in my family and never rode a train (save for Metro in DC and the subway in NYC) until I was an adult.
Trains, especially diesels, fascinate me. One of the reasons I took the position with the police department I work for is that Norfolk Southern (former Rock Island) tracks form the northern border of the jurisdiction.
Andrew Soll, age 22
Olivette, Mo.
My dad used to work in the railyards checking trailers, and he’d bring me to work when I was a little tike. I’d stay in the truck, and look at warbonnets and trailers being lifted onto trains, and I was mesmerized. When I was 3, he bought me a disposable camera, and that was my first time railfanning. I still have those pictures today.
Sam Beck, age 16
Hammond, In.
To see more replies, check out our October 2007 issue of Trains Magazine! It hits newsstands on September 11, 2007.
