Great video! One that type that we frequently see is the car foamer, he just sits in his car reading the newspaper and pulls up as close to the tracks as possible, but never gets out of his car. We've encountered this type all over - Jenny
I'm the local history buff railfan, more in the way of knowing what used to be where and what trains used to run. There's a lot of history to see out there if you look for it. All the way from depots to whistle posts and old rail (I found one near me rolled in 1950). It can be a good way to stay occupied between trains. I think there's two groups of good stuff, one is what you actively seek out (HUs, etc), the other being stuff that you see and think "that was nice," then forget about until you edit.
"I though everything was a GEVO at one point..." I went through a phase like that with the first locomotive I learned the name of, the General Electric U23C, it was somewhere around 2004 and 6 yo me had just learned the name of one of the most prolific locomotives in the area I lived from the first rail modelling magazine I had ever bought, so everything was a "U23C", some 3 months later I'd learn what was a SD40-2 and it all went down hill from there, so much so that now 17 years later I am the "encyclopedia" type railfan...
One I can sort of think of is the railfan who will wait an eternity for a stopped train in their line of sight to move. But I think that’s sort of all of us to an extent. I think you got most of the good examples at this point.
nice vid! tho im missing the "visitor-railfan", its basicly a railfan from another country/ far away state that either goes nuts or just always wants the best shot because he/she has never seen the equipment on the train
Pardon me indeed for being so blunt, but I do believe the "vest railfan" is one of the few that my coworkers talk about often on the job and sadly, rightfully so, part of the reason why a few of them hate railfans or "foams" as we call them.
I was just about to head off for the night but I saw the thumbnail at the last second and I just had to watch it just before 1AM. Totally worth it to catch another installation in this great series.
The same thing happened to me with GEVOs. 2 or 3 years ago when I first got into real trains, GEVOs were my favorite locomotive and I hated EMDs. Dash 9s, AC44s, everything that looked like a GEVO was a GEVO. I literally would call an ET44 a "broken ES44AC".
Great video! There are ES44s in Heritage 2 colors, running on BNSF. These are the oldest gevos on the roster (built between 2002-2005). Also we have a good mix of 4 axle EMDs running on the Thayer Subdivision, although most have been rebuilt into GP25s (this includes GP50, GP40X, and a handful GP40 car bodies), plus there's still a few GP39E (former GP30s and GP35s) that show up every once in a while too. So we still have a fairly decent selection of motive power here.
I call every modern engine that is made by GE (the dashes included) a Gevo because I don’t care and respect them enough to call them by their real name.
I am an absolute noob 😂 I cannot identify any locomotive except for an SD40-2. For the next one you should do the steam train nerd, as what I am you can pretty much name any steam locomotive and talk about it for hours but can’t make a single diesel to save his/hers life.
When I was younger, I was 100% a noob, so I live near CSX Territory, when whenever i'd see one, id called YN2 the "little bit of blue" and the YN3 "full blue" then about 2 years ago i found out what they actually are lol
Fun fact when I was a noob. A while ago I couldn’t remember unit names so if they had 4 wheel trucks I called them babies. I remember more but throughout my group they still call them babies because it was just something that stuck 😅 I have many other hobbies I put time into so I still don’t know them all
I am guilty of all of these: Forgetting gear (forgot my battery which made the car drive a whole hour longer) False identifying locomotives (i still can’t identify standard cabs besides a few emds)
"I thought everything that wasn't an EMD was a GEVO." lmao same. I have a railfanning friend (shoutout to him even though he probably doesn't know my channel) so he got me into trains. I learned anything that says ES is a GEVO, not every single GE one. I thought GEVO was just another way of saying a GE Locomotive. (it's not) I also named almost every single GE locomotive an AC4400C6M and every EMD an SD40-2. After a brief episode of Train Talk, I manage to identify them to some extent. Still can't identify GPs or some SDs so yay 🎉
I wouldn't really consider myself to be a museum railfan, while I do prefer steam engines over diesel and electric engines, if I see a diesel I like then I just take put my phone and take a picture of it. I only take photos of the engines, I don’t record videos of the entire train.
2:52 would be “always caught off guard” i used this guy because i used to live literally a 5 minute walk from the tracks and the closest signal and my scanner gets the DD aswell so id wrangle up all my gear in a hurry to get out there but always missed the leaders by 30 seconds
Another great video, I wear a saftey vest because I'm out at night sometimes where there's no light at all,for my personal saftey,I don't trespass unless I'm unaware of private property
Well despite the fact you didn't get close enough to the crossing I still thought it was a great show that train coming through and I'm guilty on some of the stuff you've mentioned about types of railroad fans
Oh man! I can relate to the safety vest fans so much! I really had no idea there was such a thing until this video hahaha because I encountered one in Folsom California back in September of 2020 when I was wearing *real* PPE (acronym for orange reflective gear for those who may not know) with a hardhat doing *real WORK* (directional drilling) next to an old rail line that the city and many other bureaucratic entity's told us very clearly wasn't active because believe me we DONT want to get hit by trains LoL. Soooo the first day around 1pm, out of nowhere, this Railfudd comes up in shorts and white Tshirt with a beer gut -wearing a small orange vest he must have got at Lowes telling us we need to move away from the track because of safety and all this other bullsht. He had a phone to his ear the whole time but was literally talking to no one, we were pretty sure he was just using it as a security blanket; probably wanted to look like he was talking to his supervisor or someone but most people know what a person really acts like when they're really talking to someone on a phone. It was the moment after we asked a little further from our end about his credentials that he got to the part of his fudding around where he said _"I'ma..a volunteer"_ we all just looked at each other like Oooo000HHH *F_CK* So after a mild/short confrontation he walked back to his truck that had amber lights on for some reason and said he'd be back later. *_We never saw him again in that entire year long job lmao._* This all went down at the T section next to a raillroad crossing on White Rock Rd and Placerville Road, theres a small road connected called Payen Road. I was just taking a moment standing in the shade being cast by that solar panel when he came out of nowhere with that Railfudd crap LoL! Oh man good times. 🤣
I am a safety vest railfan and the heritage hopper foamer, although the safety vest one is not true for me, I don't trespass even if I am wearing a safety vest.
I remimber when the es44ac radiator boxes used to throw me off because of how it looks 😂😂good times, love the new BN unit for your profile has alot of detail
@BNSF1458 For the next video: The type of Railfan that doesn’t cut the video until the train does an entire crossing sequence for the crossing behind him.
Back in the day when I was a total noob, I had heard of the huge BN SD40-2 fleet, but I didn’t actually know what an SD40-2 looked like. It took me forever to realize that a triclops SD60M was not an SD40-2…….
So you said this series is done of course, however what about the kind of railfan that expresses their commentary in videos with a talking/moving locomotive?
I recently got certified with personal track safety with metrolinx and there’s def a whole whack of stuff while working near the track then just a safety vest. If we are working within 30ft from the tracks (aka right of way or ROW), it’s not just safety vest but also full body hi vis clothing. Also mandatory safety steel toe boots and hard hat. A track safety foreman must also be present in some job sites to warn us if a train is coming. Also any vehicles that are also present within the ROW must have flashing amber beacon. So those who just wore a safety vest for “authority” is kinda just showing off and not actually used for safety as they claim. Tho I will understand if your parked on the road tho. The rules also differ too depending on which rail company you are working with.
i say be happy you live close to any rails. from my home i must drive 60 miles to find live rails. sure about 50 is s seldom used branch line serving one customer. a cannery.
Have you covered the crashing railfan? Basically the crashing railfan loves railroad related tragedies. And probably wish's to catch a loaded tanker truck get hit by a train one day and kill 5000 people in the area. And they will talk about trains crashes forever and ever and ever. My cousin is this type of railfan... His railroad knowledge is kinda... Well it has room for improvement. Bro he didn't know southern pacific 4449 had sisters. Btw I love railroad museums.
even tho its over i still git from other ones that one railfan that railfans all over the state. pretty much just goes every where. in the state even if its near a 2 mile long shoreline that one railfan that goes to the same spot everyday because their parnets cant take them somewhere. pretty much goes to the same spot everyday cause their parnets are tired of going to different spots. (Edit) the speed foamer only goes to spots that go 60 and more doesnt care if its 1 train a day just cares about speed
The only train that runs through here is a two engine lashup containing of two weird sd59 locomotives. Only train I’ve ever caught, only train I ever will catch, sad. Gevos are hella rare here.
Anyone who salivates over a quartet of GEVOs was clearly not even born when consists and paint schemes were actually worth photographing. I haven’t photographed anything in five years now, and the last photo was of a QJ smoking across the Iowa cornfields.i don’t miss the hobby one bit with the current junk on the rails. It was fun while it lasted. Time to let the younger generation enjoy their widecabs on everything. 😂
Possible suggestions (?) The film it down the street railfan. (Sorry boss, I just had to) The train horns/whistles on synths (OneSynth mostly) railfan. The remake trains in games railfan.
