I have that emblazened onto Kodachrome someplace.

No, not really. You do not see a line of fans at any trip or tourist railroad wearing safety vests, but you did see them wearing classic hogger caps way back in the day.

Reading Company gave riders on two seasons of Iron Horse Rambles souvenir Lee pinstripe engineer's caps with the RDG diamond on the front. DPM had one and wore it on trips.

Lee manufactured them in Reading at the time; today, Lee does not market engineers' caps but Kromer does.

As to high-visibility attire, there was a trolley trip in Philadelphia before the pandemic where hi-vis vests were required. You were in the city streets so it made sense.

Phil Mulligan

I haven't seen "a line of fans at any trip" in 20 years............ not like they ever do runbys or the like any more.....

Never said photo line.
When people are looking to board a train or get tickets, they stand in lines.
Maybe you're so exalted it doesn't happen to you anymore but the rest of us would stand in a line of others for both.

Analysis still stands.

I haven't stood in a line for tickets, or been around lines of people for boarding, where there SHOULD have been enough "railfans" to WEAR hats.

Strasburg, Grand Canyon, Verde Canyon, Reading & Northern, EBT W&W, WW&F, IRM, National Museum of Transport, Arizona Railway Museum, Stewartstown, Steamtown, Walkersville Southern, you name it--they aren't making money on "railfans."

Even the specific "railfan" events I've been to, the only "railroad hats" I saw were on "re-enactor" crew members in period attire.

Hmmmmm. What about photo lines chasing N&W 611 revived?............. didn't go to the Strasburg events.......

I tried to find the scan, but I guess I don't have it on file. Anyway, if you watch this to about the halfway point, Jim shows up taking his group photo at the Lynchburg trestle in 1982 on the inaugural weekend for 611. Notice by the early 1980s fan attire was very casual and any railroad-oriented hats were for specific locos or railroads (oh, and not a video camera in sight).

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3y1qpW1c_E

The truth is that the "serious" steam lovers fraternity grows smaller every day as the VAST majority of its members are now in the elderly age bracket and like WW 11 vets we lose some daily.

When we ran the 614 excursions on NJT ( 1996-98) I rarely saw a " properly" dressed foamer on the photo line for the multiple runbys and that's photo lines that numbered in the 200-400 people range. Out of our 1200 coach patrons and 150 1st. class guests if there were 2 fully decked out fans it was a lot.

Back in the HICO days ( 1966-1973) a photo line of 200 would have been heavily populated by foamers wearing blue jean jackets filled with sewn on cloth patches representing dozens of railroads logos, a large red bandanna properly affixed so that it protected from cinders going down ones front and of course a pin striped engineers cap with their home roads logo, plus at least 2 high quality cameras.

One of the then regular attendees was a gent we nicknamed " Lenny Lump-Lump" as he was afflicted with large moles all over his face who always had his assistant " the Mole" with him to carry his extra cameras, tripods etc.

Another memorable regular was " Batman" who also came with a faithful assistant who of course we called " Robin". Batman shot 16 mm movies and came with a professional 16 mm camera and all the support equipment to go with it. He and Robin always bought 4 1st. class seats as soon as tickets went on sale. The extra 2 seats were for his camera and support equipment as he would not allow them out of either his or Robins sight. Only one of them could go to the restroom at a time.

On the Port Jervis trips we carried an Autistic man who was brought to the train by his dad ( a MD ) and he always brought his toy Dolphin with him as the Dolphin was his best friend. He rode all 24 trips ( in 1st. class) and was very well behaved never bothering anyone. His dad told me that he was legally deaf and the 614's whistle was one of the very few sounds he could hear, and it brought him great joy.

Lots of memories. Ross Rowland

My deceased railfan friend and I went on several special excursions together (including a Port Jervis trip). He always wore his "full foamer" hat and vest for those events.