You have to count your blessings that PTM only runs trolley pole equipped cars. What would this visitor had thought if he saw a car with a bow trolley or a pantograph? I imagine he would have surmised that particular car was set up for TV reception!

Steve Heister
Northern Ohio Railway Museum

When we ran our excursions on the Delaware Lackawanna out of Scranton in November I understand that an older gentleman walked up to the people at the Gouldsboro station after we left and asked when had passenger service to Hoboken been reinstated - he must have missed it in the paper! (I guess having an Erie E8 at the front of the train was what tipped him off.)

Person on Platform: How Many Times a day does the train go Into the [Grand] Canyon

Our Response: Only Once, too expensive to lift it back out

This thread merits its own webpage, if not a full-blown book!

Well, just to add to said book and for the one or two souls here that might not know the story already:

William Moedinger recounted that in the early days of the Strasburg RR (after acquisition of #31 but before proper enginehouse facilities), 31 would be blown down and prepped for winter storage in late fall, and Plymouth #1 substituted for the last few runs of the year (yes, they had Santa runs back then, as I recall).

According to Moedinger's account in "The Road to Paradise," some woman customer remarked, upon hearing of 31's lack of availability, that it probably would be pretty expensive to fill that big locomotive with antifreeze.

Oh they ask about the pantographs as well..

There was one fine summer day while I, off to the side, listened in rapt amazement, as a gentleman explained to his young brood of offspring about how those big metal things up on the roof were for scraping ice from the tunnel roofs. He went on to tell his spawn about how they were only used on the east coast.

What the ????

Just one of those statements that sounds so completely stupid and insane the first time you hear it, yet amazingly manages to get worse the more you think about the impossibility/impracticality of it all !

As I used to tell my then-teenaged son,, If you're going to just make stuff up, take some pride in your story-telling, make it beleiveable !!

Several years ago another member was talking to a trucking firm about moving an electric car. The man looked it over and said, "Well, first we're going to have to take those cranes off the roof."

Randall

From Dave Garcia at Orange Empire Trolley Museum.

He was under one of the LA Ry streetcars, adjusting the brakes. A visitor walked up, and asked intelligent questions. Dave explained the need and the process.

The visitor further asked how much they got paid... Dave replied "nothing, we are volunteers, this is our hobby" to which the guest replied "Man, you got a dumb hobby..."

At the NRHS convention 2006 at Dennison,OH before the days excursion left town I overheard someone ask if the (C&O)2700 is the engine pulling todays train, someone answered it is inoperable and is only on display, to which the guy replied, "yeah I though it looked a litte rough"(The excursion train,complete with diesel was setting right infront of us)

In 2004 in the cab of Ohio Central 6325, with the fireman and another railfan, shortly after the fireman shoveled some coal into the firebox, the other fan asked "Is this engine Oil fired or Coal Fired?"- He was serious too.

A few quick quotes from spectators at antique machinery shows that I've had my steam traction engine (A rare - as in one of one left - 25 HP Twentieth Century Mfg Co.) ... From a 12YO boy "Hey! There's a fire in there!" ....Old fellow: "Is this the Cannonball?" Me: "No, wrong railroad" ..."Well why can't you?" from a fellow who insisted I HAD to move my engine right then - 10 minutes after the fire was lit.....and the all time classic, some fellow explaining how a steam engine works to his pre-teen children thusly "They burn coal to make white smoke and the white smoke makes the wheels go 'round"

I cannot count the number of times I've heard people ask as they stand waiting to board, "Is this a real train?"

(Hmmm...let's see, a typical consist is an EMD SW8, 2-3 coaches cars, and/or 2 open cars, and a caboose.)

I often wonder to myself..."As appossed to what? An imaginary train?"

Bill Houston
Calera & Shelby RR
Heart of Dixie RRM

I've heard plenty of variations of the responses to the question "is that really coal?" The best stories I remember had to do with TVRM's post-NS Excursion Program decision to repaint the 4501 in it's historically correct freight markings. It was amazing how some "fans" went completely off the wall about "you can't do that!" My reply to that was "it's our locomotive and we certainly can! Just watch us!" Their emotional irrationality was an endless source of amazement and amusement. All that drama over a coat of paint!

That said, I have probably grown less sympathetic to the "fans" that attach themselves to our avocation like leeches, taking but never giving. Spending fifteen years getting down and dirty in the trenches can do that to a person. When dealing with this sort of "fan", I usually just ignore them as much as possible. Fortunately I'm not cynical to the point of actively hating "fans" yet-a certain fellow I know has a well known disdain for all railfans. Match your words with actions and you have my respect. If you don't, then I've no use for you.

This is nothing new as a concept. I don't mind the questions, but when people start telling me about things they have no idea about, it really irks me. I once got into an argument with a "know it all" on the Strasburg that the brake wheel was to steer the car into the siding. He wouldn't admit to his kid that he didn't have clue. You get this all the time in EVERY hobby when you're displaying something. It's not just limited with trains. Look at this:

People see this at shows and ask all kinds of insane questions:
Is it real? (No, it's a freaking hologram. Cool, ain't it?)
Does it drive? (Nah, I push it everywhere!)
Do the guns shoot real bullets? (Wow, those things are BULLETS? Geepers, I thought this thing made out of cole slaw!)
Were you in WW2? (WW2 ended over 60 years ago and I'm only 38 years old. Amazing, I can't even see your lobotomy scar...)
The stupid questions I can handle. Most questions are just not well thought out. What I have problems with are the guys who try to tell you things when they clearly have no idea what they're talking about. The one that boils any Jeep owner's blood is the "$50.00 Jeep in a crate" story. It's always some Uncle's, cousin's, college roomate's ex-wife heard of someone who'd bought a WW2 Jeep unissued, new in a crate. Never happened, people. It's gets OLD after a while, as very rarely a show goes by without hearing the story. Stuff like that. You just get tired of it after a while.
Then there's the folks who demand that the universe reflect their whims, no matter how odd they may be. I've had people demand I get out of their way when they want to put their kids in the driver's seat of my Jeep, even going so far as to remove the "please keep off" signs I have all over the place! I even had a guy once try to physically push me out of the way because he wanted to take photos of my Jeep. I was dressed as a WW2 soldier at the time and was armed to the teeth (no bullets in my firearms, but I did have a few knives on me). I turned, gave my best Clint Eastwood impression, saying, "Look, this is my Jeep, I'll stand wherever the &*$% I want to and if you touch me again, I swear you'll never be THAT sorry, ever again." Yeah, don't mess with someone wearing wool in 90 degree heat who's been outdoors for two days with very little water and no shade. But there will always be the person who decides that everyone must bend to their wants. I'm sure they're the ones that didn't get spanked much as children! Case in point: That describes a lot of hobbyists. Think of every time you've wanted to take a good photo of a steam locomotive, how there is ALWAYS the guy standing about 5 inches away from the rods, just staring at them at length, contemplating something probably other than RR history. At least the "soccer mom" types who have to have their oblivious 5 year old's photo in front of the pilot don't stand there for very long.
I like what a railfan buddy of mine also into Star Trek once told me when asked why he never goes to the 'Trekkie' conventions; "My problem is that I can't stand at least 90% of the people into the same things I am into."

Thanks for all the great anecdotes, folks!

On a recent trip we had a gentleman who "knew somebody" arrange to ride along in the cab. I was handfiring the 1293 during the run, and anyone who's ever worked in the all-weather cabs can attest that there's not a whole lot of standing around room.

This gentleman (again, the starry-eyed rivet counter type who yelled and screamed about the non-prototypical paint scheme but has never needle-scaled in his life) proceeded to talk engineer Tim's ear off (read: interrogate) while we went along, and everytime I got up on the left hand seatbox for a minute or two he'd move and stand behind the firebox doors. When I'd get down to throw a few more scoops, he didn't get the hint. I'd kindly ask him to move, he'd look at me as if I just committed a hate crime, and then he'd sulk back to behind the engineer's seat. We played this game for about two hours before he finally started taking the hint. Upon arriving at our destination, he explained to me I should've been using the engine's stoker so that I didn't have to keep interrupting him. Furthermore, my firing stance wasn't "the way the C&O did it." Ouch.

I was at the Ohio railroad history symposium at Dennison in '98. The last event of the weekend was an excursion with #1293 to Gould Tunnel. I think this may have been one of, if not the first time 1293 had run that way, so there were plenty of chasers on hand. The Pacific arrived about 40 minutes early from Morgan Run, so I joined a line of fans in good light taking roster shots of it.

Well, Jerry J. shows up with one of his adopted sons, who was about 3 or 4 at the time, and proceeds to start walking around the engine showing him the various parts of it. I started to hear some of the photographers grumble about the "idiot with the kid in their shot", and right before they were about to make total a$$es of themselves, I clued them in that it was the owner of the railroad who was in their shot. Instantly, it became a photo op in and of itself. I walked down to the engine myself, and quietly took a photo of Jerry with his son in arm and gave him a copy several months later.