Inspired by Sandy's vision, how many of us have our own silly visitor stories?

Here is mine:

One day I was at Ardenwood working on our 1882 wooden passenger car. We had been carefully sanding through the many layers of paint above the door, where the paint had been protected by the roof overhang looking for lettering. As each layer was exposed we photographed and traced it before going on to the next layer. We were near the bottom of the many layers, tracing a wonderful set of drop shaded letters, when Mr. Railfan showed up and told us the car was never lettered “that way.â€

I've had visitors ask while in the station "does the steam engine produce its own steam?". This is as it's was just fired and some smoke was drifting from the stack, obviously not a fireless cooker. Then another guy would could not fathom that when steam was used, water lowers in the boiler so the injector has to be run. He said the boilers he works with at a school always have the same amount of water in them. I hope that guy had an automatic feedwater system. The best guy trying to look cool was when he told his wife that the water issuing from the injector overflow was the 'saturated steam'.

Everyone meets people like this and it is important to remember there is no good in making them look or feel dumb. Even when visiting a museum I often hear other visitors passing wrong information between themselves. I can't help myself but feel like I have to interject. I might have something like "yes in our lifetime it was never lettered that way, we found that it was like this sometime around......". I have had people tell me stories about how they used to run one big steam engine over the mountains out west until about 1980 when they invented a diesel that could replace it. I just tell them I did not know about that one and will look it up online.

I suppose this ties into that topic. My youth sometimes tends to get me pigeonholed, though most of the time it's more amusing than irritating. So when some folks decide that they need to "dumb things down" for me, I usually get a decent chuckle out of it. No harm done...

Case in point,

While volunteering at TrainFest'04 this summer, I was assigned to give cab tours of a couple of the different engines. Now personally I'm a big steam fan, but I can certainly appreciate a diesel as well. So when I got my assignment to give tours of one of OC's ex-Canadian American RR F40's, I was quite pleased.

Now keep in mind I was wearing my (slightly dirty) overalls, and definately looked like the other guys working that day. A gentleman wearing all kinds of railroadania walked over and struck up a conversation with me. From his first few sentences I could see he was a seasoned railroader. He seemed to certainly be enjoying himself, and was very kind. However he also decided that he needed to explain to me that the F40 we were standing in front of was a "diesel engine, not a steam engine like the ones over there..."

I smiled and listened intently, and then followed him up into the cab, sat in the engineer's seat, and explained the workings of the locomotive to him and the rest of the group he was with. The gentleman looked slightly unnerved. Afterward he apologized for not "realizing I knew what I was talking about," but I was quick to assure him there was no harm done.

Other "interesting" questions I got that weekend (though not from railfans, or so I hope):

-"Where's the steering wheel?"

-"Where does the coal get shoveled in?" (In the cab of a FM switcher)

As well as a visitor who got quite angry with me when I told him the OC used F40's in freight service.

-"What kind of historical operation is this? Amtrak never used these engines on freight trains, and it's painted wrong!"

I'm just a rookie. I'd imagine you folks that have been around the proverbial block a few times could share some pretty amusing stories. :-)

Two stories come to mind from 8 plus years as a docent at the B&O Railroad Museum.

1. My first summer there, a thirty something woman came up to me with her son as said, "My three year old has been hooked on trains since he was nine months old, and I don't know what to do about it." I replied that there was no known cure, and the best treatment for this malady was to take him to train museums and on train rides as often as her time and financial circumstances permitted. I also assured her that ten to twelve years later she would be very happy that he was hooked on trains rather than a lot of other things that teenagers get into. Somehow I do not think it was the answer that she wanted to hear.

2. Approximately a year before the roof collapsed, a young bride-to-be was walking around the roundhouse while waiting for the Catered Events manager to come down from her office. The young lady said to me, "Do they lower the trains into the basement at night for receptions?" While sturggling to keep a straight face, I explained to her that the trains were part of the atmosphere of a wedding reception in the roundhouse. I do not know whether she had her reception there or elsewhere.

I remember giving a tour in 1993 to 70 plus elementary school children. I had pulled the equipment out the door including the motor car.

During the tour, the children all got a chance to ring the bell of the steam engine and also got to blow the horn of the diesel.

I tried to explain the differences between steam and diesel to the children. While most paid attention, some were more interested in the motorcar.

I explained that the diesel locomotive uses 600volts system to operate the traction motors.

A couple of weeks later, a package came to me. It was letters from the children thanking me for the tour. What stuck out in my mind was that some of the children thanked me for showing them the "electric "steam engine that ran on 600 volts.

I still have the letters and they are a treasure for certain.

JD Johnson, Morehead and North Fork Railroad Historian

While getting ready to depart on a trip,a young man came upin the cab and demanded to know where the "smoke generator" on this "diesel" was located. I opened the firebox door and let him take a good look at it. He went away speechless.

Priceless! ROFL!

As a volunteer on the Frisco 1522, I made all the trips that I could. We went to Springfield Missouri a number of times. Springfield was the main shops for the Frisco railroad. While in Springfield, we would be open for visitors and/or on display. I had many people come up to me and say that Their Father/Grand Father/Uncle/Brother ran this engine. I am sure that some of these relative actually did run the engine. However, after a while I began to calculate just how big the cab of the engine woudl have to be to hold all of these people. I figure about 20 foot wide, and maybe 15 feet long would just about do it.

Once while the engine was undergoing the intitial restoration. A Museom of Transportation visitor walked into the work area. While looking at the Frisco 1522,he asked "Does this engine run on wood like all the other engines?" No, it will run on fuel oil. "Oh, then it is a dielsel engine."
That was the beginning of the strange persceptions. But is it really the rail fan publics fault? I learned a lot, and I had some strange ideas when I first started out. Luckily, I just didn't open my mouth and state them as fact.

A few years ago I was holding down the firemans seat as we rolled into a town and stopped. With hot water dribbling from the injector overflow, steam vapor issuing from the dynamo, lubricator heat, air pumps, etc. and a plum of gray coal smoke drifting from the stack, a fellow walked up to the cab and from the ground asked if this was steam or diesel. I was so dumbfounded at the question that I thought he had to be joking. Not sure, I replied with a question "Can you guess?" No, he had no idea. Or so he said. So I told him it is steam powered. Truth is it's coal powered, but that's another story.

One day in a railroad yard where we were laying over for the night a railroad employee walked up to me and another guy while we were doing the night hostler trick. He asked when it had been converted to diesel.
DOH!
Mark D.

While firing Southern 630 at TVRM a railfan approached the engine as we were getting ready to leave Grand Junction Station. After exchanging hellos I picked up the shovel and threw in several scoops of coal. When I had finished and turned back to the gangway the railfan ask me if this locomotive was oil fired. Stunned the only thing I could think of to say was "Did that look like oil I was shoveling into the firebox?" He shrugged his shoulders and said he wasn't sure. I assured him 630 was coal fired and gave him a piece of coal to look over.

Many years ago when Cass used to run an engine and several excursion cars to Elkins for the forrest festival I was working as a car attendant. Two good old boys were riding the car I had and watching the heisler pushing the train on the outbound trip up Tunnel Hill. One of the guys turned to the other and very seriously said "Boy that thing must have terrible rings, look at all the smoke it is making." The other fellow quite seriously agreed the rings must be terrible.

One of my favorite tricks is to ride by some model railroader types on a hand fired engine with my hand resting on the blower valve like it were the stoker feed valve. Sometimes you will see them looking under the cab for the stoker and occasionally they will ask if the engine is stoker fired. I learned this trick from a Western Maryland engineman who had used the same trick to fool B&O crews into thinking the small engine he was on had a stoker. More than fifty years later the trick still works.

John Bohon

You get this all the time in EVERY hobby when you're displaying something.
This is nothing new. 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.

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 cole slaw!)
The stupid questions I can handle. 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.

Nice jeep, p51. Like the OD trash can, too!

Hope you don't have it copyrighted, but I'd like to borrow your "hologram" line....it's too good not to use.

Thing about running diesels is, everyone's used to them, and you don' t get the "what is it--what does it run on" questions.

On our Vintage Express Wine Tasting trains, there's always some wise guy who asks where the arrow holes are--- I usually tell them we did a really good job filling them in and sanding them down.

The "Thomas" daddies can be the worst, though. We use the replica "blue guy", and you can imagine some of the things those dads ask and say-- in front of the kids, too! "You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger" are what I usually say with a BIG smile.

HP
RMNE/NAUG

Yeah, I've heard that one also.
Last summer a man in his mid fifties showed up at our Mc Ewen depot with multiple cameras and other paraphenalia just prior to the last train of the day returning, While talking with the agent and I, he asked what our locomotive burned for fuel, I told him it burned oil, He became quite angry and yelled that we were mis representing ourselves as a steam railroad since we're using a diesel! during this time the #19 had been approaching yard limits behind him, as the crew blew the station call, our guest whirled around and exclaimed "That's a steam engine ! YOU said it was a diesel!" He then happily scuttled off to shoot his photos.

Then there was the lady who showed up at the newly completed Sumpter depot as we were finishing the paint work, She looked around then said" Oh, I'm too late, they've already pulled up the tracks ". We pointed down the grade and told her that in fact the tracks had not made it to the NEW depot yet. I'm still not certain she understood..... Jerry

William Moedinger, in his perennial bestseller Strasburg souvenir booklet "The Road to Paradise", recounted the tale from 1960 or so when the former CN 0-6-0 7312 was blown down for the winter and Plymouth #1 was substituted for the fall/winter:

Some woman patron, when told the 31 was shut down for the winter, remarked that she presumed it would be prohibitively expensive to fill that big boiler with antifreeze for the winter.

Now, is there anyone here who thinks that the oft-repeated tale is a Texas-style tall tale? Or do you believe it actually happened?