www.railfan.com/departures


www.railfan.com FOUNDING PUBLISHER


HAROLD H. CARSTENS (1925-2009)


PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER HENRY R. CARSTENS


VICE PRESIDENT JOHN A. EARLEY EDITOR


E. STEVEN BARRY


ASSOCIATE EDITORS WALTER C. LANKENAU OTTO M. VONDRAK


CONTRIBUTING EDITOR JAMES D. PORTERFIELD


COLUMNISTS


ALEXANDER B. CRAGHEAD THOMAS KELCEC GREG MONROE GEORGE M. SMERK WES VERNON


SOME PEOPLE GOT STARTED IN THIS HOBBY BY SHARING IT WITH A FAMILY MEMBER. ©LIONEL TRAINS CORP. When Did it Begin?


ODDS ARE, IF YOU LIKE TRAINS, and anybody else knows it, you are often asked that one- word question of


all questions: Why? It


seems such a simple question, yet I find it is the hardest one to answer. In some ways, I suspect that the reason it may be so difficult is also the heart of why any of us still care about railroads. In some way we are all per- plexed by our own interests, and this keeps us digging to learn more, see more, do more. For some lucky few, there are fairly intel- ligible causes that can be described with ease. If your sibling, cousin, parent, uncle (or aunt!), or grandparent worked for the railroad, it follows that you may also have an interest. The family connection, in fact, is one of the best ways to satisfy the idle cu- riosity of non-railfans. You are instantly un- derstandable. It is as if you have an inheri- tance, or at worst an incurable condition in the blood. You couldn’t help it. At its most positive, it’s a kind of honoring of your her- itage. Kudos. Then there’s the childhood experience re- sponse. This is usually that you were, say, sitting in a car when very small, stopped at a grade crossing, and the train went by, and it was huge, and it was loud, and the engi- neer leaned out the window and waved at you. Maybe it was a train trip taken when you were young, perhaps across the country, perhaps across town. Did you look forward to those trips and not know why? You were probably bitten by the bug early, my friend. Sometimes to explain that your fascination with trains goes back to such tender ages can, however, come with the assumption that somehow you never grew up. Of course, only you can decide if you wish to fully admit to your juvenile ways.


Off the record, however, I can confirm


that after talking with more railfans than I can count – from casual fans to those who work as photographers, artists, writers, sometimes even on the railways themselves – childhood memories of trains is probably the single most common experience we have


4 SEPTEMBER 2013 • RAILFAN.COM in


this hobby. So if you have kids, be warned; the railfan trips you take them along on may scar them for life. And this, of course, brings us to what


might be the last big reason: your parent is a railfan, too. Oh, you poor soul. Just imag- ine what your childhood must have been like, just imagine what your mother must have thought! One railfan described to me an experience as a toddler, when his father, camera in one hand, reached down with his other hand and grabbed him by the sus- penders, and then made a mad dash across a (thankfully empty) four lane expressway. Why? To get a shot of some rare diesel, nat- urally. After all, you could hardly leave a three-year-old alone in the Vista Cruiser while you ran for a shot, could you? My father is not particularly a railfan, but I can definitely answer yes to those first two categories. I grew up hearing stories about my uncle Arthur (in fact my great-great- granduncle) who worked an entire lifetime at Portland Traction, and his son-in-law and my great-grandfather John who worked in the PTC’s shops painting cars, among other tasks. And I recently discovered that anoth- er great grandfather and his brother worked as a brakeman and a hostler, respectively, out of San Bernardino on the Santa Fe. And like many a westerner, my earliest memo- ries are of dusky, dirty, grimy Southern Pa- cific SD9 diesels grinding their way through my hometown rails while I was an impres- sionable youth. No doubt all of these com- bined in some magic way to shape my cur- rent interests in railroading.


So how did you get started? What are your


earliest railroad memories? Send me a note, and I’ll share some of these stories in a fu- ture column.


Alexander B. Craghead is a writer, photog- rapher,


watercolorist, and self-described “transportation geek” from Portland, Ore. You can reach out to Alex on our web site at www.railfan.com/departures.


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