In a message dated 1/18/04 6:39:11 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << it comes from people who spend their time standing by trainlines watching trains go past and writing down the train numbers or some other details. from what i can gather, it's popularity seems confined to the british isles. it's become a byword for pointless, obsessive behaviour. >>
Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. When I was a kid in Chicago (in the 1950s) I lived a block away from a very large RR yard. I would keep a notebook of the various RR companies and their freight cars and also private companies that had their own rolling stock - not the numbers - just the types of boxcars, tank cars, refers (that's refrigerated cars, not something you smoke). Some of them were very colorful. I mentioned this thread to my wife, who rides a commuter train to work every day. She said that some of the older passenger train cars have their own names like the "General Sheridan" or the "Mountain View" etc. She said that she looks at the names of the cars as they pass by. Another related point is that trains, at one point on our civilization, were the fastest way to get from point A to point B. The time-space thing. You see a lot of railroad imagery in early 20th century painting. Today it would be the airplane or the spaceship. WOW pointless, obsessive behavior sounds like me. mediadrome
