You know your a train nut when

Like most train nuts we buy high and sell low.

When you hear "Fifty Shades of Grey" you think of paint selections for the NYC passenger cars.

It's prototypical....  posters spell gauge wrong here on the Forum all the time!

 

-Dave

 

 

You try to tune the diesel in your Ford pickup to make it sound like an old ALCO switcher.

• You deeply resent kids for having grown up on "Thomas the Tank Engine" when you had nothing like that as a kid
• You've dreamed for years of buying a new van, only so you could paint it like an F unit in your favorite RR's paint scheme
• You think fishing is a crazy way to pass the time, yet you think nothing of spending countless hours trackside, waiting for trains to go by
• You own no winter coats that don't have RR patches sewn to them
• Your local hobby shop not only knows you by name as you walk in, they have a counter full of stuff set aside for you based on your prior purchases
• If a local hobby shop closes, they tell you before anyone else (including their landlord)
• You go to the Grand Canyon and get a corner balcony room at the El Tovar hotel, but you think it's cooler that your room faces away from the Canyon... and overlooking the RR depot instead (true story, that happened to my wife and I in 2008)
• You agree to take your sweetie to an expensive dinner at a place you don't like the food much, only because it overlooks a busy main line or tourist RR track
• Your wife no longer says you have a one-track mind, because she's tired of you replying that double tracks are usually better because there's a greater chance of seeing trains
• Your 'win the lottery' dream revolves around a large parcel or property on the inside of Horseshoe Curve or a large farm property along the former AT&SF transcon in Arizona
• You've seriously considered putting a stretch of real RR track across your driveway, just so you can tell people have a grade crossing on your property
• You seriously envy anyone who really has a real grade crossing on their property
• If you live anywhere near the DC area or central Florida, you've bene plotting for a while for any reason to take the Auto Train between those two points
• When you go to a home improvement store, you can't help but notice paint color cards that seem to match RR paint schemes, even ones you're not a big fan of that RR

OH my gosh!  I think I've done most of these examples!!!  But...

 

When you have train related items at your wedding, which was held in a train station, you know your a train nut.

 

My Groom's cake:

 

 

 

Caboose shaped vodka fountain ice sculpture:

 

 

The wedding venue:

I don't know who is laughing harder, me, or the wife!  As I read these posts aloud, She finally just made a recording of. "Oh, that's you"!

You purposely take the longer way home which has more grade crossings in hopes you catch a train.

 

Actually did this today.  Took an hour to get home on a trip that takes 25 mins.  We saw a train too.

 

Ron

 

 

My cat's name is Derails. I plan to get another one: Caboose.  

You think Santa Fe and Santa Claus are twins because one Christmas eve they BOTH came to your house.

We have cats named Chessie, Peake and Phoebe Snow.

You rack your brains out composing train poetry, and hope for positive reviews here on the forum.

 

The wheels go ‘round,

And trains follow the track.

They start right here,

And then they come right back. 

 

LED light and doing it right.

How to install,

Keeps me awake at night.

 

.......when your yard decorations consist of this.

 

 

WHEN THE TO OF YOUR CHRISTMAS WISH LIST IS A BAG OF COAL

 

When the tow coupler on the back of your Vehicle is in the shape of a knuckle coupler (Ben)

When all of your sons are named Nathan and all your daughters named Leslie. 

When you can't sleep because thoughts about your layout are running through your mind, so decide to cont the cars as they run through the tracks in your mind.

Done that, been there,  Looks like I just need a dog and a cat to name.

 

Wife said you have trains in every room in the house, you check and you do have trains in every room in the house. So to get the trains out of "Her" house she let's you build this.

The PRR car was in the bathroom of my old house.

 

You purchase a extra large casket so you can take some of your trains with you.

You know you're a train nut when your layout takes up 20 plus percentage of your living room and you cover up 2 windows in the room for your backdrop.

Mike,

You're truly addicted - the SI Swimsuit Issue with Kate Upton made me put down the Lionel catalog...

Your fiance suggests a honeymoon at the Red Caboose Motel.

 

After she retires, she finds the receipt for that caboose. Both of you take it there. The desk clerk says that the cabooses have been repainted and renumbered. But the Manager can track it down. You get a phone call, and you celebrate your 30th wedding anniversary in that caboose.

 

 

If I'm not mistaken, I think he ended up with "gUage", because "gAuge" was already taken.

When you leave FL in February to head north ensuring that you can make the HamFam breakfast at the Allentown meet and to pick up the GE demonstrator that Charlie and Chris (Nassau Hobby center) are holding for you. 

when your spouse and you pause to hear the passing train horns and sounds from the line several blocks away and relax to the sounds.

You know you are a train nut when you and your friends from Lionel take a ride aboard Thomas The Tank Yrain at a WGHOT Show.  We still have not grown up yet!

 

al K.

You are a member of the Worship & Music Committee at church. You pick hymns with locomotive numbers: 31, 39, 89, 475, 734, and 765.

 

In the movie The Polar Express, the boy and girl in the cab can't find the air brake handle. They can't hear you shouting, "That one!" On the way back to the car your wife informs you that everyone else in the theatre did hear you.

 

Your wife wants to see a movie without trains. You go to True Lies with Ah-nold and Jamie Lee Curtis. Your wife notices that you are all excited during the limousine chase scenes. You reply, "That's a bridge on the FEC Key West Extension!"

 

You can't remember what your wife said five minutes ago but you vividly remember Doyle McCormack saying, "No one robs trains any more" in the movie Tough Guys.

 

Visitors look around your living room for two seconds and remark, "You must like trains."

 

Whenever a conversation turns to trains, your wife rolls her eyes - even when you didn't mention trains first.

 

You know every scene and line of dialogue in the Warner Brothers short, So You Want to Build a Model Railroad. When you walk into a hobby shop, you hope someone will buy "a round of track for the boys."

 

If you are a pastor, your congregation expects trains to come up in sermons now and then.*

 

On that pastor's birthday, the church choir sings Life is Like a Mountain Railway, and they sing it well.*

 

A local radio personality writes a song about you called The Rail-Riding Pastor.*

 

*True - no kidding!

 

When friends reminisce about great songs, you mention the songs that James Coffey has written for TM Books & Videos. Then you start singing them. In chronological order.

 

You refrain from singing the praises of scrapple on the OGR Forum because you know that gets on the Webmaster's nerves.

 

Local tourist lines, train crews, and railfans know you by your first name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When;

 

- you are the only one in the car who doesn't groan when the crossing gates come down. As a matter of fact, you stretch, recline your seat, lower the window, stick an elbow out and watch all 110 cars go by at 10 mph.

 

- the city submits a claim against you because your mailbox is supported by a switchstand and a length of 152-lb rail all welded to a railroad-wheel base, and their snow-plow driver just winged it and totalled his rig.

when your 79 dodge m880 military truck has a homemade nathan 5 chime. scares the be geezus out of everybody. gotta love plastic

I swear I just received this today in an out-building marketing email 

 

 

I'm certainly not a train nut.  I am most definitely a certified train obsessive compulsive.  I take offense at being merely a train nut! 

When you are counting the days till your son moves out so you can knock the wall out between the train room and his bedroom.  Need more room!!!

1. If your locomotive roster is more impressive than Union Pacific's, you could be a train nut.
2. If you look at the basement of a house and say "we'll take it" without even seeing the rest of the house, you could be a train nut.
3. If you drive 80 miles to the train club every weekend, you could be a train nut.
4. If you're moving to another town and are choosing based on rail activity, you could be a train nut.

 

 

 

...when you hear the minister say the answers to Life's problems can be found in The Good Book, and you immediately think "Clem's Primer."

When you meant to say you got distracted and realized you just told someone you got side-tracked.

 

 

 In spite of all of those action movies people can't tell the difference between a long telephoto lens and a weapon so they call the cops to report you as "some kind of terrorist at the grade crossing armed with a bazooka, heavy machine gun, RPG, rocket launcher, etc." ....sad, but true for me - many times.

You spend 2 weeks of your yearly vacation at York, selling someone else's trains, and don't regret a minute of it!

...when you ask the hotel for a room that faces the train tracks.

Kate is very fine.  Then I remind myself that my wife used to babysit her.  SOBERING.  

     I know I was speeding officer but I was trying to catch up to the engine to count the train cars! It did not matter I got the ticket anyway. Choo Choo Kenny P.S. I did not get to count the cars.