As I've stated a couple of times here before, I like to go out and take pictures of freight trains. I find it relaxing –it's a lot like fishing. Well, at least I think so.

There are others like me as well. They are strange. Stranger than me, even!

I hate to paint with such a broad brush, but they're ALL strange. I have yet to meet a single railfan that wasn't prone to some bizarre quirk or idiosyncrasy. It's endemic.

I'm sure that there are plenty of 'normal' railfans out there, but I've yet to meet one.

I'll sometimes see a bunch of them standing around by the side of the tracks talking about trains, (what else?) and believe me, when you get a group of these fellows together, it's an experience to behold. A few of these guys (a disproportionate amount than what I think you'd normally see in society) are the type that will talk to you, but don't really look at you. They seem to focus on something just off to the side, and behind you. It's like they're talking PAST you.

Other guys will talk to you, but will always be facing the opposite direction. You wind up conversing with the back of their head………

Then there are the fellows who are happy to talk to you, but once you start a conversation, you realize that they've got the I.Q. of the current weather temperature (I'm talking celsius here)

Other guys won't talk, or even look at you. They must be thinking "You are not a train. You do not exist." I'm sometimes tempted to walk into their line of sight and ask them "how's it going?" However, I'm almost certain that they'd close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and while shaking their heads from side to side, make train whistle sounds to completely block me out!

I swear, sometimes I feel as though it's a bug-house field trip. I expect to see the short bus parked somewhere nearby……..

What I really wonder, though, is if I'm just like these guys, only blissfully unaware? Or, are they giving me an insight to my own future?

POSTSCRIPT: A day later, I was standing by the tracks talking to a guy that I had been conversing with the day before. (when I had written this post) After about five minutes of blather about trains, he stopped me in mid-sentence and said "Have I ever met you before?"

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