Stereotypes and discrimination of railfans...
At one time or another all railfans will experience odd encounters with non railfans and sometimes recieve crap from their families. I'm no exception as I recieve my fair share of stares and am the butt of my families jokes at times because I take photograph and film trains as watch others films on them. The worst of it comes from my own husband who will make fun of me and told me I'm obsessed and spend too much time doing it. In reality I spend only a few days of the month doing so or whenever I have to be in the Peoria area I will keep my eye out after appointments. This still doesn't stop the jokes and none of my family really enjoy going with so they stay home most of the time. My mother will go with me from time to time but she isn't a fan. My family doesn't understand it or why it makes me happy. Hey, atleast I'm getting out of the house and found a hobby I enjoy so why do they care? They think I'm strange. Maybe it's because I'm a female and it's such a rarity to find them in the hobby or maybe they do find it odd for anyone to do so I don't know. I don't care because I will continue.
Enough about the family aspect of it and onto complete strangers. From time to time will get stared at or someone will stop and ask if I'm ok when it's very obvious I have a camera in my hand. When I was filming an I&M train a woman asked me while I was filming which was annoying but it didn't really come out in the film since the train was loud so glad for that. It isn't the only encounter and most likely there will be more to come. I've had two cops ask me if I was okay and I told them what I was doing they drove off and didn't care. I have had strange looks from people too on top of people stopping and asking if I was ok. I appriciate if someone was concerned and not being nosey but it's hard telling what their true motive is. If my car was having problems you can trust me I'd have the hood up and emergency lights on as well as be on a cell phone. It is a slight annoyance and as long as someone doesn't give me too much crap can ignore it. Either way I will still film but it does make me nervous at times. I stay near my car in case things go south and some creep tries anything which I doubt will ever happen but it's a safety precaution I have in case. I haven't had any crap from the Railroads but I'm also not stupid enough to put myself in harms way to get that shot. I've only had one bad look from a TZPR employee so I take it he was having a bad day or just didn't like to be filmed. It's nice when they wave at you but I also don't care if i'm awknowledged or not. I guess other railfans has had issues from time to time but it's hard telling the cause or what they were doing. I stayed back and filmed TZPR so I was well off any property. I waved at the grump anyway and it's just a job to some of them so I can understand their point of view and some might not enjoy being filmed. The issues I've come into are from drivers passing by who stare or stop and ask if you're okay. Luckily the people who stopped and the cops who did were polite. I can only imagine what these people think this person has no life or is a virgin. Haha.
So what are other peoples encounters? Has anyone come acrossed a truelly bizarre experience with people, the police or the railroads themselves?
Enough about the family aspect of it and onto complete strangers. From time to time will get stared at or someone will stop and ask if I'm ok when it's very obvious I have a camera in my hand. When I was filming an I&M train a woman asked me while I was filming which was annoying but it didn't really come out in the film since the train was loud so glad for that. It isn't the only encounter and most likely there will be more to come. I've had two cops ask me if I was okay and I told them what I was doing they drove off and didn't care. I have had strange looks from people too on top of people stopping and asking if I was ok. I appriciate if someone was concerned and not being nosey but it's hard telling what their true motive is. If my car was having problems you can trust me I'd have the hood up and emergency lights on as well as be on a cell phone. It is a slight annoyance and as long as someone doesn't give me too much crap can ignore it. Either way I will still film but it does make me nervous at times. I stay near my car in case things go south and some creep tries anything which I doubt will ever happen but it's a safety precaution I have in case. I haven't had any crap from the Railroads but I'm also not stupid enough to put myself in harms way to get that shot. I've only had one bad look from a TZPR employee so I take it he was having a bad day or just didn't like to be filmed. It's nice when they wave at you but I also don't care if i'm awknowledged or not. I guess other railfans has had issues from time to time but it's hard telling the cause or what they were doing. I stayed back and filmed TZPR so I was well off any property. I waved at the grump anyway and it's just a job to some of them so I can understand their point of view and some might not enjoy being filmed. The issues I've come into are from drivers passing by who stare or stop and ask if you're okay. Luckily the people who stopped and the cops who did were polite. I can only imagine what these people think this person has no life or is a virgin. Haha.
So what are other peoples encounters? Has anyone come acrossed a truelly bizarre experience with people, the police or the railroads themselves?
Railfans possessing sufficient curiosity come full circle and acquire an in-depth understanding of complex operations, logistics, industrial processes, engineering and mechanics. In time, curiosity of how the railroads have changed over the years enables one to accumulate sufficient knowledge to be declared a historian in his/her locale. Thus, it is my belief that *some* railfans are the smartest people in the whole world!
ReplyDeleteGood point. I'm more into the historical background of some of them but love the marvel of how it's changed from decade to decade design wise plus have an appriciation that they deliver a good chunk of things we use. Hopefully over time people will grow more of an acceptance of a railfan no matter what they are interested in without these weird looks or being thought of as nerds with no lives as I've seen it referred too a few times by people not open minded.
ReplyDelete