Does your friends and work colleages know you're a.........

barrymcguire9999 · Post by **barrymcguire9999** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 7:53 pm

In a word, No! Only people that know are my best mate who got MSTS when it came out and got me hooked

, my missus who is quite impressed with my work on WCML and generally puts up with me being upstairs at the PC for hours on end

, my dad who is a lifelong rail enthisiast & source of a lot of info and a couple of train drivers I know through work who also have MSTS................I choose not to tell anyone else

!!

Barry

peterholton · Post by **peterholton** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 8:04 pm

johndibben wrote:An advantage of being old is that you're expected to be odd. It's called being a character.

You have to conform when you're young, boring :-?

You can be yourself when you get older, much more fun but tiring :D

True, true... the girls in the office at work all know, think it's Ok, if a little wierd, my boss just takes the piss completely, but then he's a rugger ., so still thinks like a 14 year old schoolboy anyway.

Peter

222004 · Post by **222004** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 9:15 pm

jonhewes wrote:I don't openly proclaim my love of trains, or indeed Train Simulator.

However..... I'm sure they must know, because whenever the conversation involves transport, or public transport, I always manage to introduce trains into the equation

I seem to be the only one who is proud of showing off my railway enthusiasm. All the students who go past our block see the FGW destination cards in my window, as well as other stuff. Enter my room and be prepared to be shocked just how much FGW stuff I have. My door is even subject to being covered by railway stuff.

My friends don't care for the subject, but they don't mind. I can openly admit to them that I'm a spotter, and I am proud of it too.

Likewise, when the topic of transport comes up, it is difficult not to make my enthusiasm known. In fact, I've been asked for train times and information by friends in the past.

I've even had my NR rail network map out on the bus, and me and one of my friends from Worthing and his girlfriend were quite interested, the conversation on where we had all been lasted some time!

222004 · Post by **222004** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 9:17 pm

Tomnick wrote:All my friends know about my interests, and most are OK about it - though I'm not sure that they all understand why I'm interested! Just wait 'til next year - I think we've got an entire A-Level Physics topic dedicated to railway signalling ! Maybe time for a large network game of SimSig...

Really? Can I enrol? Please? I'd be loving that!

222004 · Post by **222004** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 9:18 pm

jbilton wrote:Hi
All my colleagues think I am mad and sad....which I am.
One once said to me "You should get out more"....and I replied "I've just been to Carlisle...how much further do you want me to go".

LOL! I'll remember that answer!

FGWDriver929 · Post by **FGWDriver929** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 10:30 pm

You have to conform when you're young, boring

NO WAY!!!!!!

23 years of non-conformation here, and going strong!!! In fact, thats the only thing I hate about being a FGW driver is that they won't let me wear my piercings and moan if my beard gets too scraggly!!!

Although I do wear one piercing that they don't see when I'm in uniform

Tomnick · Post by **Tomnick** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 10:34 pm

222004 wrote:
Tomnick wrote:All my friends know about my interests, and most are OK about it - though I'm not sure that they all understand why I'm interested! Just wait 'til next year - I think we've got an entire A-Level Physics topic dedicated to railway signalling ! Maybe time for a large network game of SimSig...
Really? Can I enrol? Please? I'd be loving that!

You'll have to ask the Colonel about that! As in the KFC Colonel! Seriously! I get the impression that his knowledge of railways consists of:

Did you get all that?

thelondontube · Post by **thelondontube** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 11:37 pm

Tomnick wrote:Seriously! I get the impression that his knowledge of railways consists of:

Did you get all that?

no - you'll have to speak up!

James

3DRailHound · Post by **3DRailHound** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 5:51 am

I tell people that I'm a railfan..if they ask

But seriously, the perception here in the states is not the same as over there in the UK, at least that is what I'm told..so why is that? and whats wrong with playing with trains anyways..trains are cool

peterholton · Post by **peterholton** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 8:09 am

True, but in the States it seems that if you're a railfan you're seen more as a potential terrorist than an enthusiast, at least looking at some of the posts on train-sim.com!

Peter

seaeagle · Post by **seaeagle** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 9:40 am

Everyone at work knows I'm into train-siming, so what if I get the p**s taken out of me, its a two way street, I take the p**s out of them for what they do in their spare time. Also by telling people, I've found some other work-mates who use MSTS.

Goingnorth · Post by **Goingnorth** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 10:37 am

3DRailHound wrote:I tell people that I'm a railfan..if they ask

But seriously, the perception here in the states is not the same as over there in the UK, at least that is what I'm told..so why is that? and whats wrong with playing with trains anyways..trains are cool

It's down to our media, and our generally negative society. For some reason a couple of people were spotted at the end of a platform with big coats and glasses, taking numbers and every since then to be called a 'trainspotter' is an insulting term meaning obsessive person interested in fine detail.

Our media loves dragging down success, large companies: Particularly rail, air, drugs, banks, property, insurance, government, the police and spends it's time marketing binge drinking, anyone that's on TV for more than five minutes - until they've been on for ten, when they realise they can make some more money by promoting sex scandals and other mishaps. Many 'celebrities' (I use that term loosely) have since proven allegations were wrong.

The result is a negative, touchy, feely society with little fact at it's fingertips.

As far as I know, the people I know who are interested in railways have never spotted trains (nor me) and are perfectly balanced individuals with good educations, jobs, interested in other things (usually transport) and have girlfriends.

Even though, on the surface many people call virtual trainsimming even more geeky, it's not only pretty social, but involves one of the coolest things on the planet - 3D! An area many people would give anything for to get into, with thoughts of the gaming industry and Hollywood.

Serious virtual trainsimming also involves: Photography, film making, travel, social meetings...and other things people consider are really cool.

I'm afraid some people just talk the piss because they are essentially a bit narrow minded - they don't really know anything about rail or want to know: romance, history, travel - and love going 'with the crowd'.

Mind you, there are not many interests with negative connotations, the only ones I can think of are things to do with biking (ATB or motorbikes).

And quite a few people are interested in that as well on these boards!

So anyway, I only tell people I know 'can handle' being told.

Alexcutts · Post by **Alexcutts** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 11:58 am

my friends are all aware of it - and since we tend to all travel on the train together I generally get told that its great i'm there cos they don't know what to do...

no-one at work knows though... but then again I don't know them well enough really

johndibben · Post by **johndibben** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 12:04 pm

Goingnorth wrote:As far as I know, the people I know who are interested in railways have never spotted trains (nor me) and are perfectly balanced individuals with good educations, jobs, interested in other things (usually transport) and have girlfriends.

I was a trainspotter and busspotter, am totally unbalanced, grammar school educated (allegedly), bone idle and only got as far as a fiancee until she *uggered off with a sailor in Southampton. And people wonder why I'm not a Sourthern fan

Well I had hung it out for years

That and they beat Man Utd. in the FA cup in 1974 (ish)

Trainsimming is one of the more sensible things I do.

Trainspotter's or trainfans are OK.

One look at Brad's avatar confirms that

mdanie · Post by **mdanie** » Mon Feb 23, 2004 1:30 pm

I agree with nearly everything Goingnorth said above re. the media. Thoughtless media coverage is behind a lot of misunderstanding by the general public - including negative concepts of science and medicine. It would be fun to make "being a journalist" the saddest occupation of all

But ironically I suspect it stems from trainspotting originally being quite a popular and visible hobby - unlike stamp collecting or collecting antiques(both associated with "profits" so must be OK

)

If anyone cares, I got into MSTS as a follow-on from playing other computer games and was looking for something non-violent to set a good example to my son as he grew up (he now shoots Nazis in the head while I puff around the Skipton route

). It also gave some insight into the structure of a computer game and opportunity for the "modelling" aspects.

No, I keep quiet about my interests since I don't have the energy to break down years of prejudice and brainwashing. My kids rib me constantly, though