Do the general public think we're nuts?

[Edwardian]

It is a strange world in which indulging the fantasy that you are some assassin in a computer game is mainstream, possible quite 'cool', behaviour, but building and operating a model railway is not.

 

But that is life.  I like railways and model railways.  I like buildings and architecture.  I like little Napoleonic soldiers and Hobbits and Elves. I will go into obsessive detail (well, sometimes) to get something right.  I want to know the formation of certain trains or what a regiment wore at a particular battle.

 

All of this makes me a very weird nerd by mainstream standards.  But, then, growing old and growing up is all about understanding who you are, and, providing that is someone broadly decent and essentially harmless, learning to accept who you are.  I am someone who likes railways. That's no skin off your nose and it's not my problem if you think that's weird. 

[Reorte]

It is a strange world in which indulging the fantasy that you are some assassin in a computer game is mainstream, possible quite 'cool', behaviour, but building and operating a model railway is not.

That's a relatively recent thing, it's not that long ago when playing computer games was viewed as as non-mainstream and "nerdy".

[martin_wynne]

When I'm out and about with a camera round my neck, most folks are very friendly and chatty.

 

Apart from railway enthusiasts, who are mostly a pain in the neck. They insist on telling me about the left-hand lamp bracket on the locomotive which is getting in the way of whatever it is I'm trying to photograph.

 

Martin.

[Fat Controller]

That's a relatively recent thing, it's not that long ago when playing computer games was viewed as as non-mainstream and "nerdy".

You mean it isn't?

[CloggyDog]

That's a relatively recent thing, it's not that long ago when playing computer games was viewed as as non-mainstream and "nerdy".

 

Nope, it's still regarded as non-mainstream/nerdy... especially if you take it a stage further and attend sci-fi cons/events dressed as your fave gaming character. Cosplayers of most descriptions will have very similar tales of the kind of 'abuse' that traingeeks oft bemoan. Though interestingly there are 'factions' within the cosplay/gamer/sci-fi/geek world which bitch and moan and snipe at each other... cosplay certainly has it's provisional finescale wing...

 

Btw... the comic con at the NEC that sometimes clashes with Warley... they regularly get 50000+ visitors over the course of the weekend (and the London one double that number). Both those shows happen twice a year.

 

I'm a steampunk (amongst my various other hobbies), which involves 'dressing up' in pseudo-Victorian garb and having fun (usually involving goggles, gin, cake and corset-clad lasses) and that's possibly the only one of my hobbies where I've not (yet) encountered any mickey-taking - only smiles and interest (bemused or genuine)*. 

 

* even whilst wearing a pith and kilt and carrying a replica SMLE on Watkin Path, half-way up Snowdon in early March

[4630]

.

[leopardml2341]

I'm quite reflective about the whole thing - I look in a mirror, I see no nutter.

 

It's all about balance, some people are balanced because they are tolerant; some because they have a chip on each shoulder.

 

1). If what others do doesn't directly affect/harm me why worry?

 

2). If others don't agree with what I do, unless step one applies, why worry?

 

Edit:

 

Doesn't replaces an autocorrect, which read 'don't' - my English teacher would turn in her grave!

[Reorte]

Nope, it's still regarded as non-mainstream/nerdy... especially if you take it a stage further and attend sci-fi cons/events dressed as your fave gaming character.

Games consoles and the games that run on them are big business, with Hollywood-like budgets for many of them. That sounds pretty mainstream, even if dressing up isn't. You need an awful lot of people buying your games to justify spending that much money making them.

[BlackRat]

Can't feel that being honked or shouted at by blokes in white vans, or referred to as "gaylord" by teenage boys, proved anything much either way...

I don't really regard turning on the blue light to talk to trainspotters, as best use of police time either. Given the increasingly common reports of police telling people they are not allowed to photograph things, it doesn't surprise me much either.

It is recommended to turn on the blue lights, and rear reds or hazards, when you stop th vehicle to talk to someone, to protect the rear of the veichicle and to give warning of your presence.

[Glorious NSE]

There is such a thing as beating your head against the wall. If you want to enjoy taking photographs and finish up with photos worth having, then incurring the attention of yellow jacketed "security" men and being the proud writer of a letter to Amateur Photographer recounting your experience of having three police cars surround you whilst you upheld your rights in not giving your name and address etc (there are scores of cases like this) is just not worth the effort any more. Crossing the line and becoming a sort of urban guerrilla just for the sake of it is what I don't support.

I don't see why you'd need to do what you're suggesting though. You don't need to stay away to avoid a "fight". Just be a normal person. And respond normally when somebody talks to you. 

 

I've been shooting the "present" railway for the last 15 odd years after getting back into it. And with an interest in wagons I've sometimes been doing so in places that are not "illegal" - but are unusual places for somebody to be poking around with a DSLR. Or sometimes at all! 

 

I'm pretty confident you could spend all day stood on a platform end at Clapham, or Newport, or Carlisle, or Doncaster these days without anyone batting an eyelid for instance, those places frequently have enthusiasts doing just that so the staff quickly get used to them, but if a CCTV operator picks you up fighting your way through bramble bushes to poke a lens through a palisade fence by a yard somewhere to try and grab a shot of the last extant whatever-it-is that was dumped there two decades ago even I have to admit that's unusual... 

 

I've chatted with police I think about 3, maybe 4 times. None of those were a problem. None of them tried to tell me photography was illegal. Back in 2007 I did manage to spark one fairly major response (even involving black cars and men with body armour and neat little "handbags") which was slightly alarming at the time, but even then, as with all the others, ultimately after a few minutes of chat and a brief S&S we were free to carry on doing exactly what we were doing.

 

But then I don't recall ever using the phrase "I know my rights..." and refusing to cooperate either.

 

My objective in that scenario is to convince them that I'm not a threat so I can carry on doing the thing i'm doing, not to make myself some kind of martyr. They need to go away happy i'm not about to throw myself in front of / throw a brick at a train / steal the signal cables / plan a terrorist attack, and the more awkward I am, the less likely they will be to accept my story. It may well be "my right" to not cooperate, but it also immediately makes me look like I have something to hide. And I don't.

 

I've had maybe 2 or 3 negative run-ins with railway staff on stations, all of which are I suspect are getting on for at least 10 years ago, and back when the "rules" of how enthusiast photography was treated at stations were either different to today, or were rather haphazardly applied and different for every TOC. From memory in the last 5 years or so I've had zero bother.

 

But again, if a member of station staff comes up to say Hi and check on what I'm doing, I don't start yelling at him about my rights either...

 

There's absolutely no need to stay at home due to fear of a confrontation. Just keep in mind you're a normal human being talking to another normal human being and that'll get you through 99.9999999999999% of situations...

 

 

[Jeff Smith]

I'm willing to bet that most people with non-mainstream/minority interests probably have more than one, and further that they may not even be in the slightest bit related.  It would be interesting to get examples from members as to their spread of interests.  Model railways and art are my main ones but strangely enough I very seldom create a drawing or painting of anything related to railways, preferring the softer forms of people or landscapes.  I sell a few pictures here and there to people who commission me, or buy something created purely for my pleasure - strangely enough though that money often goes to buying model railway supplies so I suppose there is a connection of sorts......

[beast66606]

I've had maybe 2 or 3 negative run-ins with railway staff on stations, all of which are I suspect are getting on for at least 10 years ago, and back when either the "rules" of how enthusiast photography were either different, or were rather haphazard and different for every TOC. From memory in the last 5 years or so I've had zero bother.

 

 

O/T

 

Only the other week my son was told that photography has not been permitted on any station (yes, you read that correctly, no-one has been allowed to photograph on any station according to the staff at this particular station) since privatisation in 1986 and he wouldn't be allowed onto the platform to photograph, despite there being a guy already on the platform photographing (it's not a huge station, just one with a ticket office) - the ticket office guy refused to look at the NR guidelines as apparently they were made up by my son and refused to identify himself other than by pointing at his name badge  - this is the first incident I've known about for several years, however they are still out there.  (The TOC has been contacted)

[PhilH]

I was trainspotting in Australia in the Brisbane suburbs a couple of years ago when a couple of cops pulled up to find out what I was doing. They had been alerted by cctv operators in control as, although on a public road outside station, they had seen me loitering. The cops and I had a chat, they seemed satisfied, and off they went.

 

Five minutes later they were back, I was a bit worried this time, but, bless their hearts, they had found out from railway control what time the freights I was waiting to photograph were due through and came back to tell me.

 

Of course, it was when Obama et al were in town for a chinwag so everyone was a bit twitchy....

[Glorious NSE]

 this is the first incident I've known about for several years, however they are still out there.  (The TOC has been contacted)

Well there's always 0.000000000001

 

Seriously, glad you did the contacting, hopefully the TOC will have a word and it won't be the same next time.

[njee20]

And how often have we heard the comment "Oh, you're playing with toy trains then" when we're asked what hobbies we have. They usually fall silent very rapidly when I tell them what my "toy trains" cost

Do toys have to be cheap? It's basically what we're doing, like it or not, most seem not to.

 

I ride bikes. It's easy these days to spend £10,000 on a push bike. That doesn't change the fact I'm riding around playing in the mud. It doesn't suddenly become more serious because you spend more money on it.

[martin_wynne]

Train nut turns hero in the thriller film "Transsiberian" currently on iPlayer:

 

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b018vcn2/transsiberian

[darrel]

But we are nuts!!! Anyway who the he'll wants to be normal?

[Colin_McLeod]

You should try telling people you're a morris dancer!

Would that be as well as trainspotting?

[wombatofludham]

Whenever anyone tries to sneer that I'm playing trains I always say "Yes, and what of it?".  Being my size and build I tend to find a hurried and apologetic "Nothing" tends to be the response.

​

[Pacific231G]

"The whole world is a bit strange except thee and me and im not so sure about thee."

 

"Sometimes I pretend to be normal but it gets boring so I go back to being me."

[HillsideDepot]

My employer encourages home working, and allows flexi-time, so after my monthly meeting with my manager last week we parted with me saying "While I'm in town I'll pop to the model shop, then head home, so that'll be a late, longish lunch" just so he knew my plans for the rest of the working day. His reply was "you see that's what my kids miss out on, making things. When I was young I made dinosaurs from kits, painted them all up, had the usual Airfix aircraft, but it was the dinosaurs I really liked. I don't know why kids don't do that now?" and he wasn't suggesting that model railways are only for kids, but lamenting the fact that his children don't have an interest which will last into adulthood.

 

PhilH's post about the Brisbane Police remind me of one morning at Chippenham. I was standing on the disused platform waiting for a railtour with a pair of class 50s on when the local MOM started his pick-up and drove along the platform from its overnight parking place. He stopped alongside and I was expecting to be moved on, but instead he asked if I was waiting for something special and then, unprompted, phoned the panel to find out where the train was. "It's just passing Bassett, you shouldn't have to long to wait. Enjoy your day" and drove off.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, a large proportion of the general public do think that were are nuts.

 

But, since we are under no obligation to obtain public approval or understanding in order to pursue our hobby, the only appropriate response is (in the words of the over-reproduced poster) to keep calm, and carry on.

 

It really does not matter.

 

Kevin

[Colin_McLeod]

I'm quite reflective about the whole thing - I look in a mirror, I see no nutter.

It's all about balance, some people are balanced because they are tolerant; some because they have a chip on each shoulder.

1). If what others do doesn't directly affect/harm me why worry?

2). If others don't agree with what I do, unless step one applies, why worry?

Edit:

Doesn't replaces an autocorrect, which read 'don't' - my English teacher would turn in her grave!

Doesn't only applies when referring to third person singular. http://www.learnersdictionary.com/qa/don-t-and-doesn-t

 

Edited to fix the same autocorrect.

[Welly]

You should try telling people you're a morris dancer!

 

Would that be as well as trainspotting?

This reminds me when I was in the lower sixth, an upper sixth lad ribbed me for being into trains - I reminded him that he was a member of the school's Morris Dancing club. He went quiet! 

[caradoc]

I'm perfectly sane, it's everyone else who is nuts.