Do any of you know what real railroaders call all of us? We are foamers! We foam at the mouth when we see trains, hear trains, or think about trains. How many of you have slowed up at a crossing just to sit there and watch a switch crew go by with a couple of box cars or some tank cars. I'd bet lots of you have and do. At work I could never let my co-workers in on my little secret, but here i can say it out loud. IAM A FOAMER. Happy foaming to all of you.
foamer
- Thread starter Switchman73
- Start date
Apparently PRR fans get the acronym SPF - slobbering Pennsy freaks... I'll live with foamer. 
Andrew
Andrew
I would have a tendency to think that the term would mean that we excell at making things out of foam that Mother Nature and man struggle to put together in the full scale world. And if we're foaming at the mouth when we look at a full-scale train, it's because we are awstruck at how well they we able to reproduce a full-scale version of what we have been doing in a smaller scale. I hope this is an acceptable theory.
From what I see here and on other forum, it appears that a good many modelers are still working or have worked in the RR industry. :thumb: Just as I also think that a lot of former and current pilots build and fly RC planes. :thumb: I'm not sure that there's a big ratio of race car drivers that are modeling RC race cars, but I could be wrong.
And if we're foaming at the mouth when we look at a full-scale train, it's because we are awstruck at how well they we able to reproduce a full-scale version of what we have been doing in a smaller scale. I hope this is an acceptable theory. From what I see here and on other forum, it appears that a good many modelers are still working or have worked in the RR industry. :thumb: Just as I also think that a lot of former and current pilots build and fly RC planes. :thumb: I'm not sure that there's a big ratio of race car drivers that are modeling RC race cars, but I could be wrong.
cidchase
Active Member
I've seen the same response in the avaition industry, where I spent forty years of my working life. Folks sitting outside the airport fence, looking at airplanes. Maybe some of them were "real" railroaders, foaming at the pretty airplanes when they went by. The point is, a lot of us humans are interested in mechanical things. We like being up close to mechanisms that we don't ordinarily get to look at whether it be trains or airplanes. I've been told by more than one aeronautical engineer that "I had the best job in the world" because I actually got to work on the airplanes and spend my time at the airport watching planes fly. I'll let you see my airplanes if I can watch your trains.
In Britain, they use the terms Gricer and Anorak. I just found out that gricer came from a time that some railfains showed up in a van labelled "A. Gricer". Anorak is one of those jackets with a hood on it -- apparently standard garb for anyone trackside.
Foamer anecdote...
A foamer anecdote...
A RR line crosses the street I used to get to & from work. One afternoon after work I head home & there's a train rolling slowly by. "Great" I think. "get to see a train go by". So I position myself about 12-15 feet behind the guy in front of me (I want to SEE the train, not the back of the guy's car...) . He's outside his car talking to the guy in front of him. I think they figured they've waited long enough for this train so the guy gets in his car, revs it up and...You guessed it...He puts it reverse and...SLAM!!! right into my truck...Train watching has its dangers...:cry:
Gus (LC&P).
A foamer anecdote...
A RR line crosses the street I used to get to & from work. One afternoon after work I head home & there's a train rolling slowly by. "Great" I think. "get to see a train go by". So I position myself about 12-15 feet behind the guy in front of me (I want to SEE the train, not the back of the guy's car...) . He's outside his car talking to the guy in front of him. I think they figured they've waited long enough for this train so the guy gets in his car, revs it up and...You guessed it...He puts it reverse and...SLAM!!! right into my truck...Train watching has its dangers...:cry:
Gus (LC&P).
