bigkid posted:Railroads are like a lot of things in life, where kids see it as neat and romantic, kind of like running away to join the circus or something, but the reality is quite different, and by the time they are adults they realize it isn't all it looks like.
The neat part to me, hearing stories of people like Rich and Hot Water, is that people do a job where you can freeze to death or boil to death (or both at the same time), be dead tired, hurting, get treated by those running the railroad as if you are a piece of track or a truck on a train (a replaceable "asset"), but still love it and wouldn't have done anything else.
For sure the " romance of railroading " is all but gone in todays railroading.
Every unit now has central heat and air , the units are for the most part newer well equipped with all the latest electronics ( which I despise ) ,and even the dispatchers play a somewhat different role as they use to.
Don't have any idea what railfans will be seeing take place in the future as far as railfanning .
Possibly in 10 years or less autonomist trains in certain regions of this country , just can't figure out what direct the carrier's are going or seeking .
But in the meantime, if it's cold or hot we'll be fighting the weather and the carrier's 
