I don't think being a railfan is the problem, I think like sports or any other hobby the problem is when it becomes out of balance with other things. Being a railfan is not weird, being obsessed with something is really the issue, whether it is sports, or a hobby, or pretty much anything else. A parent who is protective of their child is a good parent, a parent who obsesses about everything in the kid's life is problematic (think about some of the little league parents of years past, a dying breed these days and thank God for that), or in the Star Wars universe the fanboys who practically foam at the mouth if they don't like the way a particular movie is done and make it seems like someone committed a war crime, give death threats, etc.....way out of whack with reality.
With railfans, there is a line there IMO. I have had some wonderful conversations with rail enthusiasts, who are only too glad to share their knowledge and love of something without trying to make the other person look like an idiot and when I finished the (often long) conversations, I came away appreciating the subject more. On the other hand, you have those who if you ask them something, seem to feel like knowing something you don't know gives them the right to answer the question while making clear they think you are an idiot (and this isn't, of course, just extreme railfans).
I ran into this with a local group of rail enthusiasts who restore old trains near where I live, over the years I had conversations with them about what they were doing (been a while, I don't know how they are these days), in part to see if they had interest in another set of hands, and I was kind of taken aback at the attitude, instead of being doing something fun they loved, it was like some sort of priesthood or the world depended on what they were doing with attitudes to match, yet I know for a fact that they have had trouble getting new blood (wasn't just me, I guess) and also were upset that they had the reputation of being clannish and not very friendly...
No different with sports, just take a look at the behavior of soccer fans in England, people getting bloodied at a stupid football game (several years ago I was at a Jets/Giants game on Christmas eve that was over the top bad), you name it, there is a line between being a fan or have a love for something and being unhealthily obsessive. I am sure O. Winston Link had good reason for his response to Rich (though he missed on important thing in his question back to Rich, how he felt about the word "lashup" *lol*), there are fans and there are over the top obsessives, the later are hard for fellow fans to deal with, let alone the general public.
