I LIKE TRAINS!

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P.S. I fire full-size steam locomotives as a hobby.

There are lots of HFA preserved railway volunteers.

High speed stew

I like trains as well, in addition to planes and automobiles.

I’m also a model railroader and belong to an HO scale model railroad club. I notice many other members of this club have signs of being on the spectrum, although it’s never brought up as most are older men (60 and up) and were never diagnosed.

Funny that you say that. Before I knew about autism, I once went to a smaller local model railway exhibition and I was singling out many people from those who also went in there as "Different" and when I worked a certain train where due to it being an older diesel pulling coaches (Now rare), about half my passengers were enthusiasts, and out of those enthusiasts a large percentage I could identify as being "Different".
I did not know back then that these people were VERY likely to be on the spectrum. The question I ask is "Am I ?"

Here is the odd thing.

On a PBS show I heard the host use one of the best metaphors for autism I have ever heard. The guy said that "the autistic mind is like a railroad train" while the NT mind is like an automobile. Cars can just change lanes on a superhighway at the driver's will, and make turns at intersections. While trains cant be steered, and have to remain on the one track, and just go forward or backward.

So...(a)autistics tend to remain on a single track and get obsessed with a particular thing (like either cars or with trains or with anything else in the universe), but (b) often opt to become obsessed with something that they may unconsciously identify with because of its similar behavior to themselves (ie trains). Just a crazy suggestion. But one I cant help thinking about.

Autistic song female version



She goes a little choo choo too

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A true train aficionado knows their steam locomotives. And knows the "Mogul" locomotive. Manufactured in England for use in India to be user friendly in the tropics, the Mogul was so successful a design that it also came to be used everywhere. Britain and the US. Here is model of American Mogul.



A real Mogul locomotive is a supporting actor in this Bollywood film clip:

There is no good reason for a land vehicle to weigh more than it carries, even for passengers. I am appalled at the agitation to simply electrify obsolete technology to save the railways. They are failing for many reasons.

I used to love sleeping on the train, the sounds, the jumpy jiggle and the way my face would get stuck to the odd money smelling plastic on the chair cushiony protection... The air that gets in through the window and rips my lips apart... The view that keeps slipping away like a melting ice cube, lost into the shady fog... Flying lines...

I like trains in museums, but they were shaped by the limitations of the steam engine, where you only get one big motor, and not enough traction or torque to handle much slope. Since the train can't stop quickly, the tracks have to be kept clear at all times, and because Victorian communication was so poor, they are almost always empty. This makes the road expense enormous.