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What made you begin railfanning?


R32sdabest

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Here's my story:

I live I Jamaica where I grew up with the R32 (E) train. That made me love the R32s which is my favorite train of all time! Then I began seeing railfan videos on YouTube in arpund 2010. Most of the videos I saw were from Caitsith810, bebo2good1, Allen1628famm and more. I wanted to make videos like that but I couldn't because I don't have a camera and I was only 12. So I just took pictures of the subway with my DSi because I took the subway to my middle school in Flushing. What really made want to become a railfan was after catching 3933 on the (V) a month before it got discontinued. (I still have that picture) One year later I began railfanning and busfanning but never took any shots or footage. After catching an R32 (C) train at Queens Plaza back in December, I began filming and I began making YouTube vids on my channel: R32sdabest. That's my story. If you want, share your story!

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I started fanning in early January 2012. Already gotten RFWs on the (7)<7>(C)(J)(Z) routes. Soon will be the (A) (if they ever do that summer swap again this year and/or next year) and (6)<6> (if they keep the RFW at the 1st car of the R62A train). The R32s are my all time favorite. The R160s are good but I miss all the older NYC subway cars that I never rode in my lifetime which are the R38s, R40s and R44s. Thanks to the frame issues of the R44s from the main transit fleet which led to their early retirement, I gotten to ride the R32s and those 48 or 50 leftover R42s.

 

The NYC Subway has been my favorite thing since I was a baby and I personally want to work for the (MTA) when I grow up! :)

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I started fanning in early January 2012. Already gotten RFWs on the (7)<7>(C)(J)(Z) routes. Soon will be the (A) (if they ever do that summer swap again this year and/or next year) and (6)<6> (if they keep the RFW at the 1st car of the R62A train). The R32s are my all time favorite. The R160s are good but I miss all the older NYC subway cars that I never rode in my lifetime which are the R38s, R40s and R44s. Thanks to the frame issues of the R44s from the main transit fleet which led to their early retirement, I gotten to ride the R32s and those 48 or 50 leftover R42s.

 

The NYC Subway has been my favorite thing since I was a baby and I personally want to work for the (MTA) when I grow up! :)

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I've loved trains since I was a kid growing up along the West End Line, looking up and watching those Slant R40s rumble by. I am more of a freight train person, though.

 

Never did I think I would live my dream of operating a train, let alone a subway train on the same Elevated I looked up at as a kid. 

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Was given a HO-Scale layout when I was a kid and loved trains ever since.  Started taking the subway with my Aunt pre-teen and early teenage years and started to love them as well.  Still like the train scene but as I grew older, I'm more into the car scene these days.

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I grew up as a kid watching Thomas the Tank Engine, and the interest in trains that came from it never really left me, I guess. I remember heading downtown Toronto with my parents many times as a wee lad, and we weren't the richest people around so we had to rely on their transit, most usually the subway, to move us around. I was fascinated with the H-series class which was in service at the time (and remains today, but their numbers are quickly dwindling) and I eventually became accustomed to the idea of telling the H5s and H6s apart from the T1s, which I was never much of a fan of, and I had my parents let 3 or 4 trains pass by, in the hopes that we would catch an H-car.

 

When I lived in Slovakia my apartment overlooked a busy streetcar corridor in Bratislava and I would always try to ride these streetcars in my free time, if my parents allowed it. These experiences left an indelible mark on me as a future railfan and I am grateful that I was there to experience it all.

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Mid-2008 before the R160s took over almost every subway line that was when the system was still fun I found the (R) very interesting at that time and I was trying to find out about it thru the web and through Youtube and It lead to so many things and that's when I decided to become a railfanner tho I kept losing interest and getting into it again. Saw alot of videos back then and like the (E) and (F) all of sudden got R40Ms/42s/160s in 2009 that's when it got really interesting then the (V) later that year too yea that was fun!

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I started to ride the subway for railfanning purposes in the mid 2000s, but I liked trains my entire life, all types of trains, subway cars, locomotives and what not, except for Steam trains, never really liked them and there are bland and boring to me.

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The early 1990s when I first laid eyes on the redbirds. They were something that really caught you're attention. Also the R62/As were very modern looking. That is how it all started for me.

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I apparently grew up riding the Redbird in Brooklyn as a small child. First time when I was five year old, my aunt brought me to the front window of a R17 on the (2) and it was amazing, at the time that is. There was a time where I actually remember seeing a bird on the (3) as well, but I was only kid then. It's pretty much why I miss them soo much.... :(

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For me it was living in the Bronx as a little kid by the (4) riding the R62 and the Redbirds and i was always fascinated by the Redbirds cause of the red color lol. R62/As and the redbirds are tied for my all time favorite. As well I lived by the (B) and (D) so I always rode the R40/Ms on the (B) and R68s on the (D). I moved after to Brooklyn by the (J)(M) and (Z) where I enjoyed riding the R42s .Then I moved by the (1) train where i really liked the R62As as a kid and still do now So that is how my love for railfanning began.

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I started fanning in early January 2012. Already gotten RFWs on the (7)<7>(C)(J)(Z) routes. Soon will be the (A) (if they ever do that summer swap again this year and/or next year) and (6)<6> (if they keep the RFW at the 1st car of the R62A train). The R32s are my all time favorite. The R160s are good but I miss all the older NYC subway cars that I never rode in my lifetime which are the R38s, R40s and R44s. Thanks to the frame issues of the R44s from the main transit fleet which led to their early retirement, I gotten to ride the R32s and those 48 or 50 leftover R42s.

 

The NYC Subway has been my favorite thing since I was a baby and I personally want to work for the (MTA) when I grow up! :)

Amen...

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When I saw a <Q> on the Brighton Express during the 9/11 swap, I really didn't think much of it. Then when I joined here, I found out that those would be considered insane catches. That's how I started. I tried to take videos, that didn't work out so well, I wasn't such a good editor back then. But pictures, love taking pictures. That's how I got started.

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  • 2 weeks later...

An excerpt from a Facebook note I posted in late 2011 explaining how I became an Internet railfan:

 

I discovered YouTube in June 2006 while searching for music videos and lyrics of several of my favorite songs like Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole and Breathless by The Corrs. Being the subway fan I am, I typed “New York City Subway” in the search bar to see what results I would get, but there was not a lot. The one thing I did not like about the videos that did come up, however, was that they were all shot from the extreme ends of the station platform, probably since the user wanted to get the train entering or leaving at full speed or the entire train in one shot without it stopping. I wanted to see clips shot from the center of the platform of trains coming in and going out of stations, but by Spring 2007, that did not happen, which really pissed me off. While coming home from buying a video game on Memorial Day weekend, I learned the digital camera I used to take subway pictures for MySpace and a now defunct slide show website can take videos like a camcorder. Just before graduating from Edward R. Murrow High School, I took the YouTube matter into my own hands by taking subway clips in the way I mentioned. On June 15th, I signed up for the site and added my first videos, “A train at 80th-Hudson Streets” and “Railfanning Across the Manhattan Bridge,” both of which were recorded just a few days earlier.

 

Because the conductor is always in the exact center of the train except for the 7, G, and shuttles, all I had to do to know that I was perfectly in the middle of the platform is locate the conductor board (Go to this thread if you would like to know what a conductor board and its purposes are: http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/f22/question-about-conductors-8973.html). Although most of my videos had trains coming in and out of stations from the platform’s middle, I filmed them in seven other ways, including arriving at or leaving stations while shot from the extreme platform ends or at a random spot, bypassing the station, or running above the streets. In addition to the New York City Subway, I shot videos of buses and commuter trains in and around the city. 

 

Before starting my first semester at the New York City College of Technology in August 2007, I had 80 videos on YouTube. Balancing college life and this hobby was relatively easy since I was able to keep going on railfan trips (in-between classes sometimes) while studying for school and met many YouTubers who uploaded similar videos in the process. I was adding videos to the site at an unprecedented rate, having 340 before the end of the Fall 2007 semester, 520 by the end of the Spring 2008 semester, and 600 by the following summer, the first YouTuber to hit that mark. I also had 115 clips on other video hosting sites like DailyMotion and Photobucket. At that point, I was an internet sensation and people highly praised me for what I was doing. I greatly changed YouTube as hundreds of other railfans soon joined that site and added plenty of videos like mine.

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An excerpt from a Facebook note I posted in late 2011 explaining how I became an Internet railfan:

 

I discovered YouTube in June 2006 while searching for music videos and lyrics of several of my favorite songs like Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole and Breathless by The Corrs. Being the subway fan I am, I typed “New York City Subway” in the search bar to see what results I would get, but there was not a lot. The one thing I did not like about the videos that did come up, however, was that they were all shot from the extreme ends of the station platform, probably since the user wanted to get the train entering or leaving at full speed or the entire train in one shot without it stopping. I wanted to see clips shot from the center of the platform of trains coming in and going out of stations, but by Spring 2007, that did not happen, which really pissed me off. While coming home from buying a video game on Memorial Day weekend, I learned the digital camera I used to take subway pictures for MySpace and a now defunct slide show website can take videos like a camcorder. Just before graduating from Edward R. Murrow High School, I took the YouTube matter into my own hands by taking subway clips in the way I mentioned. On June 15th, I signed up for the site and added my first videos, “A train at 80th-Hudson Streets” and “Railfanning Across the Manhattan Bridge,” both of which were recorded just a few days earlier.

 

Because the conductor is always in the exact center of the train except for the 7, G, and shuttles, all I had to do to know that I was perfectly in the middle of the platform is locate the conductor board (Go to this thread if you would like to know what a conductor board and its purposes are: http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/f22/question-about-conductors-8973.html). Although most of my videos had trains coming in and out of stations from the platform’s middle, I filmed them in seven other ways, including arriving at or leaving stations while shot from the extreme platform ends or at a random spot, bypassing the station, or running above the streets. In addition to the New York City Subway, I shot videos of buses and commuter trains in and around the city. 

 

Before starting my first semester at the New York City College of Technology in August 2007, I had 80 videos on YouTube. Balancing college life and this hobby was relatively easy since I was able to keep going on railfan trips (in-between classes sometimes) while studying for school and met many YouTubers who uploaded similar videos in the process. I was adding videos to the site at an unprecedented rate, having 340 before the end of the Fall 2007 semester, 520 by the end of the Spring 2008 semester, and 600 by the following summer, the first YouTuber to hit that mark. I also had 115 clips on other video hosting sites like DailyMotion and Photobucket. At that point, I was an internet sensation and people highly praised me for what I was doing. I greatly changed YouTube as hundreds of other railfans soon joined that site and added plenty of videos like mine.

Just a little bit of self-aggrandizement there, just a tad...

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  • 4 months later...

Guess I'll bump this thread with a comment.

 

I was railfanning as a teen before the hobby went viral on the net. One thing that came to mind was that I saw the cinstructiin of the 63rd Street connector built from start to finish. I was actully on the first official train to run through 63rd Street to Queens which was a Jamaica bound R32 consist. I can remember the R40 Slants on the (B) via West End, even the R10's on the (C) when I was a child.

 

I can remember the redbirds on the (5) , fun I tell you.

 

Now that I have regained interest I decided to take advantage of the internet to express my appreciation for the hobby in pictures.

 

Will I continue? Well yes indeed, but as the saying goes 'things change so does people'. But as of now and the foreseeable future, indeed as a straphanger interested in the political aspect of the MTA and more so the rapid transit aspect itself. Just find it fascinating to me.

 

it's sad however that even with the advent of this as a hobby on the internet as of now, people continue to spread stereotypes over railfanners or busfanners as a bunch of people who are mentally deficient, or have no lives, socially and in terms of love lives. Such ignorant people will be gravely mistaken. Fools.

 

Anyway in short that is my story, more to it then that but I'll stop here...

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Originally from Brooklyn, I was nearest the Fulton St subway at Rockaway Ave back in the 1980s when the R40s were on the (A) train, my Aunt would take me with her to Babylon on the LIRR, and I'd ride to Virginia with my family on Amtrak. When they put the R44s on the (A) I started getting interested. What put me over was my other aunts boyfriend at the time that got me my first Amtrak train set when I was 5, it looked so much like the real thing I was shocked. That's what did it for me lol

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