The Changes to What we use to Railfan in the last 25 years

jordon412

33 Year Old Railfan
So I've been watching many videos of Norfolk & Western 611's trip from Spencer, North Carolina to Roanoke, Virginia. I've noticed that the changes to what we use when Railfanning since she last ran. I'm going to list several that I've thought of. If you can think of that I've missed, go ahead and post it.
1. Video cameras using film are gone. They have since been replaced by cameras using mini CDs, SD cards, and of course, smartphones and tablets.
2. Photo cameras using film are gone. Like the video cameras, they have been replaced by cameras using SD cards, smartphones and tablets.
3. Atlases have mostly been replaced by GPS or map apps.
4. VHS is gone, replaced by DVDs or digital download.
5. The way we share our Railfanning. Now we have many choices, websites where you can post videos, photos, and of course, social websites. And most of these websites are free.
6. The Internet. No longer do you have dial-up Internet, but now high-speed internet via cable, fiber optics, and wi-fi.
7. Laptops. Now we don't have to wait until we get home to put our videos and pictures on our computers, we now can get back to our cars, pull our laptops out of our backpacks, and load our videos and pictures onto our laptops. And if the hotel your staying at has wi-fi, you can immediately upload to the Internet and share it with the world.
8. The smartphone and tablet. They pretty much combined everything you use into one object that you can put in your pocket.
If anyone can think of anything else, post it below.
 
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1. Getting chased away from the trackside for rail fanning.
2. A lot more abandoned industrial sidings.
3. More double-track in some places due to increased traffic
4. Fewer older freight cars
5. More graffiti covered railcars and trackside equipment.
6. Bigger locomotives
7. More NIMBYs, therefore, fewer horns.
 
I used to flush 100's of gallons per week, of potassium ferocyanide, sodium hydroxide, and other toxic photographic waste chemicals down the city drain, in an industrial photo lab ... none of that goes on today.
 
I used to flush 100's of gallons per week, of potassium ferocyanide, sodium hydroxide, and other toxic photographic waste chemicals down the city drain, in an industrial photo lab ... none of that goes on today.

I also destroyed more shirts, pants, and shoes with at stuff too as I processed commercial printing film, typesetting RC paper, and Photostats. One splash and my very expensive leather shoes would fall apart within a day, and pants would have holes in them that rival the ones the kids buy today.

I wonder how much silver halide salts are stuck to the plumbing in my old house where we worked...

John
 
9. Seeing cool signals appropriate to the railroad, instead of darth vaders.

10. Standard cabs instead of widenose.
 
Having electronic gear we could actually open up and repair ourselves because the components were big enough to solder and replace.
 
@289v8...

Re: 12. In different cities and states you could go to the Rail Yard and have a conversation with other Railroaders who were total strangers.

I did that actually while out at the East Deerfield Yard in Deerfield, MA. The railroad security guard was sitting in his car in a parking lot near where our car was parked. I went over and said hello. He was an older man, close to retirement, and Mike and I told him about the Hoosac Tunnel project.... His eyes lit up and we got to hear about the railroad we were just watching the crew switch some cars on, as it was back in the 1970s while Alan Dustin ran it and before Guilford killed it. This was long before the 15 mph slow orders for most of the West end of what's left of the Boston and Maine, and NS rebuilt some of the track to 20 mph standards. It was a great time and he was glad to talk to us.

I suppose if we just trespassed into the yard, it would have been different because other train crew were watching us with a very watchful eye. Guilford, I mean Pan Am Railways is not nice to railfans because of the bad press we give them. From what we were told, they deserve it.

During the early 1980s, just before the big strike on Guilford, Lawrence MA had many of things going for it that you mentioned. I even got to watch the crew start up the little SW9 that was sitting next to the yard office, and help switch some of the cars.

I agree it was very dangerous out there. Lawrence Yard, in Lawrence, MA even today is famous for its standing derailments due to such poor track.

John
 
This scares me, I remember how great a speed graphic with Tri X Film was the greatest thing going for taking pics. still have a lot of my old stuff from Cajon and Teachapi. I wonder if they still make 4X5 enlargers?
 
Days when engineers and conductors always had the windows open on a warm spring or hot summer day. Always a friendly big wave 100% of the time.. Now they all go around with the windows closed, but there are still those engineers that drive with the windows open.
Hornshows are far and fewer between than ever before. When I first started watching trains in Eastern Idaho and even here in my hometown, if you were watching like "Wow" and tossed a wave to the engineer/conductor, you were getting the horn popped at you.
Believe it or not, Trailer trains are much harder to find now than they once were. I can remember the days when straight up trailer trains with 3 or 4 unit lash-ups were a fairly common sight.
Searchlight signals are disappearing. They have taken down almost all of the Searchlights and replaced them with the Darth-Vader kinds... Only a couple isolated searchlight installations remain here, one being CP392 known as Reverse, ID (Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uqT3joDddg)
They added a crossover at the east exit of the Nampa Yard. (Trust me, I've been here since 1999, so I know things have changed)
They no longer cut in mid-train units on a regular basis here
The variety of heritage colors that were once here have vanished into the abyss of Armour Yellow. Used to be patched (Unpatched as well) CNW and SP were a common sight nearly any day.
The unmistakable sound at the heart of the SD40-2, The amazing whines of SD60's, the throaty roars of Dash 9's and C40-8W's have vanished into the sunset (They reappeared for a short while in 2014)
Trains like ITAG4, ISEG4, ZSEMN, ZPDG2 had mind-blowing 5-6 unit lashups of SD70's and C40-8's and maybe AC4400CW's. With DPU power, these lash-ups are nowhere nearly as common.
QEUNP trains. QEUNP trains were heavy, but smaller than its successor the QCONP train (QCONP is still the QEUNP, just CORP owns the Eugene, OR yard now, thus the CO symbol being CORP)
Dirty Dirt Trains/Copper Ore trains: These were almost a daily occurrence for a while, but they have seemed to vanish completely.
The only daily trains really are trains MHKRO and MHKPC.
Days when UP actually ran trains directly to the Amalgamated Sugar Plant here.
Here's the biggest one overall: I miss the days where seeing 25 trains was easy. Now I'm lucky to see 5 in a good day. with most of the time 10-12 going through from day-to-day.

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