How did learn about the railroads or railways in your country?

As a child in the 1960s I had a neighbor named Mr. Carter that was an engineer for Frisco Railroad. I got to know him and he would tell me all about the railroad and his job. That led me to spending more time at the neighborhood park that was on the edge of the main north south mainlines for Birmingham watching the trains go by. I read every railroad book in the school library and then when I was old enough my mother allowed me to ride the bus downtown to the main library which had a huge collection of books on the railroads in the US.

William

Well, not in my current country. But back when I was a kid in England I lived on the Isle of Wight in the 50's and used to catch a train into Ryde for school. Those trains were steam and maybe 2 or 3 carriages. So, I got used to the smoke and sulphur of 0-4-0 locos. When I moved to the mainland (Fareham, Hampshire) I lived close to the rail link between Portsmouth and Southampton that ran all electric trains. But my mate and I rode our bikes up to Eastleigh to watch the express locos, mainly West Country class and Lord Nelson class expresses from London to Portsmouth. We used to jump the fence on weekends to walk around all the locos parked at the Eastleigh works. Never got caught.

I am a railroad brat, my dad was an engineer for the Norfolk Southern out of Bellevue Ohio. He started on the Nickle Plate back in the 50's.

In our area the Southern Pacific RR and a parallel riverbed were an easy place to hike while staying off private property. (Ignoring that the RR was private property!) So it was easy to be near the tracks and hear or watch trains. I even had a place on the edge of town a 1/4 mile from the tracks before I moved even further from town.

In my 20's a friend, Jim FitzGerald, was very much into promoting N-scale railroading, so that increased my interest in the prototype. I knew a few railroaders, but not well enough to talk about it much. (Which seems to be the focus of your thread. Sorry.)

The rest was just including RR points of interest in my roaming around. Learned even more via the Internet. My use of Trainz has increased my search for RR information.

My mother's Dad was a conductor on the Milwaukee Road out of Spokane when I knew him and we spent frequent prolonged visits with him between my father's military postings. (My Dad had spent several high school summers working on railroads around the Twin Cities, too -- storekeeper's clerk on the DM&IR, roundhouse hostler on the NP, brakeman on transfers between Minneapolis and Pigs Eye.) Once in a while Granddad would take a break from the Hiawathas and take the freight run from Dishman to Coeur d'Alene. Twice he took Mom and me along (I was three the first time, only hazy recollections) and later when I was old enough to remember riding in the caboose and watching the work. They turned the train on the wye at the Diamond Match plant and backed several miles down into Coeur d'Alene to work the mills. When I was seven, he took me on the Hiawatha (#16) through Avery and Drexel to Deer Lodge. We laid over overnight and brought #15 West to Spokane next day. When I got Trainz 2010 (mainly for Avery-Drexel) and made the run, Tume's scenery took me right back! We crawled down the hill from Adair about 15 MPH and I asked him "Why so slow?" He said, "For safety!" Operating now on the route makes me appreciate that!

:B~)

I got interested in Trains about the same time I learned to walk. My dad brought home a Marklin electric train set from Germany for my older brother and that's all it took to get me hooked. I'll never forget the big picture on the box of a steam engine pulling a train through some industrial looking area. It sparked my imagination and love for trains. I wish I still had the box cover...at least. Wish I new what happened to the train set.....played with it for years.

When I was older, I became close friends with a retired Union Pacific steam engineer that used to haul coal from Colorado up to Wyoming. He had great stories, especially about having to endure the harsh winter time weather conditions. I'm a life long rail fan, and if I was able to go back in time, I would have prepared myself for a railroad career, preferably in the north, northeast for the scenery and railroad environment.