Josh McNeal Wrote:
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> I chased it from Ogden to Echo last May. I was
> amazed how many people showed up. Understandably
> it was the initial trip, and 844 was present. But
> I never saw so much interest before, in such a
> sparsely populated area as well.
> People had no realization that they needed to be
> off the tracks, let alone be courteous enough to
> get out of the way of someone else's shot. In the
> second picture there was no one in my shot until
> about 10 minutes before the
> train arrived. Some late comers showed up and
> walked right in front of every one. We yelled at
> the people to get out of the way, or at least hide
> behind the shrubs, they just flipped us all off
> and did their thing. A complete lack of common
> sense, respect for people, and traditional
> decorum. And don't even get me started with the
> festivities at Promontory on May 10th.
Evanston to Ogden may be sparsely populated, but remember that Evanston is only an hour away from both Ogden and Salt Lake City; that trip in May was within easy reach of the entire Wasatch Front so that's where all those people come from.
With these Big Boy trips, 98% of the people coming out to see it are not train people. They could not have cared less about trains before and will not care less after, they just heard that the world's largest operating steam locomotive is coming through and want to see it. Perhaps you can pardon their ignorance, because they are not reflective of the railfan community. These are just normal people out to see something they don't see every day.
The crash in Beryl, though, was most likely railfans. The problem are pacers. Man I hate pacers and I hope that by the time I reach old age that ridiculous practice will have died off from this hobby.
