I have always searched for the words that described my love of railroading. Especially the steam era. Today I stumbled across an interesting quote that elequently describes my fascination;

It is no accident of circumstance that the most beautiful devisings and artifacts in the American record have all been associated with motion and movement, the transport of things and people all going somewhere else. In their final aspects and fullest development, they might be incredibly debased by the putrescences of progress and the indignities of improvement, but in their original concept, all agencies of travel and transport, even aircraft as represented by the free balloon, came trailing clouds of beauty and wonderment to the human spirit.

Lucius Beebe from "When Beauty Rode The Rails"

I know I will never instill, or even make understand my unbridaled passion for trains in others, especially my wife. In truth, I don't really understand it. There's just something about seeing 100 tons of locomotive rolling down the track and hearing the clatter of the wheels on the rails. Almost like an echo of my youth when I marveled at the rolling giants with innocent eyes.