You Know You're a South Florida Railfan When...

Saw a kind of dated list called "You Know You're an Idiot Railfan if" and I wanted to incorporate South Florida into it... that is because we have developed a railbuff culture and our own railfan humor pretty unique and distinct from the rest. This is all in good humor not to be condescending towards anyone, and it is NOT to suggest that we would be idiots, much less the original list that this was inspired from. So here goes - and I'll update frequently:

You know you're a South Florida Railfan  when...

  1. Nightlife for you is either Delray Beach proper, Hollywood, Midtown (as of 2014), or, if you can handle it, Ft. Liquordale, and maps to a certain FEC milepost number
  2. Your Friday night hangouts are the White Lumber Lead, Fort Lauderdale Airport Station, Hollywood Blvd, or Hollywood Amtrak Station
  3. You just have to check out East Rail, Pompano Market, or Downtown Spur when you're in the area
  4. You repeat and know verbatim the Power-Assisted Switches on the CSX Homestead Subdivision between MPs SXH 40.13 and 41.1, and SXL 41.8 as well as the FEC TOFC switch; especially as the train passes it
  5. The fruits you eat are the control points on the CSX Miami Sub
  6. You have a daughter named Carmen, or think differently when you listen to the Lana Del Rey song of the same name
  7. You skip a date because that once monthly coal train is coming
  8. Tri-Rail, FEC, and the CSX switchers are so redundant that you make every effort to head to Lakeland, Tampa, Orlando or points north
  9. You know which Tri-Rail PH rebuilds have the nicest sounding K5LAs
  10. Could distinguish between every Tri-Rail rebuild
  11. Could distinguish between the UTDC and Bombardier cabcars on Tri-Rail
  12. You play Classic Rock music after catching a CSX rock train
  13. You know train crew employees, other than the famed ECH, w/ names such as Stilley, Green, Marlene, Fred, et al
  14. You call signals when driving down Interstate 95 between Blue Heron Blvd and NW 151st Street in Miami
  15. Addendum to Item 12: You prefer to go the old way and call the signals pre-double tracking project
  16. You complain, moan, and nag because MDX put up noise walls on the Don Shula
  17. As you wait on your Tri-Rail train, you run for the either the cab car, rotem, or both
  18. You know most if not all yard jobs that circulate Hialeah (I'm sure I'm not the only one) on the CSX
  19. Morning breakfast plan - hit up one of the I-95 side overpasses and catch an empty CSX rock train, or eat somewhere along the FEC main and bag 121/123/335
  20. You're up till Oh-God-30 filming coal trains and select rock trains on the CSX Miami Sub or FEC mainlines
  21. You're up till Oh-God-30 catching FEC 224 and 226 through either Fort Liquordale or Delray Beach
  22. You know that tonymagona334's name is NOT Tony Magona
  23. You get annoyed and tired with loco #s 2617, 2652, 2669, 6044, 43##, 6057, 6095, 6360, and 6276 on the CSX
  24. You just refuse to go chasing during the day due to traffic
  25. For the deep South: The only trains you live for are O721 and the occasional weekend K-Train... all else doesn't matter at all...and consequently, you write to email lists asking the status on these trains
  26.  You prefer to run down Perimeter Rd rather than the 836 by Miami Airport
  27. You know exactly what back streets to take to chase O721 from Perimeter Rd in Miami Airport to Bird Road
  28. You have just caught ALL of the FEC SD70M-2s too many times.... 
  29. You save every last slide you have of foreign power on the Miami Sub, because... well, south of Dyer, it hasn't happened for at least three years
  30. Daytime hangouts - Pompano siding on the FEC, Aero Squadron, DFB Tri-Rail Station, and Croissant Park
  31. You know where the 'secret spot' is on the CSX Miami Sub... you know, the one that gains photo access to most of the yard power in PM light
  32. You know all of O717's customers and 960's customers
  33. You laugh every time a crew calls Hardy
  34. You establish nicknames for Amtrak engineers such as "Sunday Driver", "Worst Engineer in Miami" among others
  35. Sunday afternoon plan... get O722 working Gerdau Ameristeel
  36. You lose your cool when a train gets lined to Track-3 on the CSX Miami Sub
  37. You lose your cool when a train gets lined from the Hialeah Yard track to Track-2 or Track-1... southbound... at Hialeah
  38. You mention to Facebook every time Y22X gets authority to work the Amtrak Lead
  39. You check Tri-Rail schedules meticulously to see if something on the Monitor doesn't align the schedule... in hopes it's CSX
  40. Weekend plan... go up and down Tri-Rail on a Daypass and do simultaneous talk videos with other YouTubers
  41. You save a couple seats at Flossie's in Dania Beach for O717's road crew after a long day's work
  42. The Deerfield Beach Swap Meets are marked conspicuously on the calendar
  43. You know which rock quarry is which and which trains are destined for the individual quarry
  44. Belvedere and Opa-locka are hailed as 'grand curves'
  45. You always gotta fill up, or find an excuse to be at the Race Trac at Hallandale Beach and I-95 when chasing.
  46. You're quite oddly familiar with the initials BEL, BPR, and JFB
  47. For your coal train fix, you run up to Indiantown
  48. You have heard the names Ojus, Tompkins, Whalen, Oleander, and Clune before
  49. Your wife's, most likely from Cuba, name is Iris
  50. You make every effort to take your girlfriend to Wynwood Walls just to catch the move to the Port
  51. You still sneak into Aero Squadron even after they closed the back lot to spotters, just to grab that CSX shot
  52. (7/28/16) You disregard Tri-Rail trains since you've had enough of the Bombardier/Brookville consists
  53. You know all the crews that run O721, the customers it switches and on what days
  54. You know who The Legend is
  55. You point out Seaboard and Crowley containers every time you encounter one!
  56. You listen up north for a 64Q or a 76V on NS
  57. You can point out Q453 from any given manifest on CSX


More coming soon...

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