Having an interest in transportation improves your geographical awareness massively, in my opinion. When a station that is unknown to me is mentioned, I always look it up (and then the line e.t.c). You get to know where places are very quickly.
I don't think that anyone should be ashamed of their hobby at all. I don't broadcast that I am interested in transport, but I will tell them if I am asked.
I have other interests but I find that travel is my favourite. I love exploring new places in the UK and abroad. I too become restless if I am in the same spot. On a beach holiday, I can sunbathe for so long but then I have to go out! I'll get the bus to somewhere!
I am a bit of an all round travel enthusiast. I am very interested in railways and commercial aviation. I don't find spotting particularly interesting, but I very much enjoy travelling on new airlines and different types of aircraft and likewise with railways. I am registered on RailUK and Airliners.net (largest commercial avaition website in the world with millions of members). Airliners.net has a trip reports section where members post picture reports of journeys, a feature I'd love to see on RailUK.
I will purposely choose an interesting airline and aircraft (I flew a Singapore Airlines B77W from Manchester to Munich or a Let-410 to the Isle of Man for example) or deliberately include a certain train type on a journey.
I also have an interest in shipping and sailing. I enjoy taking catamaran rides to Ireland, overnight ferries to Scandinavia and sailing on my uncle's boat.
Coaches can be interesting at times. Rail replacement is a feastly variety of companies and coaches that normally wouldn't be available on public routes.
Mainly quoting your post as it sums things up brilliantly for me. As I've mentioned on page 7 of this thread (oh, and I read the rest of the thread after all. Some rather different interests noticed!), I definitely don't broadcast my interest. It came up during the icebreaker for my job, don't think anyone that was there remembers though! However, like yourself and no doubt others, if asked I'd probably mention it. There's so much to explain though that sometimes it's simply easier not to though.
A lot of people just assume you go to a station and just take numbers. Yeah right! Imagine explaining much at all about bashing (loco/DMU/EMU and/or track) to someone who knows nowt about the hobby!
Not registered myself on that Airliners site, I may look into it later in the week if I remember. Not hugely into that scene, but I do have an interest. As for buses/coaches, certainly interested in that scene too. Good point on the vehicles used on rail replacement services that don't often get used on normal service routes, the only way to scoop some coaches/monsterous buses!
Glad I'm not the only one who likes to look up somewhere I've not heard of, it sure helps expand one's geographical knowledge. I didn't do great at geography (grade D at GCSE level), but I like it still. Being able to place even roughly where places are when someone asks is quite nice to be able to do. On a similar note, being a basher comes in handy when working out rough mileage from one place to another.
Then there's knowing timetables, service levels and patterns, which certainly comes in handy for when a 'norm' asks you for travel advice. The amount of times I've had family members ask about travelling from X to Y has reached some uncountable level. Which is where knowing something about fares restrictions and so on is extremely handy!
Exploring somewhere new by public transport (naturally enough, by rail being my primary and favourite way) is always fun. I must admit, one bit of your post got me determined to reply more than any other bit:
"I too become restless if I am in the same spot."
Tell me about it! Staying in one place all the time gets on my nerves. Indeed, I often get withdrawal symptoms if I've not gone out somewhere within 24 hours of getting back from a trip! Not been able to go exploring anywhere lately thanks to working and a lack of money until mid January (Frothmas always leaves me so skint, can we cancel it in 2011?), which has been getting very frustrating. Went 4 weeks without a trip anywhere recently, even just a trip to Swindon was a most welcome change!
Anyway, enough of me going on!
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I don't know whether it's a bad hobby or not. It's what I do, what I have always done, and I can't imagine a time when I won't want to do it. You never, ever grow out of this, so be warned youngsters!
Forgot to comment on this, I got engulfed in my reply to WestCoast. Had to reply though.
You've never had a time when you've wanted to jack it all in? Must have been a good lot of trips for you then! There's been a fair few times I've been going to give up the hobby, I even had a target date of 31/12/2005 once! Nearly 5 years on (good grief, how fast did that go?!), and I've wanted to give up a few times in that time, but whenever the scene starts to get stale, it has a tendancy to change elsewhere in it, which keeps the interest alive.
I think one word summarises rail enthusiasm for me:
Addictive.
No matter how many times I think "Yeah, I could easily find a new hobby", and actually try something different, it's impossible to just give up the enthusiasm for the railway! I've been enjoying the scene for a bit over 7 years (started October 2003), and whilst I predict some lows as well as highs in the coming years, I'll be an enthusiast until I die!
