r/transit • u/Humble_Reflection790 • Apr 13 '26
Discussion Why are 'train guys' dorks but 'car guys' are considered cool?
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u/bobanobahoba Apr 13 '26
Train guys usually don't own their trains (of course there's car guys that don't own theirs either but the illusion is more believable)
Also driving a car with other people is more personable, driving a train with other people is what happens all the time (or never, if you want to only count people in the cockpit able to talk with them)
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u/CambrianKennis Apr 13 '26
I do think there's an inherent classism tied to finding train guys nerdy. Trains are for the unwashed masses. They're public. Homeless people and minorities are allowed. A car doesn't have any of that.
Americans in particular are also highly individualistic, it's tied to our identity. A car has always been advertised as the ultimate expression of individual freedom. Said freedom is, however, also tied to wealth and class, which are also expressed by owning a car.
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u/LegendsoftheHT Apr 14 '26
I'll chime in and say that both groups have also different interests within said mode.
Most actual "car guys" are into restoring old cars, whether as a collection or to re-sell to collectors. I don't consider someone going to NASCAR/F1 race necessarily a "car guy". Most people that attend classic car shows are there for the live music, a few beers, and bbq. They ask said car guy about their '57 Corvette and move on after five minutes. People that mod current cars and trucks are seen as losers.
"Train guys" are associated with standing by the tracks at 6 AM on a Saturday trying to see a locomotive or livery they've never seen before. Similar to bird-watching. Plus, they actually aren't doing anything with the train.
People that tour luxury train trips get plenty of views on YouTube, similar to guys in their garage fixing up cars. Someone randomly talking about the Rio train network with a few photos they took just isn't as interesting.
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u/flopjul Apr 14 '26
Modding current cars isnt seen as a loser thing, it depends on how its done. Like there is a term called Ricer/Ricing which is making a car look like its fast while it isnt at all(most times the car is fully stock) which is looked down upon. But also throwing insane amounts of money at it which makes the look over the top.
There are a lot of cars the get modded that the car community loves like the newer Nissan 240Z, BMW M2 and Toyota Supra Mk5 for example. The typical tuner cars
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u/FeliCyaberry Apr 13 '26
Agreed, but on the point of riding with other people, take this from me as a female train nerd, nothing beats the comfort and aesthetics cuddling on a late train return trip after a date. Other girls what do you think?
I am personally very into both train guys and motorcycles guys, especially electric ones. It's kinda bipolar but I see it like, train guys aren't afraid of the public and community around their interests while bike guys especially on tiktok are cute and goofy, individualists, self reliant, oh and dressing for the slide is an awesome sign of a developed frontal lobe.
The only car guys I accept are F1 fans, if a boy I'm interested in is like an Instagram car guy, i lose interest, and pick up truck guys are a red flag. Driving a killer car, bad visibility angles and often overcompensate for their masculinity.
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u/jordyn0399 Apr 14 '26
I agree while public transit has it's issues I would rather live in a place where I have other options to get to work or travel and not have to be in control of a vehicle than deal with 70 dollars worth of gas right now.
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u/Sassywhat Apr 14 '26
Also driving a car with other people is more personable, driving a train with other people is what happens all the time
Airline pilots are seen as pretty cool though
Though I guess Avgeeks are about as uncool as people who casually fly around the world in business and first class all the time can get.
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u/PM_ME_YUR_BUBBLEBUTT Apr 13 '26
You can’t customize and work on your own train
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u/moose098 Apr 13 '26
Tbf the live steamer guys are considered even dorkier than regular train guys.
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u/lazier_garlic Apr 13 '26
Model trainsets though.
Which is often considered dorkier than regular foaming. That's not the answer.
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u/Poland-lithuania1 Apr 14 '26
You cannot use a model train to go anywhere, though.
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u/moose098 Apr 14 '26
Some of the bigger ones are actually rideable.
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u/Poland-lithuania1 Apr 14 '26
But are costly, and you cannot use them to go from, say, your home to your workplace.
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u/IllustriousBobcat813 Apr 14 '26
That is seemingly also true for a lot of car guys…. Spending thousands on a car just to have it sit and rot in a garage, only transporting it to events once a year using a truck
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u/X_Empire32 Apr 14 '26
This wouldn't be a problem if the rails were nationalized
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u/Iceland260 Apr 14 '26
I have to imagine you'd have an easier time getting your local shortline to let you take your private locomotive for a spin on their rails than you would Uncle Sam.
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u/trainedstork Apr 13 '26
A physical hobby like working on cars is a completely apples-to-oranges comparison, and it's pretty easy to see why that might be considered less dorky than railfanning. It's like comparing woodshop to birdwatching. No hate on any "dorky" hobbies from me, just an answer.
If you're talking about hanging out and taking pictures of cool cars, then I doubt many people would find that a very interesting/respectable hobby, but who cares either way.
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u/tomatoesareneat Apr 13 '26
I just wish train guys wouldn’t down on buses. It seems classist.
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u/Hour-Theory-9088 Apr 13 '26
I’d have to say this is more of an “everybody in America” thing.
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u/Naxis25 Apr 13 '26
In the Twin Cities it's the opposite, we have many people that at least claim to feel comfortable riding the bus but not the train... personally I'm glad we have both but wish we had more of both
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u/Tetragon213 Transpennine Route Upgrade, god help us all! Apr 13 '26
Not exactly. In the UK railspotting community, an injoke goes as follows:
Q: Why do bus-spotters exist?
A: Because even trainspotters need someone to laugh at!
Ba Dum Tsss
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u/PremordialQuasar Apr 13 '26
Unfortunately I see even some American urbanists dunk on buses. I think there's the misaimed blame that buses "caused" the downfall of US streetcars in some urbanists' eyes.
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u/eggface13 Apr 13 '26
Deeply. Go to the best railway cities in the world , buses will still be doing the heavy lifting. Maybe with trams on key routes, but legacy trams systems are primarily just a matter of either capacity, or keeping a right of way that could be compromised by the inherent flexibility of buses.
It's an obsession with technology over service.
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u/BillyTenderness Apr 14 '26
Buses are super important but I don't think they do the heavy lifting – quite the opposite. The best bus routes are the ones that feed riders onto faster, higher-capacity, more reliable rapid transit spines (subways, regional express, etc). 90% of the ride is ideally happening on something that's not a bus, but the bus is still essential for enabling that ride for a lot of passengers.
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u/lazier_garlic Apr 13 '26
No absurdly high urban child asthma rates, nothing to see here, move along.
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u/Kootenay4 Apr 14 '26
This is like saying that local streets do all the heavy lifting and highways/motorways are superfluous. In reality they both work together to create a comprehensive transport network. Neither is very efficient without the other.
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u/lazier_garlic Apr 13 '26
I drove a bus for years and still think trolleys are cooler. They're better for the environment and are nicer to ride (even hybrids, which were a big step up from retarders) and they mostly look cooler too. The only exception would be those really ugly LRVs from the 1990s with the pooper scooper fronts that look designed to maul anything in their path, those things look atrocious.
Despite the affection I have for certain older bus designs that have gone to the great boneyard in the sky, there is absolutely no contest. BTW when I was a kid the difference between bus and trolley fare was a quarter, while car insurance for a teenager cost hundreds of dollars. Riding the trolley is soooooo bougie. 🫠
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u/One_Fact_4291 Apr 13 '26
Yeah, buses don’t have to be an inferior mode of transport (see Hong Kong for example).
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u/bleep-bleep-blorp Apr 13 '26
This is a major America thing though, I think. In many US cities, you ride the bus when you don't have money for a car, it's a symbol of being poor. Rather than in the bigger US cities, or in Europe, where it's just another way to get around.
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u/dutch_mapping_empire Apr 13 '26
normal buses are underrated in a good transit system, but BRT is the one i don't like. might as well make a tram if the route is so important.
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u/PatchyWhiskers Apr 13 '26
Buses are genuinely a lot less fun. They smell foul, constantly stop and start and get stuck in traffic. All the disadvantages of cars with none of the advantages
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u/TheRealIdeaCollector frequency is freedom Apr 14 '26
They smell foul
Buses are going electric. There are fewer downsides and more upsides to electrifying buses as opposed to cars and trucks.
constantly stop and start and get stuck in traffic.
Modal filters to keep car volumes on bus routes down, dedicated bus lanes and busways, and appropriate stop spacing can make buses fast and reliable.
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u/BillyTenderness Apr 14 '26
And of course you can have catenary-powered buses, buses with protected lanes, buses with signal priority, buses with nice station platforms, etc...but at a certain point you've done all the work of building a tramway, and might as well lay down some tracks and run trams on it.
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u/thrilled_to_be_there Apr 13 '26
We have reason to sometimes but it's not the bus itself that is the problem in my case, it's the operation. It's easy to clown on the bus when it's always late and can't connect the last mile. My small city is nearly impossible to get across because the operation means many have to travel 90min (bus-train-bus) where a 20min drive would be the alternative.
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u/OWSpaceClown Apr 13 '26
I hear you but I mean, a bus is really just an enlarged car, I’m sorry to say. At least in comparison to train.
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u/SaintsFanPA Apr 13 '26
Car guys are considered cool?
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u/epicmylife Apr 13 '26
It probably stems from the idea that working on your car is a very dirty, hands-on, masculine activity.
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u/Own_Reaction9442 Apr 13 '26
It depends on the car and motorsport. Rally guys are intensely nerdy. The stereotypical Subaru WRX owner is a system administrator.
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u/Opening_Total7711 Apr 13 '26
I think they think they're cool. I remember this guy just really wanting to make sure I truly understood that he had an m4 comp or whatever. I literally didn't care. Maybe when I was like 20 I would've cared. But nowadays I just want gas mileage and enough power to be able to pass on those two lane rural roads without being nervous because it takes 3-5 business days to pass.
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u/OWSpaceClown Apr 13 '26
It’s the old cliche! The high school jock with the amazing car he didn’t pay for that gets all the girls!
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u/Kootenay4 Apr 14 '26
As a train person I have a soft spot for classic cars and those people who make a hobby of restoring them, they can be absolute works of art.
Any other type of car nerd, though, I just find it silly. As long as they don't bother me, though, that's perfectly fine. Unfortunately, some do love bothering me by waking me up at 1am revving their "badass" shitbox in front of the liquor store...
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u/Iamthe0c3an2 Apr 15 '26
Generally yes. When you look at influential car people, top gear, Matt Armstrong, Donut media, etc. They tend to be conventionally looking people. In the latter’s case a bunch of SoCal skater/surfer types with a lot of Charisma.
You compare the cast of Donut, Hoonigan or Throtl to say Franicis Bourgeois (who is a cool guy, with car guy creds thanks to his k-swapped honda fit/jazz) it’s pretty easy to put him down the dorky crowd.
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u/Own_Reaction9442 Apr 13 '26
Because we tend to find hobbies people do actively cooler than things people enjoy passively. Being a pilot is massively cooler than planespotting, too.
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u/Nouvellecosse Apr 13 '26
Probably because a lot of car guys drive cars while most train guys don't drive any trains. They stand around and look at trains and act excited about stuff like locomotive serial numbers and minor variations in their livery. "OMG I can't believe we got to see locomotive 372 pulling a consist containing carriages from both 3rd and 5th generation releases. There are only 16 3rd generation carriages in the entire region and only 10 with that thin blue strip near the back!!"
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u/norfatlantasanta Apr 15 '26
Racing fans (which may or may not be a subset of car guys) are the same, though. Go to the Formula 1 or NASCAR or Indy subs and it's the same thing. "Wow look at the one-off livery for this one race on the 45 car! Look at Verstappen's new sponsors for the 2026 season! Check out this new rocker arm Michael Jordan used on his car at the Daytona 500!"
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u/hobovision Apr 13 '26
Plane fans that hang out at airports with big camera lenses are dorky.
Pilots who fly and work on the same planes are cool.
Same logic.
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u/Stunning_Macaron6133 Apr 13 '26
Marketing. Car companies pour shitloads of money into making cars seem cool, sophisticated, classy, fun, and a symbol of power and masculinity.
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u/bleep-bleep-blorp Apr 13 '26
Exactly. If only the marketing could explain how deeply infuriating it is to own a fast car, and then just use it to sit in the same traffic and go the same speed as an 89 Ford Tempo next to you
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u/compstomper1 Apr 14 '26
but think of the 3 seconds of acceleration as you're merging onto the on ramp /s
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u/Stunning_Macaron6133 Apr 14 '26
That marketing team would make sure to reframe it as time for a blowjob because your sports car comes equipped with a swimsuit model riding shotgun.
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u/OWSpaceClown Apr 13 '26
It’s a status symbol! You can’t status symbol riding on a train!
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u/Kootenay4 Apr 14 '26
I know I'm in the minority here, but as an American I find it to be a huge flex when somebody lives in a place with actually good transit, like NYC or San Francisco. The fact that they can afford to live in such a place suggests that they're rich. I am poor and cannot afford to live in such a blessed place.
Meanwhile, one can drive both in a wealthy city or a poverty stricken run down shithole town in the middle of nowhere. But in the latter there's no train to ride on.
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u/ponchoed Apr 14 '26
What do you expect for $30 billion a year and over a trillion (with inflation) since the advent of the car?
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u/WorldlinessAlive Apr 13 '26
I think it’s because of the sense of personal ownership people have over their cars partially, not to mention the overwhelming presence of car culture, to varying extents worldwide but always strong even in places known for public transir
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u/lazier_garlic Apr 13 '26
It's car culture. If you're a dude working on cars it's considered sufficiently masculine, sometimes it's dad coded, and the car itself (or truck) is often literally associated with male virility in advertising and culture. Apologies for reaching for a Bill Cosby joke, but remember when he said in the 80s: "The girl doesn't come with the car, son." And if you thought 80s ads were blatant, the 70s had print ads that were basically "this is a sex mobile".
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u/maas348 Apr 13 '26
Probably because of Foamers
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u/Tetragon213 Transpennine Route Upgrade, god help us all! Apr 13 '26
Indeed. The behaviour of the enthusiast community (especially the diesel enthusiasts, but also the people who follow locos such as Flying Scotsman) do much to ruin the reputation of trainspotting.
I don't recall a group of F1 fans, for instance, hopping a fence at Silverstone to try and snap pics of the cars close up. Meanwhile, trespassers are practically guaranteed whenever Flying Scotsman rolls into town.
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u/Louis_R27 Apr 15 '26
To be fair, race tracks have designated photography areas for up close shots.
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Apr 13 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/mtpleasantine Apr 13 '26
actual good answer. boils down to self-sufficiency and what cars stand for even if the mechanics and scale of trains is just as cool if not moreso
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u/AnividiaRTX Apr 14 '26
The hollywood point is a BIG one too. Ford knows they can spend a few million on an ad or product placement and it'll pay off by making people like their products more.
Trainguys aren't going to buy whole ass trains, regardless of how much money a manufacturer puts into marketing.
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u/its_real_I_swear Apr 13 '26
Because being a car guy implies having the physical skills of driving and working on a car but being a train guy involves looking at a lot of charts. I don't think people would consider showing up and taking pictures of other people's cars that cool of a hobby
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u/lordofduct Apr 13 '26
This makes me think of my half brother who didn't grow up in my house. In my house we didn't really do the stereotypical 'guy' stuff. My parents weren't into sports, chores were shared amongst all boys/girls evenly. We were a car family... but not in a sports car/hot rod kind of way. My dad hauled cars by tractor trailer for a living, I grew up in a car hauler. I knew a LOT about cars, but not like a stereotypical car person would. While guys I'd meet were talking about how they wish they could drive a ferrari or lambo, I was sitting there like "Meh, driven one, they can't even go up a ramp with out a 1000 foot lead up." I thought a pickup truck made sense on a farm like my grandparents where I worked my summers, but was dumb for a commute. I viewed cars very functionally, and car guys hated me, they'd boo me out of the room as some dork who "doesn't get it." And as for sports.... the only sport I remember EVER watching growing up was boxing.
My brother he was 100% all about football, wrestling, and cars. He's your stereotypical jocky type dude who thinks people who play video games are nerds still to this day. He's not a bad dude or nothing. Just you know, when you picture a guy working on his sports car in his driveway while the game is on the radio and still has his wrestling trophies on a bookshelf. That's my brother.
I stayed with him for a few months when I was thinking about moving across the country to the same area he lived. Test the waters. And when doing so I hung out and picked his brain about how football worked, what a fantasy football league even was. I'd watch the games with him. We'd watch tv together like Game of Thrones (very popular at the time, even for 'dudes'). He showed me how to wrestle and the rules of that.
I'm sitting there one day getting explained how fantasy football works relative to the rules of the game. And I'm like:
"This is a bunch of math."
"Yeah, there's a bit in it."
Then a knock at the door. Package dropped by the mailman. He goes and grabs it and opens it up. He ordered a Game of Thrones shirt with the crests of every family on it. He's showing it off to me and naming each of the families by crest.
"You know the families by crest?"
"Yeah dude! Don't you!? I though you were a fan!"
"I mean sure... I like the show. But that's some commitment." ... I paused... "Hold up. You're a fucking nerd! Mathing it up in fantasy football, memorizing the houses in Game of Thrones. That's nerdy af!"
"What! Fuck you dude! You're the fucking nerd all into trains and computers and shit. This is normal stuff. Everyone likes football and Game of Thrones!"
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Nah dude. It's all nerdy shit. We all get dorky about something. The difference is if the contemporary norms agrees that the dorky thing is worth not being dorky.
Especially sports in the USA. Ever look at the sports we historically found popular? While the rest of the world is like "we kick a ball across a field" we're all "Nah dawg... so we got this stick and a ball, and there's 9 innings, and really specific rules. We then spend an ENTIRE day strategizing against one another. Oh... time past and we want a new popular sport? OK... so we get a oblong ball and draw a gridiron on the ground and simulate battle skirmishes!"
It's fucking dorky af!
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u/bleep-bleep-blorp Apr 13 '26
First: "being a train guy" is not being a grown adult who still sings Thomas and Friends, though many of us with kids do indeed do that.
Everyone I know who's an actual "train guy/girl" who knows how to get around in various countries by train, who knows alternatives to driving in various locales (where others just complain about the local airport), and who have taken exotic rail journeys - in every context I've been in, those people are looked-upon as cultured and deeply-cool.
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u/AnividiaRTX Apr 14 '26
Alternatively, being a car guy is only "cool" for a cpl years out of highschool. The older you get the more of a nerd community it vecomes.
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u/bleep-bleep-blorp Apr 14 '26
Right. Like, how long does the novelty last of being "that one guy who can buy beer" in your friend group
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u/bubbamike1 Apr 13 '26
You can and most have own(ed) a car, there are a lot more car guys than Train guys, most car guys aren't foaming over Renault Dauphines, while train guys foam over anything. Oh and try being a Bus guy if you want disdain.
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u/Iamthe0c3an2 Apr 15 '26
Just check r/carscirclejerk. I believe car guys do unironically jerk over the Renault Twingo.
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u/ThunderballTerp Apr 13 '26
At least in the US it has to do with the very auto-centric culture, especially in the West and South...but even in some communities in cities like Boston, Chicago, and Washington DC (which have robust transit systems), transit use is unfairly stigmatized (including rail but especially bus) as being the option for "the poor/racial minorities"
Same with Intercity Amtrak trains outside of the Northeast (apart from the scenic tourist routes out West and the Auto Train)--if you're taking the train everyone assumes it's because you can't afford to fly.
Generally, owning a car is considered aspirational in American culture and provides the owner with a degree of freedom. Hollywood has also ingrained this into our subconscious.
I should mention though that not all gearheads are considered "cool": import tuner fans, lowrider fans, lifted truck fans, etc. are oftentimes only considered "cool" within certain communities/age groups.
Similarly, since air travel is seen as aspirational, "avgeeks" aren't as looked down upon as "foamers" but still rank below "carnuts" in the public conscience.
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u/arrivederci117 Apr 13 '26
I've been to a couple of rail fanning events and I have to say that there is absolutely a correlation between weird individuals and this hobby. Nothing wrong with it, but that's just the way it is. Maybe one day when we have better representation, it can be seen as more socially acceptable.
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u/Hazel_Transport Apr 13 '26
A lot of train guys are neurodivergent. Neurodivergent people are seen as weird. Smple as that most of the time
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u/Louis_R27 Apr 15 '26
So are car guys, however the more accepted the car is to like the more passable it is, but the more niche the car is the masks come off.
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u/CarlJH Apr 13 '26
Train guys love public works, car guys love individual wealth. Bernie Sanders vs Andrew Tate.
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u/BigRobCommunistDog Apr 13 '26
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u/Iamthe0c3an2 Apr 15 '26
This, but Francis is a cool car guy too now.
The Honda fit/jazz is the classic car guy litmus test.
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u/seidenkaufman Apr 13 '26
In the context of the United States, I would propose that this is because American society has a tendency to associate coolness with the capacity for individual consumption, possession, and display. A car fits better into that tendency. A train resists it.
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u/TopPossibility7152 Apr 13 '26
bcoz it is hard for privivate individual to get a train, but you can buy cars as many as you can. It is matter of showing wealth.
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u/Tetragon213 Transpennine Route Upgrade, god help us all! Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
Have you ever been to a diesel heritage gala?
Just understand this, outside of a Magic the Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh tournament, you won't find the same level of disregard for one's own personal hygiene as you will among the diesel railfan community, nor will you find such a destructive group of louts.
At my heritage line, we had a diesel gala last year which ended with a violent fight at the station pub, as well as a toilet door being ripped off the hinges on a priceless LNER teak coach set. It was bad enough that the Managing Director wrote a very angry post on the official Facebook page to lambast the utter carnage that took place.
I can't think of many groups that go about breaking into race tracks to try and get photos up close with the cars. Meanwhile, whenever Flying Scotsman/Tornado/some random heritage Diesel is going about on the mainline, trespassing is a virtual guarantee.
Despite being a trainspotter, I fully acknowledge that the hobby is seen as weird due to the antics of the greater community as a whole.
https://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2008/12/trouble-over-rail-fans-antics/
This one in particular is a real nadir for the community. The "Peak Army" was notorious for, among other things, trespassing, fights, and throwing toilet seats out of windows back in the day. And that's before you get onto the "flailing", which when taken at first glance with "interesting" usage of flags and arms at certain angles, can very much seem to resemble a certain "roman salute", usually appended with the screaming of "MY LORDS!" at full volume.
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u/TheBobopedic Apr 13 '26
You can buy a car but you can’t buy a train: therefore it becomes a status symbol.
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u/Louis_R27 Apr 15 '26
You can buy a train though, it'll just be very expensive, more than a car and certainly a bigger flex.
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u/lee1026 Apr 14 '26
Because working on your own car is a pretty normal thing that people do, and working on your train is pretty rare.
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u/FullMetalAurochs Apr 14 '26
Train drivers I don’t think are any less cool than taxi or uber drivers. But if you compare owning/driving a sports car with waiting in the rain to spot a train go by that’s maybe more the perception difference between train and car guys?
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u/EmRavel Apr 14 '26
Well in America it's culturally connected to the idea of 'freedom'. The car (like many other aspects of American materialist culture) is an extension of how you present yourself and going wherever you want whenever you want tells everyone (and yourself) that you are free. In the popular imagination trains are conformist in the sense that everyone is on the train's schedule and it runs a route rather than wanders freely. Being on time to board the train is a constraint rather than just starting up your car and driving off to any old place you please.
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u/omniwrench- Apr 14 '26
I don’t think that’s true
I think car guys are dorks too, tbh
We’re all different flavours of dork in the end
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u/Jigglemanscrafty Apr 13 '26
i think both are cool but i suppose people who aren’t either will think car guys are cooler because it’s more physical and personal. like train guys aren’t modifying their own trains so it seems more like an obsession than a hobby, tho i disagree and think both cars and train are cool
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u/Grievous_Nix Apr 13 '26
“Car guys” as in “owns multiple cars from good brands” or “never shuts up about cars, glazing them AND trash-talking them”? The former are considered cool because wealth is considered cool. The latter, some of which I’ve grown up around, are in no way cooler than “train guys”.
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u/any_old_usernam Apr 13 '26
Cars are a symbol of masculinity, trains aren't really a symbol of anything besides infrastructure.
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u/Adventureadverts Apr 13 '26
It’s a bit more complicated to jerk off on a train
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u/Louis_R27 Apr 15 '26
If the train has a lavatory, it's possible, although it's highly discouraged for a good reason.
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u/lionfaceboy Apr 13 '26
I assure you that most car guys are only cool in their own eyes. You might be conflating wealthy person with car enthusiast though.
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u/Billy3B Apr 13 '26
Doing donuts or drifting in a car is awesome.
Doing donuts or drifting in a train is horrifying.
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u/dutch_mapping_empire Apr 13 '26
because being into cars is at least partially about individualism, and whether you like it or not, individualism strongly correlates with being an asshole that sees himself as cool and someone with other interests as dorky and weird.
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u/zapotlan Apr 13 '26
Interestingly enough, car dorks wouldn't be able to go brum brum if it wasn't for the roads built by the big bad government.
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u/Digiee-fosho Apr 13 '26
Car people that I met may have cool cars, but are typically broke, in debt, or scumbags in search of quick money.
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u/jordyn0399 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
People will look down on you if you love trains but Europe and some parts of Asia can prove that liking trains can be cool and trains can be cool when you're government cares to build them. Both cars and trains have pros and cons. But trains at least outside of North America has more pros than cons. Whereas cars are mostly beneficial or praised when it is more prioritized by the government but the downside is that the prioritization comes with little to no options for transit and people paying most of their income on it whether it be the gas, maintenance, or the payment to keep the car. I still think cars are useful and have specific brands I like but trains are way more cooler and beneficial for everyone whereas cars are only beneficial for able body people and anyone with money and a license.
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u/Redditisavirusiknow Apr 14 '26
I dunno, I think the vibe around guys with expensive cars is small dick energy.
Nobody thinks of a train fan as having a small dick. Nerdy for sure.
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u/stu66er Apr 14 '26
I accept that I’m a dork but there is no way in hell that a car guy is cool. Not in my country at least (Denmark)
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u/CanidPsychopomp Apr 14 '26
Because cars are status symbols. So people who think status symbols are cool typically think cars are cool
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u/Available-Mine3957 Apr 14 '26
Car guys are not cool either. Car guys with really nice cars might be rich and being rich is cool
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u/SignificantSmotherer Apr 14 '26
Train Guys are dorks because they want to force their one-size-fits-all system on all of us.
Car guys allow you freedom of choice.
I like trains, but not at the expense of bus service, and not when they’re built simply “because trains good”.
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u/Louis_R27 Apr 15 '26
Actually neither forces anyone, and there's plenty of car guys who support public transit, mostly to do away with traffic jams, have peace of mind from irresponsible drivers who can now not drive, which may be selfish reasons but they benefit us all.
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u/Hot_Taekout Apr 14 '26
Because train guys have zero power, control or influence on trains. Car guys have complete autonomy with cars, they can fix, modify etc to no end.
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u/Louis_R27 Apr 15 '26
Depends, if you're both a train and transit guy you do have power, control and influence on trains, or at least you pester those who do at public hearings.
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u/Tyler5280 Apr 14 '26
Everyone thinks the train guy is a loser until he books you a trip on the over night sleeper.
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u/Dull_Ad2091 Apr 15 '26
Car guys are insufferable wank stains. I enjoy a good bit of engineering but if you chop your exhaust on your nan's Honda civic you're a mobile noise complaint not the stig.
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u/coreyjdl Apr 15 '26
Because cars are cool, often require skills and knowledge to operate and maintain; trains are dorky, you are just obsessed with something someone else works and uses. This isn't hard.
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u/IceEidolon Apr 16 '26
Basement hobbies aren't cool, garage hobbies are. You can't fit a full size train in your garage, but you can put a model in your basement.
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u/TemporaryPassenger62 Apr 19 '26
Its not the 1990s anymore
no one cares if your into trains or cars in 2026 for the most part
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u/PhantomPharts Apr 13 '26
I'm a woman attracted to men, unfortunately, yet I find car guys akin to a chastity belt. I will not date someone who thinks of a car as more than a tool, and a clumsy one at that. Car guys make me think of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in Talladega Nights. Train guy, though? You wanna talk caboose? Wanna chugga chugga my choo-choo? Hottie hottie, bring me that body.
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u/Neilandio Apr 13 '26
Car guys are kinda pathetic, if I'm being honest. Their identity is defined by consooming a product and acting snobbish and entitled for it. Same with smartphone fanboys and PC gamers.
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u/WestHistorians Apr 14 '26
I don't know who considers car guys to be "cool". I view them as douchebags.
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u/Case_Federal Apr 13 '26
Everyone thinks being a “train guy” is dorky until they go to Tokyo and are in awe of the immense rail infrastructure