Eastern Railroad Discussion > How many Railfans are there????

Just a curiousity question:

How many railfans would anyone say there are in the world? An average number maybe?

(This is not a Railfan Vs. Foamer) (I mean Railfans....people who like trains)

Tony

There's 2,847 of us. What? Are hand counts next? Not everyone can handle that, you know, Railfanning IS serious business.

Joe H.

...

:)

Want to know how many railfans are in America? No problem. Simply call microsoft software division, and see how many copies of Train Sim they hawked. Seems to me that after the initial rush after release perpetuated by technofoamers, sales droped off dramaticaly. They cant hardly give the game away now. Seems every railfan in america has his/her copy now, and noone else is interested. They should be able to give you a near exact count. (and a coupon for 50% off trainsim!)
TR
Savannah Ga

Of course, the whole thing can be reduced to pure maths. Take Ireland as an example. The membership numbers of the two main railfan societies suggests (after removing duplicate memberships) about 1,000 railfans in a population of 4 million - thats about 0.025%.

If you extend that to the US where the population is (I think) 256 million, you get potentially 64,000 railfans.

But if we go back to the Irish example, only 20 or so of that 1,000 are "active" - out lineside most week-ends recording activity. 20 of 1,000 is 2% giving a suggested number of 1,280 "active" railfans in the US.

Extending this to the rest of the world is more complicated as there are more variables - countries with no railway system, countries where an interest in the railway system can get you a long term in the gulag, etc. I would suggest there are only about 2 billion people with unrestricted access to railroads giving a possible world railfan population of 500,000 of which 10,000 could be described as "active".

:-)

If you search WWW with the right keywords you will find 15,678,934 websites listed for railfans. This is plenty to consider without counting the ones without websites. Now if all these fans were organized and blowing in the right direction you would not need nuclear power and could possibly encourage an increase in global warming. :o)

Ask the people who would want the data: folks selling stuff to us. No one with a responsible business plan would pick a niche market like railfans without some data to support future income.

The readership of "Trains" et al. Kalmbach has a huge headquarters, so they must have some idea of the market.

The website search was a good idea, Especially websites like trainorders.com

"Pentrex presents...."

Tourist rail operations.

Cresson Inn, et al

There are now railfan parks up and running/being built because local governments want those dollars we spend on motels, film and restaurants.

As places like Altoona and Sacramento lose real rail jobs they are converting to rail tourist dollars.

So there has got to be a significant body of railfans out roaming around, but just for the sake of argument, I'll guess 856,069 in the US (40% less in Canada) and 5,666,013 worldwide. And I have absolutely no real data to prove it. I base that solely on the number of daisy pickers I have in my photos!!!

"Trains" sells something like 110,000 copies a month according to their last required US Postal Service "Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation."

Those are just the ones willing to shell out $30+ a year for one magazine.

Throw in the modelers, many of whom don't give a hoot about prototype railroading past or present; millions of Amtrak riders; and all the trackside spectators for [what remains of] mainline steam excursions who always seem to get interviewed on videos saying things like, "I rode a train once, back in '38 before the war," and I suspect you have, well.....a lot.

total railfans worldwide : 17,835,144.

TriangleRoute wrote:

"Seems every railfan in america has his/her copy now, and no one else is interested."

I don't have a copy of MS TrainSim and am entirely disinterested in the prospect of getting one, no matter if someone gave it to me or not.

Joe H.

I have no idea how many railfans that there are but you can count me as a railfan since 1944.

Bob_In_Maine wrote:
>
>
> So there has got to be a significant body of railfans out
> roaming around, but just for the sake of argument, I'll guess
> 856,069 in the US (40% less in Canada) and 5,666,013 worldwide.
> And I have absolutely no real data to prove it. I base that
> solely on the number of daisy pickers I have in my photos!!!

Statistics prove that 47.3% of all statistics are made up.

Considering railfan and model railroading magazine subscriptions and taking an adjustment for duplicate subscriptions to mulitple magazines I would guess there are around 400,000 diehard fans in North America.

However, not counting magazine subs (I don't subscribe to any), I would guess there are at least a million fans. I consider a fan someone who at the least pulls over to the side of the road to watch a train go by.


Todd

Another thing to remeber. Alot of copys of train-sim were bought by non railfans too. There are alot of Game Fanatics out there. I just happen to be one of them as well as a avid railfan.

Oh and another thing. Were not the colinbine killers that all you people like to think of us as. Were normal people just like you and completely peacefull and harmless. So please, drop your steriotypes of gamers.

Where I went Saturday....... TOO MANY!!!!!

Well theres got to be at least a few million world wide. I remeber hearing somewheres that in the UK or somewhere in europe Railfans are as common as sports fans here in the US.