Local Man Admits He's An Idiot
Years of self-denial leaves him "broken, shattered to the core"
by Joseph C. Hinson
January 3, 2001

In a prepared statement, Joseph C. Hinton has confessed to what many have suspected for years: he's a moron. Not only that but he's a hypocrite, too. "I was walking the railroad tracks. Actually walking the railroad tracks! How incredibly, enormously idiotic of me. This moment of self-realization has left me a broken man. I'm literally shattered to the core. I thought I was one of the smart ones."

Just last week, he raked a fellow railfan over the coils for doing the same thing. To that man, he has a message: "I want you to know that I will personally pay your transportation, all expenses up to and including hotel rental, food and hooker, to come to South Carolina where you can give me the ass kicking I deserve." Hinton went on to say that he would sign a waiver agreeing not to sure the man for any damages, hospital fees or dental care that may result from said ass-kicking. "What can I say? I deserve it."

The statements comes just after hours the trespassing. Hinton, virtually foaming at the mouth to get some railroad photographs after the recent snow storm that blanketed most of the area with six to ten inches of the stuff, saw a train sitting in a siding. The train was unattended, but idling. He got out of the car and let his wife take the wheel since there was no where to pull over safely in the snow.

"I had three options," Hinton said in the statement. "I could walk beside the highway. But with it being a four lane road and knowing how South Carolinians drive in normal conditions, much less in the snow, I thought that might not be a good idea. The next option was to walk in the grass. But I didn't know how deep the snow might be and since I was wearing regular tennis shoes without thermal socks, I decided this was out as well.

"The only other option left is to walk up the railroad tracks. I realize that I should have stopped myself at this point and either walked the highway or give up on the shot. In any event, it never snapped that just because I could do something, didn't mean I should do something. So I started walking up the tracks. About halfway to where the train was sitting, the crew onboard let me know in no uncertain terms that the train was, in fact, attended."

Hinton said the crew blew the horn and flipped on the ditch lights. "They probably didn't want to open the door to yell out me because that would let the warm air out of the cab."

"I feel so bloody stupid. I was wrong. Furthermore, since I did it this time, it suggests that I do this all the time. And that simply is not true. I realize I must now turn in my Idiot Railfan ID card to the nearest railroad museum as soon as I can." He also plans to donate a few dollars to a steam engine preservation campaign as soon as he finds one. "I may even donate my Trains Magazine subscription to a dentist or doctor's office."

Said a member of the train crew speaking on condition of anonymity, "I know I personally had just started respecting him as a person, especially with the recent article about him in the York Herald. But this just proves to me that you can't trust a railfan. They don't think like normal people."

Bob Ludwig, head of Railfans Anonymous, said, "It does paint a bad picture of railfans in general. Most railfans never encroach on railroad property. But Hinson, I mean Hinton, is a loose cannon and always has been. In many ways, this doesn't surprise me at all. A lot of railfans have resented him since the Rock Hill Herald article came out. This may be just the thing they need to push him out."

Becka Richardson says she sees him come in all the time. She's a photo lab girl for a local Eckerds. "He comes in every so often with his rolls of film. Most of them are train shots. I don't say anything about it because he basically is keeping us in business, but why would anyone want to take a picture of a train? He gets very mad if his shots aren't perfect, like I don't have anything else to do except slave over his damn train shots. He does have a nice camera though. I just think it would be better put to use taking pictures of something besides trains."

Hinton could not be reached for comment after the statement was released. Several reported sightings have taken place. One Wal Mart customer recalls seeing him picking up four packs of Kodak 400 speed film. "He was in a daze, wearing a grey sweat shirt and matching gray sweat pants. He stood out from all the other people wearing grey sweatshirts and gray sweat pants because he kept talking to himself. Something about being a fucking idiot who needs to get a fucking life. I didn't listen too long, I just got me and my teenage daughter away from him as fast as I could."

I'm trying to decide why I did this. I mean, to some I am being too hard on myself. We're not talking about a Class 1 mainline here where 48 trains a day go by at 50 miles per hour. We're talking a shortline railroad. But now it just sounds like I'm making excuses for myself.

I think it goes to show that I am feeling entirely too comfortable around my subject. I'm starting to think of myself as less an outsider and more someone who knows what's going on. I need to remember that I'm an idiot railfan, not a railroad employee who works around this stuff all the time. If I were a wildlife photographer in Africa or somewhere and I got too close to my subject, I might be dinner for a lion or something.

At the same time, if I were a photographer following a sports team, rock band or politician around the country, I might almost have to go a little too far, to encroach more than I normally would, to get the best shot. It might actually be expected of me to test the limits of ethics and big guys with "Security" written across their chest. But not when the subject can flatten me or eat me.

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