Story Of Me

Every Railfan Begins As A Foamer

I started posting train videos in late 2013. I used to just sit and enjoy them, and had not thought of filming and posting. The first time I did, a westbound manifest which I have now figured out to be NS 11V went west at about 1 PM. I was totally uneducated about the railroad back then, as is every beginner railfan. 11V had 4 passenger cars at the end of it (all of which I believe were Amtrak Horizons and Amfleets). Not only that, but NS 9255 (Horsehead OLS Dash 9) was trailing third out behind an SD70M-2 and an ES44DC. Like I said, I was very uneducated back then. I had no clue what "Heritage Units" or "Special Interest Units" units were, and I didn't know train symbols either. Also in my early years, I did things like called out running numbers, and basically screamed at anything interesting that was on a train.

Abandonment of the old channel

As my railfan years progressed, I was learning so much. Now, when I look back on all my old stuff and see how little I once knew, all I can do is cringe. As for my YouTube channel, all of my stuff was posted as private links, and that's why you can't find anything from my beginning years. Ever since I went public in 2015, I was running under my new name: Choo Choo Ben. My old channel gained a total of 70 something subscribers before I had to abandon it. I save my edited videos to my gallery to upload, so thus no videos were being produced. I was, and still am, using Inshot to edit my things. However, this was OG Inshot, as it had been just released a year earlier. Many bugs were present in the app. But I was forced to abandon my channel not because of these bugs, but my electronics themselves were showing their age. My old Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 had cracks all over the screen, a bad camera, and a whole list of things wrong with it that are the size of a typical NS 25Z. I finally got a new Tab 5 with a better camera & processor, got a new Inshot, and also a new account....

the modern Choo Choo Ben

I had lost complete access to the old Choo Choo Ben, so I ended up creating a new account under the same name, which has become my current account that I use today. I started posting videos hoping that some of my old viewers would find my new channel. It seems like a lot of them have. I once again got an upgrade to the Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e, and then the enhanced S5e, which I used to film trains in 1440p with. (Now I have an S20 FE 5G which shoots in 4k60) I made myself a website with the OG Google Sites, then updated to the newer version when it came out. I am now on the road to 400 subscribers. It may not seem like a lot to most people, but it's a lot for me. I started streaming every weekend at 10 AM. Until I did 60 live streams, I simply used my tablet. YouTube then raised the bar, telling me that I needed 1,000 subs to continue mobile streaming. I stopped for a period of time. I then got a webcam and continued my streaming. My streams were then getting unrightfully taken down for no reason, so I stopped again. Now, I basically stream whenever I want. There is no set schedule for them. I also had a Discord server at one point, but I shut it down due to inactivity. I never thought I'd be able to make it this far. Thanks to everyone who has helped me to grow my channel, and to everyone who takes time out of their day to watch me. I really appreciate it.

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