[Ads-l] foamers???

[George Thompson]

>From a review of several books on train-travel, in the TLS of April 10,
2015.  (The reviewer, Jerome Boyd Maunsell, is said to be working on a
biography of Susan Sontag, whatever that tells us about him and his
knowledge of trains or slang.)

"But the train, once a fearsomely futuristic invention, now seems quaint or
romantic to many, its enthusiasts denoted as “railwayacs”, “trainspotters”
or (in America) “rail-fans”, “foamers”."

I've never encountered the word "foamer" in this sense.  More
significantly, neither has JL (HDAS) or Jonathon Green (GDS).  Nor can I
imagine why a train bug would be called a "foamer".

GAT

-- 
George A. Thompson
The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998..

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