Published on 05/07/06 in the Fostoria Focus
Riding the rails, from Copenhagen to Fostoria
By Leonard Skonecki
Focus Correspondent

If anyone harbors doubts about Fostoria’s ability to attract railfans, now is the time to cast them aside.
Just consider two folks who came to view the trains here this past Easter weekend.
Finn Moeller and Nette Andersen came a long way to satisfy their interest in trains — a very long way.
Finn and Nette are from Copenhagen, Denmark.
“There are a few places that are famous for trains and Fostoria is one of them,” Finn said.
Finn and Nette spent three weeks in the United States. They flew into Miami on March 29 and departed for home around April 20.
This was far from their first visit to the U.S. They’ve been here roughly a half dozen times.
They rent a car and drive around the States with an emphasis on watching trains. They’ve been to Deshler and to Rochelle, Ill., a mecca for railfans.
Finn comes by his interest in trains naturally enough. He works for the railroad in Denmark. He subscribes to Trains Magazine and pursues his hobby on the Internet.
Nette assists people with their pensions.
They enjoyed their stay here. The volume of trains made Easter a good day for train watching. Monday was a little slower.
Finn and Nette aren’t the first international railfans to choose Fostoria as a destination. A few years ago, two men from Australia stopped here on their American cross country train vacation.
The Focus wants to thank Aaron Gonya at Dell’s for tipping us off to Finn and Nette’s visit. They stopped there for lunch on Monday. The Focus caught up with them at the Kaubisch Memorial Public Library where they stopped to check up on their E-mail.
Aaron is a member of the Fostoria Rail Preservation Society.
Best Western Fostoria Inn & Suites manager Marti Frederick is also a FRPS member and chairs the Fostoria Area Visitors Bureau.
“It’s a pleasant surprise to have people come to Fostoria from so far away,” she said, “But we have had many, many railfans stay here at the hotel over the years so we know just what an attraction the trains are for Fostoria.”
We’re glad Finn and Nette came to visit Fostoria and hope they had a safe and pleasant trip home.
Their stop illustrates the drawing power we have here in Fostoria in the form of all those big, ear-splitting, traffic snarling, ground shaking locomotives that bug many of us who live here and fascinate the daylights out of all the people who travel here from all over just to watch and hear and feel them.