When I was a child, I was convinced that there was a certain type of criminal who specialized in pushing people in front of on-coming subway cars. I used to ride the subway with my Mom in NYC quite a bit and she was always warning me not to get too close to the yellow line because someone would "push me into the path of the train" -- I didnt realize that she meant that this might happen accidentally. Rather, I believed that every station had armies of "bad guys" looking to toss people in front of trains as they come into the station and that anyone who got too close to the edge of the platform was going down.

trainspotting

I used to think that the clinker and gravel you see between the rails and sleepers on the railway line was actually the "remains" of people having used the lavatories on the trains.

Sue

I used to believe that ferry boats were trains that moved above water. Then the first time I was in one, I spent the whole trip trying to see the railtracks beneath the water line. I don't have to say that I couldn't see any.

paty

I used to believe that it was a strange coincidence that every time the train I was sitting in passed a railroad crossing, the gates were closed. When we travelled by car, the gates were almost never closed.

Stefan

My mom would tell me to stay off the railroad tracks because the trains were silent and super fast.

Roger

We didn't have trains where I grew up. I got a train set and it had a circular track. I wondered how anybody got anywhere if trains only went round in a circle. Then I discovered the world was round. Obvious wasn't it!

Dennis

There was this travel agency in my neighbourhood that was also selling train tickets. Actually, they had in their window this ad with the local train company's logo on it. As a little girl, I was really impressed by trains and was dying to get in one someday. So, my aunt told me one day, near the travel agency, that we would go there and take the train together. She must have forgotten telling me about buying tickets, because starting from that day, I believed that the train was passing in the agency building. I thought it was deep in the ground, near the subway station, and that we would have to go down a lot of stairs. It was a really big thing in my head, thinking that my little neighbourhood was big enough to have an underground train station. It took me awhile to realize that it would be impossible to have such a train station, espacially since there was one downtown... My mother laught when this year (I'm 23 now), I told her about this story.

Dobby

One morning when I was four my father left to catch a train into the city for work. He returned a short time later because the trains were not operating that day. My mum then told me that there was a 'train strike'. This was the first time that I heard the word stike (where you stop work to protest for higher pay and or better conditions), I actually thougth of the word 'stripe'. Being very young I had no idea what a strike was so I pictured all of the trains in the city being covered in black stripes (such as being tagged with graffiti) and infested with nasty black vines which made them unsafe for taking passengers during the strike.

Anon

My younger brother swears that I told him if he stood between the rails on the railroad track, he couldn't be injured. Yes, he's still alive!

Mary

When I was little I thought that trains crossed from one track to another like you could do with cars in Scalextric, by the driver shifting a joystick to the left or right.
Nobody told me they had connecting tracks at junctions!

Rob

for a long time i thought that the only trains in the U.S. were the ones in the NYC subway line. the other trains would have been too outdated to outlast the 50s

josieg

If you looked really hard out the train window while going through the tunnel under the river, you would be able to see the fish right up close...

Sue

I used to think the underground railrooad was actually a well built under ground railway system built by the blacks and abolitionists to escape the slave states under GROUND!!!

Draqula

My grandfather told me that if train conductors waved out their little windows their arms would get stuck and they would have to stay that way. Then we would wave at the passing trains, more often than not getting the engineer to wave back. I always felt a little guilty about making the poor guy be stuck, but that didn't stop me from waving.

Lily

i live in chicago, and when i was little, my mom and me took the electric train downtown. i fell asleep and when i woke up i looked out the window and i said, "mommy look....we're in China." to my dissapointment, my mom said, "no that's china town...we're still in chicago." i was mad, but hey...kids believe everything.

Mallory

I used to think they let people draw and write on the trains to make them pretty. (NYC in the 80's)Sra. Narcissa

Anon

When trains (subways) go underground, my little sister thought that the lights were shooting stars.

Katie

When i was younger, and i didn't understand how trains and subways worked. i would never know how they could have one train going one way, and another train going the other.

i used to think that they had people waiting at the end of the track, to take the train off, and turn it around, so it could go back the way it just came from.

badger

When I was 3, I went on a trip with my father that involved going on a commuter train. I was the only child on the train that I could see, and I was terrified that the conductor would come and throw me out because this was obviously a grown-up train.

Anon

Living in Chicago means riding on the "L" train. One of the stops was for a street called California and I thought it really WAS California. The only thing I didn't understand was wht we skipped all those states in between.

Ligit