"Trains are one of the most interesting transports ever designed. They're bigger and more powerful than most land vehicles, with a variety of shapes that give them a gentle giant sort of character. It's not hard to see why people would slap a face on the front, that's just the sort of thing we humans seem to do instinctively. If anyone ever gives you a hard time for still having an interest in LEGOs, thinking it's a just kid's thing, point them to model railroads. How many grown adults, even the elderly, set up model railways in their basement, investing dozens, hundreds, and even thousands of hours and who-knows-how-much money into designing their dioramas? Using LEGO as an outlet to forget the tedium of the daily grind isn't too different, and a combination of the two hobbies was inevitable. In fact, the first LEGO locomotives were released in 1965, over a decade before the first modern-style minifigs..."
[Of the parallels between the railways and the church] "Both had their heyday in the mid-nineteenth century; both own a great deal of Gothic-style architecture which is expensive to maintain; both are regularly assailed by critics; and both are firmly convinced that they are the best means of getting man to his ultimate destination."
— Rev. Wilbert Awdry creator of Thomas the Tank Engine
Mario Head: Ooh, look! It's a[n] express!
Dr. Robotnik: Right! We'll take the train!
Dr. Cortex: Of course! I love trains!
Dr. Robotnik: Right! We'll take the train!
Dr. Cortex: Of course! I love trains!
Lord, why do you hate my trains?
—Rev. Timothy Lovejoy, The Simpsons, after his train diorama is destroyed for the nth time that episode
