Man's childlike enthusiasm for trains leaves people wondering if they love anything half as much

Some people's enthusiasm for a certain activity is inspiring. It could be for a sport or an art form, or anything else that they are passionate about. Francis Bourgeois, who goes by @francis.bourgeois on TikTok, loves trains and his video on spotting a certain train just shows how much he is amused by them.

"I got out at 4:30 this morning as I heard there is a really rare train coming through Shawford Station. It's class 56 and it's due here in a moment," he says in the video.  

As the train passes by, he appears extremely thrilled with childlike wonder and says, "They gave me a shock."

He then races to another station called Leamington Spa to get a glimpse of the same train again. "And oh my God was it worth it," Bourgeois says in the video.

As the train honks to leave the platform, Bourgeois starts laughing and running behind the train. The video ends with him shouting, "Hellfire!"

The video went viral with 3.4 million views and 288k likes. It is captioned, "56098 and 50007 at Shawford Station and then Leamington Spa Station!" People on TikTok were thrilled to see Bourgeois' excitement for the train. @travislindseyom commented, "I want to be this excited for anything in my life lol." @leeannmuir71 wrote, "I'm sitting with a big smile on my face watching the joy in yours."

@deturman22 expressed, "Dude your excitement is amazing. That fish eye camera kills me every time! Did you just scream 'hell fire!'" @msbeegrouptravel.com shared, "I have never been so happy for someone being this happy seeing a train, love it. Made my day." @ja50nmk2 wrote, "Mate, that was great. Not done train spotting for 40 years but remember the 08 hunters and the deltic was my favorite. Keep [the videos] going!!!

The same video was posted on Reddit by u/_Maui_ and gained more than 67k upvotes. It is captioned, "I wish I loved anything half as much as this guy loves trains." u/HHHHHHHHHHHHHAppy commented, "I always blew the horn for the foamers. It always made them happy and that made me happy. When you operate locomotives every day it gets routine and you forget how cool it actually can be. Made me feel like I was a kid again when they'd get so excited."

u/CatterpillarEnough900 wrote, "A very special moment for a very cool guy! Thank you. Keep it coming my man!" u/Grego54 expressed, "That was very enjoyable to watch. I hope this guy sees every single train that makes him as happy as he is in this video. Props to the engineer to sound the horn as much as he did at the station as well. Very cool."

Though Norma Romero and a few local women are not as passionate about trains as Bourgeois, they do care about the people traveling in them. For the last 28 years, the women wait every day at the side of tracks with food and bottles of drinking water to hand out to migrants who travel from Central America in search of work. They started a non-profit called Las Patronas for the same cause.

The name "Las Patronas" came from their village, but it has a wider religious connotation, in which "patrona" means patron saint in Spanish. The long freight trains reportedly go through the village in Mexico two or three times a day and there are often migrants from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua who travel on the roof of the trains to the United States looking for work.

Today, the Las Patronas’ kitchen is more like a factory that makes dozens of portions of basic meals like rice, beans and packets of eight corn tortillas. The women give out food to hundreds of migrants every day. The Las Patronas organization has also donated rice, beans and tuna cans in the past.

Local businesses and villagers also donate bread, rice, beans and tortillas. "And we're just thinking about cooking 25, 18 or 22 pounds of rice, making another 22 to 25 pounds of beans, and keeping watch,” said Lilia Jimenez, a member of Las Patronas.