Fear of trains fear about rail travel was heightened after British surgeon John Eric Erichsen described a post-traumatic diagnosis known as railway spine or "Erichsen's disease". People diagnosed with this had no obvious injury and were rejected as fake. Nowadays it is known that traffic accidents may cause posttraumatic stress disorder. It has been variously called as "train phobia", "railroad phobia", "dread of railway travel", etc. The German term "Eisenbahnangst" used, e.g., by Sigmund Freud was literally converted into Greek as "siderodromophobia" (Eisen = sideron = iron, Bahn = dromos = way, Angst = phobos = fear). In cases when this anxiety exceeds
Fear which in extreme cases of fear (horror and terror) can be a freeze response or paralysis. In humans and animals, fear is modulated by the process of cognition and learning. Thus fear is judged as rational or appropriate and irrational or inappropriate. An irrational fear is called a phobia. Psychologists such as John B. Watson, Robert Plutchik, and Paul Ekman have suggested that there is only a small set of basic or innate emotions and that fear is one of them. This hypothesized set includes such emotions as acute stress reaction, anger, angst, anxiety, fright, horror, joy, panic, and sadness.