Being someone who loves language and the language arts, including simple, factual description of a situation or an environment. So he doesn't mind answering questions about the train, and rather enjoys it. Likewise, answering questions about himself. But he also likes asking questions and listening to the answers.

The afterlife in Curufin's world isn't heaven. It's the dark Halls of Mandos, in which spirits drift about without aim, and in which they tend to be solitary unless there are particular people they wish to meet again after death. Curufn had no affinity for such an afterlife, and he was afraid that his gods would judge him harshly for his actions during life, and never allow him to leave those dim Halls. So he didn't take the chance. Whether these gods would have destroyed him for such disobedience or not, he did not know. He had cleverly escaped the disapproval of his gods by making himself unobtrusive until such time as he was snatched into another world. Maybe the gods had known where to find him and never exercised their power to do so. Or maybe they had not really disapproved; maybe they had understood that he had returned to the land of the living in order to make amends to some people whom he had harmed during his first life. There was no way of knowing that now.

"Tell me of your world? Do your people have an afterlife?"