Beginners question

[samuhell]

Hi all, I hope I'm posting this question in the right place, please advice if I'm not.

I've been interested in the hobby of trainspotting only a few months now, I've been enjoying going to several viewpoints around Doncaster and I've been lucky with some of the locos I've seen to this point, however, I am wondering how you folks know when interesting locos are passing through different spots at different times. I was lucky enough to drop on today and I saw the "Battle of Britain Memorial Flight" passing through Doncaster station today. I saw several other trainspotters who wandered up just on time to see it pass through.

How did they know it was coming? I understand this is a very basic knowledge for most of you, so I hope someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance.

Sam

 

[hexagon789]

Hi all, I hope I'm posting this question in the right place, please advice if I'm not.

I've been interested in the hobby of trainspotting only a few months now, I've been enjoying going to several viewpoints around Doncaster and I've been lucky with some of the locos I've seen to this point, however, I am wondering how you folks know when interesting locos are passing through different spots at different times. I was lucky enough to drop on today and I saw the "Battle of Britain Memorial Flight" passing through Doncaster station today. I saw several other trainspotters who wandered up just on time to see it pass through.

How did they know it was coming? I understand this is a very basic knowledge for most of you, so I hope someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance.

Sam

Many normal Train Operating Companies publically display train unit and locomotive numbers.

Real Time Trains, has a 'Know Your Train' feature, with every participating TOC displaying train allocations against booked services.

LNER is a participating operator and you can search by locomotive and unit numbers, typing 91110 into the search box on RTT gets you this:

Realtime Trains | 1403 London Kings Cross to Leeds | 05/11/2024

Real-time train running information for 1403 departure from London Kings Cross to Leeds on 05/11/2024. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Click on 'detailed mode' for more precise and detailed timings.

 

[The exile]

One of the “sticky threads” just above the blue line you’ll see “frequently requested diagrams”. These won’t tell you what a particular loco is doing, but they will help you work out the future… (Locomotive xyz went north on the 10.00 to York - so unless anything goes wrong it’ll be back on the 14.00 to London). No guarantees, of course, but trains will stick to their “diagram” unless there’s a good reason for them not to.

 

[samuhell]

Many normal Train Operating Companies publically display train unit and locomotive numbers.

Real Time Trains, has a 'Know Your Train' feature, with every participating TOC displaying train allocations against booked services.

LNER is a participating operator and you can search by locomotive and unit numbers, typing 91110 into the search box on RTT gets you this:

Realtime Trains | 1403 London Kings Cross to Leeds | 05/11/2024

Real-time train running information for 1403 departure from London Kings Cross to Leeds on 05/11/2024. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Click on 'detailed mode' for more precise and detailed timings.

I appreciate that advice, thank you

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Nov 2024 ==

One of the “sticky threads” just above the blue line you’ll see “frequently requested diagrams”. These won’t tell you what a particular loco is doing, but they will help you work out the future… (Locomotive xyz went north on the 10.00 to York - so unless anything goes wrong it’ll be back on the 14.00 to London). No guarantees, of course, but trains will stick to their “diagram” unless there’s a good reason for them not to.

Thank you for the information.