International car number and train websites and attitudes

[paul1950]

Maybe people on this forum have found some nice websites with photos or videos of trains in other countries, but my search came up with far more international car number sites than international train sites. Also, it seems that car numbers in some other countries are more popular than car numbers in the UK. On platesmania.com, one of the most comprehensive car number sites, there are more numbers from many other European countries, even much smaller countries like Hungary, than from the UK. Is there as much, or maybe more, interest in trains in other European countries than in the UK? And could any differences be partly due to more tolerant attitudes? Maybe it's much more acceptable to be a car or trainspotter in e.g. Hungary than in the UK? If it was, I'm sure it would encourage more people to pursue their interest.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[duesselmartin]

My personal perception is that the UK far exceeds on train spotters and hetitage railways compared to continental Europe.

As to car numbers. I guess it also depends on data protection culture in the respective countries and how much railways are part of their daily lifes.

 

[dutchflyer]

Can only fully agree with above-the UK was already mentioned as ´thats where those trainfreaks live´ when I about started my own interest in also trains (as it started with buses, then trams-at the time living in a trainless village) many, many moons ago. Including even having printed magazines on that for sale in about any kiosk/bookshop.
Carplates: some countries allow their people to choose/pay extra for ´cherished/wanted´ special nrs (like in Thailand anything with 8, or 88, or even 8888=very lucky nr in Chinese belief) and this will hence lead to special interests. In NL, my country, its hardly an issue as there is no way to have any influence on that. THere is some rush when a new type of order comes in (letters/figures). Plus that: look at normal stats:
people who use/own cars in west-EUR outnumber people who rely or just use trains (and tram/metro etc.) with a few times more.

 

[paul1950]

Yes, I'm sure there's a greater interest in railways in the UK than in most other countries. But, judging by platesmania and other car number sites, there seems to be a huge interest in vehicle registrations in many countries. Platesmania has 24.8 million photos! There are 600,000 German plates and Germany doesn't even have vanity plates.

The other question, which is more difficult to answer, is whether people are more or less tolerant of carspotters and trainspotters in other countries than in the UK. Having travelled and lived in other European countries, I would guess that, on average, they are a bit more tolerant.

 

[DanielB]

Didn't even know carspotting existed prior to this topic. But it appears to me that with improving quality of mobile phone cameras the number of bus- and trainspotters is increasing in the Netherlands. Anyone has a smartphone nowadays, so that removed the hurdle of having to have a camera. Especially the younger generation of spotters grew by those developments, which previously would just be interested in buses/trains only.

What still surprises me is that with trainspotters it is much more common to take care of a nice composition of photos. Most bus spotters however produce images filled with a bus for almost 100%, there are very few trying to go somewhere else than a bus station or making the bus part of the bigger picture.