Wyvern
Established Member
- Joined
- 27 Oct 2009
- Messages
- 1,573
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Train Spotting - Daily Telegraph Article
- Thread starter Wyvern
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
dysonsphere
Member
- Joined
- 22 Jan 2013
- Messages
- 518
LMAO I like railways but would never been seen dead at the end of a platform unless I was waiting for a train.
12CSVT
Established Member
- Joined
- 18 Aug 2010
- Messages
- 2,611
One thing for sure - with a pre-nationalisation GWR coach and a 1954 built Derby lightweight single car DMU, that picture is definitely not Crewe station (unless it was taken in the 1950s or 1960s).
I've found my hobby ever more useful as I have got older. I'm not quite the fanatic I once was when I was younger but being used to timetables and how public transport works has been brilliant. In Auckland with my girlfriend everyone else in the hostel was planning on getting the airport express bus but I sorted out the regular train and bus we needed to get at a quarter of the price. It took about 30 minutes longer but the money I saved went towards dinner and a few beers. Everyone else left at the same time as us anyway, they got to see the motorway to the airport, our train took us along a land spit across the Hobson Bay and the Orakei Basin. Really lovely views. Then we just had to hop off the train at Papatoetoe and on to a bus.
If I add up all the similar savings over 20 odd years of traveling and my hobby has paid for a few nights out on each trip, especially in Poland.
If I add up all the similar savings over 20 odd years of traveling and my hobby has paid for a few nights out on each trip, especially in Poland.
Why would you wait for a train if you were dead?
I used to do a lot of spotting as a teenager - is it was pretty much the "done thing" and most of the lads in my class at school did the same. We got to travel all over the country and met a lot of interesting people as a result.
Of course I could have stood for hours in lonely isolation, folornly dangling a rod over the edge of a reclaimed gravel pit. That would have been much more normal :roll:
Ha ha. Don't even try and work out why one hobby is seen as odd and another isn't. I remember working with one girl who wanted to get the train from Moorfields to Liverpool Central to save time on her lunch. I gave her precise instructions because she was a bit of a dope and she phoned work an hour later from Kirby saying she was going to be late because she got on the wrong train somehow. Apparently she thought the train was taking a different route. Apparently she thought because I was a train buff she thought I was odd so ignored what I said.
Last edited:
PeterY
Established Member
- Joined
- 2 Apr 2013
- Messages
- 1,363
Great days train spotting in my childhood around Hemel Hempstead, late 60's, mostly class's 81 to 86's . Had a good selection of loco numbers crossed off my ABC
Now in my mature years I still like to watch trains but don't take down the numbers anymore. I still enjoy travelling by train and standing on a platform. Even if I'm out cycling, I still have this child like urge to stop and look over any railway bridge.
Could've of been worse, like spending a day hitting a tiny ball around a golf course. LOL
Now in my mature years I still like to watch trains but don't take down the numbers anymore. I still enjoy travelling by train and standing on a platform. Even if I'm out cycling, I still have this child like urge to stop and look over any railway bridge.
Could've of been worse, like spending a day hitting a tiny ball around a golf course. LOL
Last edited:
MK Tom
Established Member
Rail enthusiasm is no different to any other interest, and spotting is just a form of collecting. Personally I don't spot specific individual trains (except celebrities of a sort), but I do collect the classes I've ridden on and lines I've traveled over. When people call me a trainspotter I always correct it to 'rail enthusiast'.
One odd thing I've observed is people find rail interests WAY more normal/acceptable than bus interests.
*Could have or could've!!!!
One odd thing I've observed is people find rail interests WAY more normal/acceptable than bus interests.
*Could have or could've!!!!
Last edited:
Ha ha, I remember ny girlfriend going white with fear when I took photos of buses and trams in Hong Kong.
My wife has no problem with me photographing buses in cities.
She goes shopping. I go bussing.
Couple of hours later two happy campers meet up for coffee!
I am a trainspotter, have been for well over 50 years.Some time ago, I was talking about this with my psychotherapist (I was a counsellor at the time), and we identified two related benefits for my sanity. First, it was a connection with the happy times of my childhood, a sense of belonging to a group of mates, memories. Secondly, in the present, it was an activity completely without pressure, stress, decisions - the numbers arrived, were or were not cops, nothing I could do about it. So I can understand the article mentioning Nietzsche. So many other "relaxations" seem to involve stress and/or decisions. I am proud to be called a trainspotter, connecting to inner peace.
GatwickDepress
Established Member
If the deceased was waiting at London Necropolis station, I think they would have a perfectly valid reason.
Ha ha. She sounds like a good lady. I think my girlfriend was on the defensive after she saw my reaction to the USS Ronald Reagan. Terrible name, amazing ship.
Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
They have worse names that that; they weren't really thinking when they named this one http://www.ponce.navy.mil/ were they?!
Ha ha, very good point, but check out this ship which has an awful name and also hit every branch of the ugly tree when it fell.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=U...-new-ship-really-uss-zumwalt-sails%2F;800;439
Reminds you of the Class 50's and when they gave ships good names and made them look nice.
Last edited:
RichmondCommu
Established Member
As much as we adore our two teenage daughters, I'm not sure that they would entertain the idea of going out with a train spotter and I think that's a real shame. The problem is it's very hard to shake off a stigma. However, even at the age of 16 / 19 they will still happily ride behind steam trains and the 19 year old went inter railing this summer.
Mate if I had had daughters aged 16 and 19 I would have bigger worries than if their boyfriend liked trains and I would hope they would. My girlfriends ex army dad got over it when he realised I knew more about football, travel and engineering than he did and I could take my ale, to be fair to my girlfriend it was never an issue either but she wouldn't tell anyone for a while. It was like her dirty little secret. Ha ha.
Last edited:
RichmondCommu
Established Member
Oh look, I wouldn't have any issues with it at all. Its our daughters who I think would have the issues!
Ha ha. Sorry mate, I worded that wrong, I didn't mean I thought you would have issues. Just that I know where you are coming from and also your daughters. I remember years ago a mate of mine telling my girlfriend I liked trains. It went around the family as though I had been outed as some kind of of pervert. Ha ha. Its all calmed down now though, they see me as someone they can come to for travel advice in secret. Ha ha.
Apologies if it sounded like I was having a go. Its my birthday and I'm a bit tipsy.
Apologies for the offtopic, but weirdly I can't seem to find this term after a quick Google, I've seen it in a few places but haven't been able to completely confirm its meaning from context - I assume a "cop" is spotting a unit/loco/whatever you haven't before?
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Even better when you are on Meols Cop railway station...
Incidentally, the OP drew a similarity between trainspotting and stamp collecting, but I would most certainly claim that the value of my 47 stamp collection albums are worth a darn sight more in real monetary terms than all my red-lined "Combined Volumes" from eons ago and all my 800 railway books in my study/archive put together.
Last edited:
He doesn't do much for his thesis that trainspotting is no different to any other hobby when the man on the platform refuses to engage him in normal human conversation, preferring to count numbers.
Of course coin collectors, stamp collectors and many other hobbyists most likely share a similar personality type, and not one which is exactly 'alpha male', but the difference with those pursuits is that none are as conspicuously public in their oddness as men on a railway station platform.
High-level coin collectors can spend over a million dollars on a coin, and the monetary aspect of this is significant. You can be unemployed, living at home with your parents, and still engage in trainspotting, but many other hobbies exclude these people by simple requirement of having some cash.
A nerd with a billion dollars in the bank is far more socially acceptable than a nerd with nothing.
Of course coin collectors, stamp collectors and many other hobbyists most likely share a similar personality type, and not one which is exactly 'alpha male', but the difference with those pursuits is that none are as conspicuously public in their oddness as men on a railway station platform.
High-level coin collectors can spend over a million dollars on a coin, and the monetary aspect of this is significant. You can be unemployed, living at home with your parents, and still engage in trainspotting, but many other hobbies exclude these people by simple requirement of having some cash.
A nerd with a billion dollars in the bank is far more socially acceptable than a nerd with nothing.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
I am reminded of the old saying...Too much information is a bad thing.
theblackwatch
Established Member
- Joined
- 15 Feb 2006
- Messages
- 10,889
You forgot to mention that other hobby - spending all day (and night in some cases) sat in front of a screen and typing on an internet forum.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
You forgot to mention that other hobby - spending all day (and night in some cases) sat in front of a screen and typing on an internet forum.
Now I wonder to which forum member to which you make reference to...
PeterY
Established Member
- Joined
- 2 Apr 2013
- Messages
- 1,363
I was walking with a female friend near Watford Junction recently and I said "That sounds like a class 66". Maybe not the best thing to share with my lady friend but I don't hide the fact railways is my main pastime. 
but I don't hide the fact railways is my main pastime. Absolutely correct!
tsr
Established Member
I'm in the same position a lot of the time. I don't mind, though, as I'd rather give my friends/colleagues/etc. correct advice (and I'll do the research if needed), rather than watch them struggle with journey planners or extortionate fares. I'd certainly feel bad if they used a ticket incorrectly and got a PF or similar, just because I couldn't be bothered to let them know they were making a mistake! But I am aware that many aren't all that interested in complexities, so I can struggle with finding a "short answer", from time to time!
- Status