Author Topic: Trainspotters. Why?  (Read 90779 times)

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #25 on: 30 June, 2011, 06:54:35 pm »
If you've been studying these individuals, does that make you a trainspotterspotter?

A trainzit?
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

YahudaMoon

  • John Diffley
Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #26 on: 30 June, 2011, 06:57:05 pm »
Ive still got my 'Platform 5' Motive Power' log books from 1980, 83 and 84 from my trainspotting days as a child and got a new 'Platform 5' 1998 edition a few year back. I don't go spotting trains anymore though if I see a engine I'll note it and mark it off in my log book

I loved the 'deltics as a child and the class 33' & 40's for there dirty loud engines.

Them Deltics n class 40's (the whistlers) shake the earth on rev.

Yeah I'm a freak.

This just turns me on. Class 40 thrashes out at piccadilly. Check out all the nut job train spotters

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/6nwoVfpZEL0&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/6nwoVfpZEL0&rel=1</a>

Wowbagger

  • Former Sylph
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Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #27 on: 30 June, 2011, 07:02:40 pm »
If you've been studying these individuals, does that make you a trainspotterspotter?


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Biggsy

  • A bodge too far
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Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #28 on: 30 June, 2011, 07:40:10 pm »
I can understand trainspotting steam engines  but not the soul-less contraptions of the modern rail network

Steam was before my time, so doesn't directly connect with me (though I enjoy seeing steam engines in museums etc), but I grew up near railway sidings and a station.  The size, noise and power of a diesel engine was wondrous to me as a little boy, and the whole infrastructure of the rails and 'furniture' is such a different world from the roads that it's fascinating.  There's loads of soul in it.

The only part I don't get is how adults can remain so fascinated that they collect numbers.  But then they may not get how an adult can be fascinated wth reading and writing about bicycle parts.
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itsbruce

  • Lavender Bike Menace
Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #29 on: 30 June, 2011, 07:45:35 pm »
It's some combination of OCD and Aspergers to which some men (it's almost always men) are prone.  Egg collectors are a nastier variant.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked: Allen Ginsberg
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Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #30 on: 30 June, 2011, 08:35:21 pm »
You think trainspotters are weird.
There are also lorry spotters, and not just any lorry spotters, but specifically Eddie Stobart lorry spotters.
There is a program on telly purely about Eddie Stobart's haulage company, and on one they had a whole fleet of brand new lorries delivered, and before they were sent out on the road, a select group of nerds who had presumably all been invited or applied to be there, were let in to just walk around and look at them.
Before they could go out on the road and start making deliveries, they had to wait for them all to go round the whole warehouse and write down the number of each one.
Strange.  :-\

I watch this programme, sadly. It is just wrong, wrong information (2 ways to cross the Thames? Legally drive for 13 hours per day?)
Anyway, you can often see these sad twats people sat by the side of roads, on bridges and hanging around service stations taking pictures of trucks.
Now i like trucks, i can go to a truck show and look at trucks, if i see a nice truck then i will take a picture maybe, but i dont get why you would want to sit on a bridge taking pictures and writing down notes on plates, names and fleet number.
"i think we will produce an excel spreadsheet and cross reference out notes" :facepalm:
One of them wanted their campervan/van being done like a stobby truck. That was the transexual and that other weird chap.

Its OCD, they will get a few then MUST GET MORE!!!!

A customer that goes into my brothers shop does it with buses. He can often be seen near where all the buses go taking pictures and having his note book out. Hi vis on aswell so he can be seen on the pavement, where all the other pedestrians are :facepalm:


Don't question. It makes people angry.

Steve Kish

  • World's No. 1 moaner about the weather.
Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #31 on: 30 June, 2011, 09:04:27 pm »
There's probably a similar thread on a trainspotting forum enquiring as to WTF people ride bikes. ???

I used to be a trainspotter on the platform of Staines station waiting for my ever-late train to arrive.  When it finally did arrive, I went back to scantilly-clad middle-age woman spotting! :thumbsup:
Old enough to know better!

billplumtree

  • Plumbing the well of gitness
Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #32 on: 30 June, 2011, 09:04:39 pm »
And anyway, talk about casting the first stone, from a forum with a thread entitled "Cutlery Lust"...

Quite.  Live and let live, eh?  Meanwhile, over on YATF:

Quote
No, honestly, they have!  It's called "Interesting and Unusual Bikes You've Seen".  63 pages I tell you!

(edit: x-post with Steve!)

Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #33 on: 30 June, 2011, 09:09:12 pm »
So should I stop taking pictures like this and posting them  :-\


RJ

  • Droll rat
Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #34 on: 30 June, 2011, 09:09:36 pm »
It's some combination of OCD and Aspergers to which some men (it's almost always men) are prone.  Egg collectors are a nastier variant.


... with (proper) twitchers somewhere in the middle of the spectrum ;)

Kim

  • Timelord
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Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #35 on: 30 June, 2011, 09:14:18 pm »
There's probably a similar thread on a trainspotting forum enquiring as to WTF people ride bikes. ???

Challenge accepted!


*googles*


*finds many, many threads about the intricacies of transporting bikes by trains, cycle parking at stations and even the occasional organised trainspotter bike ride (along disused railway lines, natch)*

*finds the obligatory cyclist hate thread, RLJ, helmet debate, "why don't they use the cyclepath", etc*


I'm forced to concede that, to a first-order approximation, trainspotters are just like us, only with more threads about trains, fewer threads about bikes and (presumably - I haven't checked) weak lemon drink instead of CAKE.

Actually, General Discussion - RailUK Forums is like a parallel universe version of The Pub.  It's even got some of the same threads.

RJ

  • Droll rat
Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #36 on: 30 June, 2011, 09:16:07 pm »
I would expect trainspotters to take an interest in CAKE too - but simply not to have access to such a wide variety.

Variety?  CAKE?  Hmmmmmm  ;)

jogler

  • mojo operandi
Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #37 on: 30 June, 2011, 09:16:29 pm »
So should I stop taking pictures like this and posting them  :-\



steam is real :thumbsup:

Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #38 on: 30 June, 2011, 09:20:41 pm »


 ;D ;D ;D

jogler

  • mojo operandi
Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #39 on: 30 June, 2011, 09:29:27 pm »
This

Foxfield Railway ~ A beautiful steam hauled trip through the Staffordshire Moorlands


is within easy cycling distance of joglersville,as is this

Churnet Valley Railway Home Page

Both are very popular

Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #40 on: 30 June, 2011, 11:52:54 pm »
It's some combination of OCD and Aspergers to which some men (it's almost always men) are prone. 
A former girlfriend of mine had a sister who was a trainspotter. She was young, pretty, shapely & blonde.

She was very popular.

She good draw rather well, & liked drawing train-related things. Most of her drawings were bought by trainspotters.
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

Martin

Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #41 on: 30 June, 2011, 11:59:01 pm »
I can understand trainspotting steam engines  but not the soul-less contraptions of the modern rail network

you've obvioulsy never done Dawlish Warren behind a Class 50 in full song (try that with a kettle without getting an eyeful of smuts)

sadder still are the coach tours that used to go to train depots to collect numbers. I only ever took down the numbers of ones I'd travelled behind  :-\

AndyK

Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #42 on: 01 July, 2011, 08:09:33 am »

Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #43 on: 01 July, 2011, 08:26:36 am »
No, the Avon Valley Railway, Bitton.
The photo was taken at Oldland Common during their 'Thomas the Tank Engine weekend'.

rower40

  • Not my boat. Now sold.
Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #44 on: 05 July, 2011, 10:56:00 pm »
Saw one today.

He brought his own headboard, so that he could put it on the train, and then take a photo of it.


Warning: Taking photos of trains might affect someone YOU know...
Be Naughty; save Santa a trip

Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #45 on: 05 July, 2011, 11:23:35 pm »
Saw one today.

He brought his own headboard, so that he could put it on the train, and then take a photo of it.


And yet...  My old friend on the railway also told of the time they arranged for a steam service to run with a wreath on the front, in memory of a long time volunteer who'd died the day before the run - might have been a restored loco's first trip I think.

There were outraged letters to the railway preservation press about the abomination of the wreath, wrecking people's photos.
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Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #46 on: 05 July, 2011, 11:27:17 pm »
Warning: Taking photos of trains might affect someone YOU know...


Sh*t!

I think I was on that train  :o

What does that mean ???

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #47 on: 06 July, 2011, 06:08:48 am »
I work with a bus spotter.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #48 on: 06 July, 2011, 06:36:28 am »
I work with a bus spotter.

How did you find out ?

AndyK

Re: Trainspotters. Why?
« Reply #49 on: 06 July, 2011, 07:32:18 am »

That might not be a trainspotter, they could be a twitcher photographing the penguin on the stairs.