trainspotterspotting

[brendan_dj]

What is it with Stratford station in East London?
Today, no less than 6 train-spotters; all with cameras taking pictures of freight locomotives moving through the station. The other day I counted 4.

At what railway stations do you see the most trainspotters?

 

[Woodywizz]

Crewe

 

[williemaykit]

Haven't noticed them to be honest but if you are into boat spotting, there are plenty of vantage points at my house. A frigate went by today.

 

[madcyril]

Staffords popular,keeps em off the streets.And they are dedicated,I know of one who recently saw a smoking engine at Nuneaton,found out it gave up at Tamworth so drove to Tamworth station and waited on the platform for nearly 12hrs so he could film it being rescued.

 

[Miniholic]

At what railway stations do you see the most trainspotters?

Doncaster station is usually full of them, you should see how excited they get when the old stuff comes into the works. Quite well prepared bunch too, dictaphones, camcorders etc.. I've even seen them with walkie talkies.

Never seen the attraction myself, but each to their own.

 

[Steven]

Staffords popular,keeps em off the streets.And they are dedicated,I know of one who recently saw a smoking engine at Nuneaton,found out it gave up at Tamworth so drove to Tamworth station and waited on the platform for nearly 12hrs so he could film it being rescued.

Is someone coming clean?

 

[madcyril]

Possibly or I was driving the rescue engine.

 

[lisa burrell]

Dad says Reading station is the one then stratford
because there is a great love for the class 37 went over my head that one


[email protected]~~

Ah a class 37

http://petertandy.co.uk/class37.htm

 

[williemaykit]

http://petertandy.co.uk/class37.htm

too much Thomas the Tank Engine as a Kid?

 

[jackal]

.....................Awwwwwwwwww leave 'em alone, it's whatever floats your boat right?

There is a railway bridge at the end of my farm track and there's often a few there. They are always polite and give a wave (and maybe two fingers as I drive off...........)

 

[Setenza]

Loads congregate on platforms 3 and 4 at London Bridge at the incoming end.

Some even video the trains. They are harmless and aren't bothering anyone. But their elevated profile is obviously fuel for "comments" from the public.

 

[RugbyAl]

Saw a documentary/article on the tv years ago that put forward the notion that a chemical imbalance in the brain could lead to obsessive behavior. Apparently men are considerably more prone to this condition than women. Makes sense really, men are more likely to become obsessive about collecting things, or have an interest that absorbs more of their free time than it really should.

Others (inc. my wife) have actually taken taken the mickey out of me for my interests in gadgets and all things AV, although I have'nt bought an anorak yet!

I can certainly see there's something special about big old steam trains, but modern deseils?

Strangest obsession I have seen was a group of blokes who were mad about roundabouts! They even travelled all around the country to measure/photograph them

 

[njp]

Years ago I used to go on narrow boat holidays (essentially a sort of low speed extended aquatic pub crawl) with a group of people. I was slightly bemused when one of the group insisted on jumping off the boat at regular intervals in order that he could photograph railway bridges. It turned out he had a vast collection of pictures of these. I always presumed (but didn't like to ask) that he had already photographed all possible trains and was now working his way down the list of items of lesser interest, and was destined to end up photographing individual railway sleepers.

I did actually try to read a couple of articles in a railway magazine once. In the first one, a chap had helpfully plotted graphs of the speed of the train versus the incline of the track, over an entire journey (I forget which one, but it was documented in excruciating detail).

The second one began with the words "Now we turn once again to the ever-green subject of exhaust-beat synchronisation in the articulated Garratt locomotive". I'm afraid this caused me to convulse in fits of helpless mirth and I was quite unable to continue.

 

[brendan_dj]

Saw a documentary/article on the tv years ago that put forward the notion that a chemical imbalance in the brain could lead to obsessive behavior. Apparently men are considerably more prone to this condition than women. Makes sense really, men are more likely to become obsessive about collecting things, or have an interest that absorbs more of their free time than it really should.

Others (inc. my wife) have actually taken taken the mickey out of me for my interests in gadgets and all things AV, although I have'nt bought an anorak yet!

I can certainly see there's something special about big old steam trains, but modern deseils?

Strangest obsession I have seen was a group of blokes who were mad about roundabouts! They even travelled all around the country to measure/photograph them

Agreed... I am sure many people find us "sad".

We can easily have a rant and rage about all kinds of stupid/trivial things on this website...

Discussions from "Dead pixels on particular TV cameras", Chasing BBC-HD trucks up the motorway to see what they are about to film, and the location of the on-screen football score on Sky Sports.

Many people on AV forums (including me) are on the quest for AV perfection. I am sure many other people could justifiably say to us: "get a life"

I wasn't having a "dig" at trainspotters, I just thought I would coign a new word "trainspotterspotting" I was thinking of taking pictures of them and asking for their names to put up on my trainspotterspotting website.

The good thing about our hobby is that we can all do it in the pricavy of our own homes.



EDIT: Hey... i have just discovered that www.trainspotterspotting.com is not yet registered.
I have an idea.....

 

[GasDad]

Somebody posted me this link ages ago (honest lol)....

Thread on a train drivers forum -

Spotter Spotting

I don't get the obsessive behaviour, but I will stop and watch a train go by.

James

 

[darren_eaf]

Crewe

Why the rolling eyes for my hometown?

 

[Dony]

Quite a few years ago I was waiting in Reading station with a friend.

Having not seen a trainspotter before it took us a while to figure out who they actually were. At first we just thought it was unfortunate passengers who had missed their train and were running up the platform trying to get it to stop.

When the penny dropped that these were real life trainspotters we decided to have a bit of fun with them. Every time a train passed through the station (mostly those high speed inter-city trains) and the spotters took off after them, we took off after the trainspotters. After doing this a few times one guy approached approached us to find out what we were doing. We told him we were doing a college project on eccentricity and were using them as subjects.

He took this as a compliment and started giving us his life history and how he got into it.

 

[fizl]

Warrington Bank Quay has quite a few of these fellas, young and old.

I sit there waiting to go back to London watching them as they film the trains going past.

They tend to have a little AV geek in them, you should see some of the cameras etc they have touting around!

shaz