Birth of spotting.

[froobyone]

I was struck by a thought today.

Is it possible that trains where the first things that people went out of their way to "spot"? I should add that the term "spot" is used to encompass interest in the subject, not necessarily the writing down of numbers.

I somehow can't imagine lots of Georgian children hanging around street corners shouting "Quick there's a two-horse four-wheeler coming!" and "I wish the Industrial Revolution would hurry up."

Did railways in fact spawn a whole new way of spending your time and did that naturally lead on to Plane spotting and buses and so forth?

The fact is, there was a very small number of people in the beginning who shared our thrill of railways. Most people involved in early railways were of course looking at them from a "this is a job" point of view. However, at some point, a person not connected in any way to the workings of the railway said "I really like looking at them. I don't know why, I just do." It could possibly even be filtered down to a single individual. The prototype train fan.

He would have perhaps stood somewhere lineside on the Stockton and Darlington and watch the coal trains rumble sedately by. It would have been quite lonely. No magazines to buy. No clubs to join. No one to share the experience with. Eventually, he would be joined by more people at the lineside. Drawn by the clank of metal -the smell of hot oil and steam.

Twenty minutes later they'll have been in full blown argument over the number rivets on the boiler.

And so our hobby was born.



 

[BoD]

It started with Noah ......

 

 

....... I've still got Mallard and Bittern to tick off.

[Mallard60022]

I believe Ian Allen's list of SR locomotives was the birth of 'real spotting'. I read somewhere that he was asked to supply it for an interested member of the public.I await the true story.....

P

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I will venture to suggest that train spotting (and other spottings) are all sublimations of hunting behaviour. Mighty hunter waits by known location or route of prey behind his hide (notebook) with spear ready (pencil) waiting to collect the prey (train number) and take it back to the cave (cave). That's why it's a male occupation mostly, no need to hunt vegetables...