Were You A Trainspotter?


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Read it . Bought the Post today for the first time in years !

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Bet it took you all of 5 minutes to read from front to back page eh FLY?  And that would include the obituaries ........   whatever is written in the Post is 2 day old news these days.  

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Well, well, Lizzie, It did funnily enough. All ancient news other than that railway article. Yes, I did read the obituaries actually just in case. 

It's now in the recycling bin ! At least I didn't pay for it.

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1 hour ago, LizzieM said:

Bet it took you all of 5 minutes to read from front to back page eh FLY?  And that would include the obituaries ........   whatever is written in the Post is 2 day old news these days.  

We stopped taking the Post some years ago when it was taken over by a national group. The editorial staff had no knowledge of the area and it had no local relevance. We now have the same problem with our local journal, the Newark Advertiser. This has recently been sold to another national group and it appears to be run by children who have no idea about the locality they are catering for. It's sad to see the way local papers are going, I don't think they are going to be around for much longer.

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I agree Phil, the journalists appear to be uneducated twits, uninteresting stories that are not ‘news’, usually with glaring spelling and grammatical errors.   My old Dad always had the Post delivered every day, normally arriving at lunchtime so obviously yesterday’s news.  He never read it until the following morning while having his breakfast, therefore he was reading very old news! 

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Hi Dave N. I'm proud to declare myself an old trainspotter - Nottingham Vic and Grantham mainly, with the odd trip to Doncaster and York, and one offs to Derby and Tamworth: I could never warm to the LMS locos, with all their bits poking out, and my dad was a driver on the old GCR up to 1964 or so. Like your copping of 60004, the highlight of my spotting was copping A1 St Johnstoun at Edinburgh Waverley in 1961 to complete my A1s. My lasting regret is not taking up dad's invitation to ride the cab from Annesley down to Woodford, although he did let me drive the Dido on one occasion, closely followed by never copping 60011 to complete the A4s. My best Christmas present this year was one to myself - a large quality print of a V2 at the head of the southbound Master Cutler at Weekday Cross, by Rob Rowland (thanks to the recommendation of an earlier poster, whose post I can no longer find). If you've not checked him out, his web site is well worth a visit.  

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I find it difficult to think of anything more mind-numbingly tedious except, perhaps, stamp collecting.

It seemed that I was surrounded at school by kids with their heads buried in Ian Allen's booklets on the pastime (or, failing that, books on philately - I think it was the time of the birth of the Stanley Gibbons empire).

I was cajoled into going trainspotting once. We traveled from Hucknall LMS station to Nottingham Midland and sat there for what seemed like days carefully noting names, numbers, wheel configurations and whatever else trainspotters spot and noting them in a little book which we had bought at the WH Smith's kiosk in the station forecourt.

I lost my book on the way home. You know what? I didn't care. One of the most boring days of my life.

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Well I began at about 8, and finished in my mid teens, and never regretted it. I learned independence, about geography, history, travel,  and the names were mentally absorbed, such as stately homes, countries of the Empire, regiments, race horses, the great and the good, antelopes, literary characters. In fact much more than I'd learned at FFGS over the years.

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Not wanting to get into any heated discussions, but I find fishing / angling mind numbingly boring. I went just once to Boston 40ft, with a school friend and his father. Never again. I was bored, cold as it sleeted, and found the whole experience dull beyond belief.

As we say though, each to their own.

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My dad and the oldest of my two brothers were interested in train spotting. I can remember them going on the Flying Scotsman, they were really excited about it and were buzzing for a long time after about it. When I was a small child (many moons ago) I can remember going on steam trains for days out to the seaside. They used to terrify me when they pulled into the station, all that steam and hissing, I was convinced they were alive and my Nan didn’t help by telling me not to fall down the gap between the platform and the carriage. They were actually magnificent something Diesel engines could never be!

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I agree about fishing as well. I used to be taken as a small kid. There was a trout stream near Top Pit (odd as that may seem) at the bottom of Farley's Lane in Hucknall. My dad had this obsession about catching one of the trout therefrom.

This was another of those occasions where a single day seemed to last a whole week.

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When I was young we visited my grandparents in Radford, which could be a bit boring. So for something to do, we'd go down to the footbridge over the railway at Bobbers Mill and watch the trains for an hour. At the time it seemed interesting, but looking back now.....

 

The irony is that back then - mid 60s - there were no passenger trains on that line, only coal trains going to and from the north Notts pits. These days there are no coal trains - no pits - but there are now passenger trains - the Robin Hood line.

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  • 7 months later...

Can anyone remember which steam engines they saw hauling the South Yorkshireman or Master Cutler ?  

I recall between 55-62 the following. Black 5's, Jubilees, A3's, B1's, K3's, V2's, 9F's and Standard Class 5's. Diesels noted were class 37's, 40's and 47's. Any others ?

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