Some forms of that go on on this side of the pond.
Carl rarely gets caught at a crossing without a notebook, and has probably the most extensive catalog of railcars in the country. If you throw a car number at him, he can usually tell you when it was built, by whom, and who has owned the car.
Several rail cams now have logs of trains that pass them, including symbol, motive power, and often special notes about the train. Like the taco train, AKA “Iron Maiden.”
We could make trading cards with a different locomotive number on each one.
“Complete your fleet, gotta catch 'em all!”
Why stop there? All sorts of heritage fleets. All sorts of ‘foobie’ fantasy color schemes or alternate-history railroads? Panther Hollow at Halloween time?
Special metalized cards for the Budd equipment, and embedded batteries for LED and EL lighting and sound effects… Heck, the history of Pokemon alone gives you all the ideas you’d need for generations and generations of milking the resource, Docomo-style…[}:)]
I notice that nobody mentioned cigarette cards, back in the olden days. There were no few of these with railroad subjects, though admittedly none I know that went so far as to have examples of a particular class with different numbers to collect – which would to me have been an obvious thing for British tobacco companies to try to exploit. (Something that always vaguely troubled me was how much overlap there would be between schoolboy train enthusiasm and a tobacco-related source of the cards…)
I do have to add – in part, truthfully, since Kalmbach has tricked me into double-posting – that I appreciate the pun/double-entendre on ‘catch’.
Hey, speaking of Virtual Railfan here’s the link to the Strasburg Railroad camera. They’re open for business, and with sun in the sky, snow on the ground and steam in the air it looks like a Howard Fogg Christmas card come to life! Check it out! Cool!
Dang - shouldn’t have gone there. Makes me miss being able to work on the railroad this past year all the more.
Thanks, Flintlock. One of these days I gotta get up there.
You’re welcome Paul! Let me tell you, I want to go to Strasburg to die! [;)]
And when you do, they’ll make sure you get cremated properly!
There is a shop on Cecil Court (which has a lot of bookstores) near Covent Garden in London that sells all kinds of cigarette cards. Locomotives, famous cricketers, race horses, racing cars, birds, warships, you name it. A guy in the shop said that they went away with the beginning of WW2.
When I first went over to the U.K. about 15 years ago I wish I knew about the Ian Allan books. I would have bought the one that covers every extant steam locomotive and logged when and where I saw each one. Every heritage railway I’ve visited normally has one or two in steam but in the sheds there are a lot more. For example, in the case of the Bluebell Railway they must have at least 20 locomotives either in storage, under restoration or just waiting to go out on a run.
Friends of mine have regular notebooks and write down dates and locations and numbers of every EMU or DMU that they see. Now, that’s a bit much. To me, anyway.
The question is why they’re doing it.
I thought the idea of ‘trainspotting’ was to get a register of having seen everything once, not bothering with numbers you already had in the book. Logging dates and numbers is more related to figuring out how the equipment is being used, whether there are identifiable patterns or preferences, etc. I confess to having done that with some engine numbers (the IC SD70s that have been operating over the ex-Southern Railway NS, for example) to get some idea of how they are being used. But to write it all down just for spotting does have a certain anal-retentive swing to it.[;)]
Flintlock, thanks for that link. I went there as soon as I saw it (a little before 2:00), and I saw one train leave and take siding, and another train arrive. Very cool. Beautiful sight.
I have always thought that “trainspotting” is just the British term for railfanning. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the term “railfanning” used in a British context.
Thanks, I’d forgotten about that cam. And they are putting on a real show. Running TWO steam trains with up to ten cars, leaving on 45 minute headways. One arrives and waits as the other departs. I rode it back in the '60s. A real professional operation.
Hope we haven’t scared the OP away…
I want to be the very best,
Like no one ever was!
To catch them is my real test,
To train them is my cause!
Can you train a train?
I took one last look at that Strasburg cam about an hour ago, looked like they were putting #89 to bed.
Good-night, 89!
Or coach a coach?
Or train the trainer? That’s a no-brainer…
Veering into Dr. Seuss territory here. In the rain, on a train, with a goat, on a boat?