AMcBW

I can't say for certain when I got into trainspotting, but I have always loved trains from an early age. I would have to hazard a guess at spotting at two and a half decades.

When I say adventures, I mean long trips out on rovers and rangers to far away places and back home in one day... Seen a few sights, I have to say, including a guy boarding a late night train in a tuxedo but with diving flippers on his feet! What make it adventurous is the fact that I can go to stations that I have never been to such as places that only have one or two trains a week.

Post 4 of 4

What keeps up my interest... Well, I guess I'm the sort of person who likes self-documentation, so this is a fairly natural thing. I think I'm a fairly atypical trainspotter, in that I'm not concerned about whether I've seen a particular unit, and I don't care too much for locomotives either. Frankly it's more the journey side that interests me. I created a database which could hold my trainspotting information, which allows me to easily enter what trips I've made and calculate the mileage for it. I also produce data visualisations, such as https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MMB_railway_sizemap.svg, however what with the interconnectedness of London, I gave up updating this particular style of map.

I'd say though that my first real trainspotting, rather than station spotting, was when I went to Birmingham for an interview. I'd been through Birmingham several times, going between Nottingham and Bristol, but this was the first time I actually paid attention to the railway, rather than just using it. It was around this time I started writing down train numbers, the date/time, where I'd seen them, where they were going, etc. I still maintain this record, and it's now around 25000 rows.

(Post 3 of 4)

I've liked railways my entire life, but I got in to trainspotting in late 2008. I'd just graduated university when the bottom dropped out of the economy, and so I ended up unemployed. When I went to the job centre for the first time, I came out feeling quite incredibly depressed, and so decided to go out taking photos somewhere. At the time I'd been working on categorising all the photos of Bristol on Wikipedia, so I thought about what needed more pictures, and thought that some of the stations could do with some. My granny had lived next to Redland station, so I started there, Clifton Down and Montpelier. I took trips to my local station (Nailsea & Backwell) as well as others such as Yatton.

(Post 2 of 4 due to message limits)

I wouldn't say I do that much trainspotting - for me it's less about spotting trains than visiting new bits of railway. I tend to go on trips around the city once or twice per month, plus any trips I make at other times (visiting my parents, etc). I'm not a social trainspotter, but I'd imagine you could find a lot of people at the east end of Clapham Junction, or the south end of London Bridge.

(Post 1 of 3 due to message limits)