The Dark Art of Trainspotting

The word 'trainspotter' instantly conjures up images of bespectacled, anorak-clad obsessives but what is the truth behind the dark art of trainspotting?

Like a time between times, a world between worlds, train stations are by definition transitory places where people either leave or arrive. Nearly everyone has at one time another experienced the soul destroying ennui that rail passengers are forced to endure as they hang suspended in the cold, grey and vacuous limbo of no-man's land that constitutes the windswept and chilly platform. Yet to a select and much-maligned few, who form a secret society which guards its ‘secrets’ with all the zeal of Freemasons, the dreariness and desolation of railway stations are transformed into an enchanted and magical kingdom. A fairy-tale land where the train becomes an 'iron horse' pioneering a path into brave new worlds, where the fumes of a locomotive tantalize the senses with the scent of unsolved mystery, and where the roar of an engine is transformed by some strange alchemy into a sublime symphony heralding untold delights.

The Golden Age of Steam

Nothing quite quickens the blood and enflames the passions of this rare breed of men who religiously refer to themselves as ‘train enthusiasts’ and never the more derogatory ‘trainspotter’, than the romance and nostalgia inherent in the form and force of a vintage steam train. Whether you’re a train enthusiast or not, few people can remain unmoved by the sight of these rolling monuments to another age pulling liveried coaches across open country. Think for a minute of the sublime splendor and rolling thunder of the Orient Express and the haunting ‘choo choo’ noise that an old steam engine makes as it hurtles down the track, forever disappearing into and emerging from clouds of its own smoke.

A former steam engine driver once told me how on any given day he could walk through the relatively large town centre in Wales, UK, where he grew up and worked in the first part of the twentieth century and every other person he bumped into would be a railway worker of some description. The man, who is now in his nineties, described how when he was a child every young boy wanted to grow up and become a steam engine driver and how the combination of steam, train, and tracks formed a secret brotherhood where men referred to one another has ‘Born railway-men with ‘Trains in their blood’. Yet by the same token the old train driver was quick to dismiss not only train enthusiasts but also the modern day railway-men whose trains replaced the last of the steam engines in the late 1950s. He called the new breed with a dismissive shrug of his shoulders, “Men cut from a different cloth who were not of the same calibre,” whilst he snorted with contempt at the train enthusiasts, explaining, “They may think they know about trains but until they have hurtled down the tracks in the early hours of the morning going hell for leather in a ‘Great Western’ you haven’t lived.”

The Birth of the Trainspotter

The train enthusiast has become a modern day leper, a figure of such ridicule that even the drivers of the trains whose serial numbers they so covet, pour a certain degree of scorn upon their heads. It’s time to sift the actual facts about trainspotting from the murk and myth of public misconception.

The first recorded person in history to harness the might and magic of steam was the Greek scientist Heron way back in the first century.

Many moons later Richard Trevithick got the ball rolling in earnest by building the first full-size steam road locomotive in 1801 and naming it the “Puffing Devil”.

Three years later the world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place along the nine mile stretch between the ironworks at Pen-y-Darron and Merthyr Tydfil in Wales.

The groundwork was complete, the stage was set and it wasn’t long before a lone figure with a thermos flask, a waterproof anorak, some jam sandwiches and a trusty notebook and pen appeared on the scene.

Trainspotting as we know it today probably began in the 1930s but it really picked up its stride and hit the ground running in the late 40s and early 50s, before reaching the dizzying peaks of its heyday in the 1960s. Trainspotting consists of bearing witness to and writing down the serial numbers of locomotives. This may sound strange, but a train enthusiast’s ultimate ambition is to see with their own eyes each and every train in the country and note down each individual number in a little black book. Enthusiasts will quite literally chase a train out of a station in a desperate bid to record any number they may have missed. For anyone lucky enough not to have seen this hysterical horde in action as it stampedes down the platform - it truly is the most unusual sight. In Great Britain, the mecca for train enthusiasts is Clapham Junction - the country’s busiest station and a safe haven for like-minded souls to converge and quite simply - spot!

The Death of the Trainspotter

They have always been a rare breed but with each passing year their number grows fewer still.

With steam engines consigned to history over half a century ago, successive generations have been born into a period in time which has never been exposed to the mystery and magic of these chugging beasts from another era. (The engines that is, not the enthusiasts.)

The question is will the future render train enthusiasts obsolete as they finally run out of steam? Or will their obscure obsessions be born again in the youth of tomorrow as man engineers new modes of transport and new ways to travel. Will there ever exist such an entity as the space shuttle enthusiast I wonder? Or do they already walk among us, waiting until their number is many and their will is strong before they make their play?

Songs of Steam - A Top Ten of Classic Hits Referring to Trains

Believe it or not there are actual old vinyl records which can be acquired by the more discerning train enthusiast - the grooves of which feature nothing but the noise of steam trains.

To give you an idea of what exactly we are dealing with, a few of the more popular titles include ‘Railways Remembers’, ‘Sounds of the Steam Age’, ‘Farewell to the Deltics Steam’, and even, now don’t laugh, ‘Steam Engines in Distress’.

Now it’s no secret that the old American Bluesmen have a grand tradition of imitating the distinctive rhythm of the train on their trusty harps. Due to freight train hopping, and all the other opportunities the great railway tracks of the world epitomized, the train, especially in the early part of the twentieth century, symbolized both the travel and freedom, which would later become associated with the car. Quite naturally train imagery features in many songs. Here are some of the better known ones.

1. Train In Vain - The Clash

2. Orange Blossom Special - Johnny Cash

3. Big Railroad Blues - Grateful Dead

4. Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne

5. Hear My Train a’ Coming - Jimi Hendrix

6. Homeward Bound - Simon and Garfunkel

7. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry - Bob Dylan

8. Jumping Someone Else’s Train - The Cure

9. Last Train to Clarksville - The Monkees

10. Night Train - James Brown

Famous Sons of Steam

Was Elvis a secret trainspotter? 

Some of trainspotting's more famous advocates include Monty Python’s Michael Palin and the poet WH Auden, who penned the famous line, 'This is the night train crossing the border ....'

Alfred Hitchcock was also a train obsessive and you can spot them often in his films, especially the 39 Steps. Perhaps even the King of rock and roll himself Mr Elvis Presley was enamored of trains himself as a young man. For in his 1954 song Mystery Train the deep yearning and longing in the King's voice is apparent as he sings about the mysterious train that is '16 coaches long', and always elusively and forever 'coming round the bend', but never quite arriving. A song which poignantly sums up that terrible predicament of standing on a platform, notebook in hand or not, and anxiously awaiting that eternal train in vain.

The Midnight Special: Halloween Hits to Howl too!

Wake the dead with this list of classic Halloween songs guaranteed to blow away the cobwebs, send shivers down your spine and entice the devil to dance like a drunken dad. Have a hell of a  halloween everyone.

When the shadows fall and the moon crawls softly skyward this Halloween, what music do you think the creatures of the night and legions of the damned will get on down and shake their booty to? Here’s a clue, it’s probably not Justin Bieber. Below is a Halloween hit parade of classic songs with darkness at their core and a righteous groove at their heart. If you’re going to invite the dead to dance then do it with style with the following blasts from the pasts that Dracula and his gang of merry monsters waltz to every October the 31st.

Kiss - God of Thunder

Puuurlease: For God's sake put the tongue away Gene!

Before Gene Simmons became a joke he was known as “the Demon.” Listen to this classic from Kiss’s now legendary ‘Destroyer’ album and you’ll see why. The song quite literally rumbles along like the meanest of mean mothers on a Harley Davidson spat straight out of the jaws of Hell. God of Thunder is propelled by Simmons’s powerhouse bass line, which on this track sounds likes an unstoppable force of nature. By rights, a man in high heels and a full face of make-up, with a penchant for sticking out his tongue shouldn’t be scary. However, when Gene growls menacingly about being born on Olympus and raised by the Demons, before commanding the innocent listener to kneel as he proclaims himself as the God of Thunder, hellbent on robbing people of their virgin souls, Simmons sounds very sinister indeed. The song is essentially very disturbing in a psychopathically camp kind of way, and as such sets the perfect tone for a night of Halloween hopelessness.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising

Creedence front-man John Foggerty was inspired to write “Bad Moon Rising” after watching the “Devil and Daniel Webster.” The Clearwater singer said the song was about “the apocalypse that was going to be visited upon us.” Inspired by one horror film the song became synonymous with another - “An American Werewolf in London.” Despite the song’s gloomy lyrics about the prophesied bad times of earthquakes and hurricanes, over flowing rivers and the rage and ruin which is bound to take your life, ‘Bad moon Rising” bounces along in a breezy optimistic and carefree kind of manner. It’s a cheeky little number to welcome in any apocalypse, or indeed, Halloween!

Kris Kristofferson - To Beat the Devil

Beat it bitch!

This gentle and rambling country tune is not most people’s first choice when thinking what will inject the fear-factor into their Halloween party, but take a listen to the lyrics and you’ll see it fits this strange and sinister night like the pointy hat of a warty warlock. Coming across all world weary and beaten down, as is the habit of country singers everywhere, Kris sings us the story in a voice seasoned with Southern Comfort and Marlboros, of the the time the Devil caught him at his lowest and brought him a drink in a honky tonk. After shooting the breeze for a bit, Satan buys Kris a drink and sings him a mournful song with a haunting melody. What makes the tale worth telling is the twist at the end. Rather than selling his soul to the Prince of Darkness as musicians are usually prone to do, Kris steals Satan’s song and makes his name on the back of it. And guess what? He never pays old Lucifer for the drink either. At previous Halloween parties, Satan has been caught more than once, crying into his beer when the needle touches down on this particular piece of vinyl.

The Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil

Ask Yourself! Would you have any sympathy for this man? 

Let’s face it, if the devil is going to have a favourite night it’s going to be Halloween, and if the old horned brute is going to have a favourite song, chances our it’s going to be this voodoo masterpiece by Jagger and co. Written from the viewpoint of Lucifer, who Jagger describes as “a man of wealth and taste,” the song is backed by an intensely unrelenting hypnotic groove. ‘Sympathy for the Devil” sounds like the sort of primitive shamanistic music you could use to invoke the legions of hell itself. The song definitely has power, and if nothing else, it’s contagious hip shaking factor, is guaranteed to get even the dead dancing this Halloween.

The Charlie Daniels Band - The Devil Went Down to Georgia

The violin has always been the time honoured instrument of the Lord of the Flies, or to give him his common name, the Devil. This foot-stomping party piece will get even the most reserved vampire goth off their skinny white butts and shaking their booty. The songs tells of how the Devil challenges a young fiddle player called Johnny to a fiddle-playing contest. If Johnny wins he gets a fiddle made of solid gold and if the Devil wins, Johnny forfeits his eternal soul. Fortunately for our hero the Devil loses, but not before you get to hear him tunelessly play a hellishly discordant violin solo, which will get werewolves everywhere howling along this Halloween.

Clowns: The Shocking Truth!

From serial killer John Wayne Gacy to Stephen King's child-eating Pennywise, clowns are often associated with evil and our never more larger than life than in the act of taking it, but what really lies behind the painted smile and makes clowns so scary? 

Down here we all float! 

To some, clowns are dysfunctional, giggling, white-faced half-wits in ill-fitting clothes and red rubber noses; to others clowns are cheeky and endearing, clumsy buffoons who act out the tragic comedy of the human condition. Yet in recent years, members of the public, in growing numbers, have begun to associate these supposed ‘figures of fun’ with the stuff nightmares are made off. No matter if you love them or loathe them, the grease-painted ones are figures of much interest and intrigue, and have waddled their way through the crazy mirrored halls of history to spread their fluorescent and fierce shadow over everyone’s childhood.

That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore - a Short History of Clowning Around

Glam! Wham! No thank-you man!

Although many feel the loathsome clown always outstays his welcome in any given situation, these prancing psychedelic posers have been with us for a long, long time. The Whiteface is the ‘mother’ of all modern-day clowns and as his name suggests he used white makeup to cover his face. This type of clown was perhaps the inspiration for legendary hard-rockers Kiss, who also liked a good joke, were obsessed with make-up and garnered bizarre reactions from the youth of their time, especially when you consider all four members of Kiss were burly, hairy men with a disturbing penchant for spandex and heels. 

Ronald McDonald is also a famous whiteface clown and is particularly disturbing due to his peculiar habit of offering children a vast array of toxic enticements to draw them into his multicolored and garish lair.

During the second half of the 19th century, Auguste clowns, with their bulbous noses, horrendous wigs, and ill-fitting clothes, were all the rage, but as the years went on, they fell flat on their face -- over and over again

Further back through the mists of time, we have the prototype of the clown -- the court jester. This uniquely flamboyant and strange figure who stalked the royal courts like a merry prankster was the only one allowed to openly speak out against the ruler's ideas, and through humor, affect policy. One of the most famous of the European court jesters was Nasir Ed Din. A famous story recounts how one day his king glimpsed himself in a mirror and, mortally wounded by the ravages of age staring back at him, began to cry. Being a naturally sycophantic lot, the court decided to cry in unison with their monarch. When his tears ran dry, so did theirs, except those of Nasir Ed Din. When the king asked Nasir why he was still crying, he replied, “Sire you looked at yourself in the mirror but for a moment and you cried. I have to look at you all the time.” Boom! Boom!

Coulrophobia -- The Fear of the Clown

There is even a very rare ailment called coulrophobia whose sufferers are consumed by an all-paralyzing fear when they are quite literally bushwhacked by the bravado and bluster of the intrusive clown. These poor, hapless sufferers can be innocently enjoying their candy floss at a circus or a parade when they are overwhelmed with a feeling of terrible trepidation, which accompanies the onslaught of the oncoming clown. Like a rabbit caught in the headlights, they can only watch with abject fear as the clown slowly waddles through a crowd of terrified children to carefully pick and pounce on his prey.

The Dark Side of the Clown -- Clowns Who Kill

Silent movie star Lon Chaney Sr., nicknamed ‘The Man of a Thousand Faces’, once reportedly said, “There is nothing laughable about a clown in the moonlight.” In the modern age, clowns are more often than not caught in the silhouette of some sinister, otherworldly hue, and a large part of this is due to Stephen King's novel IT and his haunting portrayal of the evilest clown ever to don the grease paint, Pennywise. For those of you who are not aware, Pennywise is the clown in the book whose basic function is to hide in the sewers, trick kids into approaching him, before grabbing them and then eating them. This is terrifying by anyone's standards, and the fact that it is being done by a stupid man in a brightly colored outfit, with a giant red nose, only makes it that much more terrifying. Yet Pennywise, as scary as he is, is the work of fiction. American serial killer John Wayne Gacy was not. Known as the killer clown, Gacy who raped and murdered 33 teenage boys and young men in the 70s, would often dress up as character called ‘Pogo the clown’ for parades and children’s parties. More than any other individual John Wayne Gacy helped to form people’s opinion that you only had to scratch the surface of any merry bumbling clown to find the murderous and monstrous psychopath who lurks beneath.

What Lies Behind the Painted Smile?

Yet is John Wayne Gacy really responsible for coulrophobia and many children’s instinctive and uncontrollable urge to run screaming from the nearest clown? It has been suggested that clowns are too happy and that is why they are so scary. I have to concur that permanently happy people are seriously annoying, but I think it is more to do with the permanent facial expression of a clown, which in my book represents an unstable mind. In short, as fond as we are for them in both a literal and metaphorical sense, people are terrified of masks. In particular the uncaring, unchanging and inhuman aspects of the ‘frozen mask’ and the fixed smile.

What lies behind the painted smile of the clown is anybody’s guess, and when your imagination projects its own darkest fears onto the persona of a clown, then the clown truly becomes the most hellish fiend of all.

The Death of the Clown?

The Kinks once famously sung, “Let’s all Drink to the Death of a Clown,” but love him or loathe him, the clown is here to stay. Perhaps when confronted with the madness of the modern world, painting your face, putting on a wig and pulling on some mismatched, ill-fitting clothes before fixing an idiotic grin and red nose to your face as you waddle like an intoxicated penguin out of the door is the only way to stay truly sane in a world gone really wrong.

Eighties Icon Blasts Kate Miiddleton for Being “Thoroughly Unpleasant!”

Kate Middleton has been described as being one of the most dysfunctional, unpleasant and arrogant people on the planet by a pop star who was massive in the 1980s.

He may be well past his prime, over the hill and falling down the other side, but British pop tart Morrissey still enjoys having a regular dig at the royal family to keep his fading and withered pubic persona in the limelight.

The former lead singer with The Smiths is currently without a record deal, and has long been renowned for his outspoken comments, especially regarding the Windsor gang, who let’s face it, in recent months have given the cynical Brit plenty of bullets with which to patiently load his gun.

In a recent interview with the Herald Sun, the slightly portly and balding middle-aged bachelor not only derided Kate Middleton for being part of a family who are the most dysfunctional, unpleasant and arrogant people on the planet,” but also found the time to put the boot into old carrot top - Prince Harry.

Speaking of the ginger prince’s recent bout of deranged and crazed behaviour in Vegas, the snarling singer venomously quipped, “"I wasn't surprised by Harry in Vegas because he's always been an absolute idiot.” Ouch! Harry may have a history of dressing up in nazi uniforms, shooting rabbits, and doing naked Michael Jackson impersonations, but to call him an idiot is a bit harsh, especially when the phrase, “over privileged imbecile” would suffice.

Frothing at the mouth in righteous outrage, Morrissey added, “The monarchy is foremost a business, and it's important to them that the British public continue to finance the excessive luxurious lifestyles of the now quite enormous, wasteful and useless 'royal' family. I find it very sad. They are a sour soap opera, who should resign and retire," 

In the same interview, the vicious vegetarian, blast Prince William for shooting deer, attacks Prince Harry for shooting water buffalo, and calls the Duchess of Cambridge shockingly cruel for filling her under nourished face with fois gras. 

Before pondering the hugely bizarre question of what the Prime Minister of Argentina, the Pope, or the Archbishop of Canterbury would make of Harry’s naked cry for help, Pippa Middleton’s gun obsessed mates, and the Queen’s psychopathic corgis, Morrissey barks like a put upon teenager, “No one knows because they weren’t asked. Anything unpleasant about the "royals" is buried as quickly as you can say 'Get Harry back to Afghanistan before the public wake up.' Aren't all dictatorships the same?”

It’s a fair point and one well made. Let’s just be thankful there’s someone still in the spotlight with enough clout to make it. Rock on Mozza you crazy bastard!