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.