Rolling Stock Spotters

Do you get spotters with dictaphones going round your sidings recording the numbers of everything on wheels? We certainly do at Peak Rail but one last weekend really took the biscuit:

Spotter: "LMS red coach 7828 named Manchester Central "
Colleague (politely): "That's not actually its name"
Spotter: "It must be it's there on the coach"
Colleague: "That's called a destination board!"

Hey ho, takes all sorts.

Dave

 

Going back to the 80s and 90s when there were a lot of PMVs parked in the sidings at Havenstreet we were quite frequently visited by people with a fascination for the numbers of SR parcels vans. I expect they are still around now although it must be harder to keep track of things as bodies have gradually become separated from underframes - which then appear under one of our newly restored Victorian coaches.

 

they do worry we a bit. Was it on here or elsewhere I saw a guy requesting info on fleet numbers of containers.....not the wagons, the actual boxes.....

 

You name it there is a spotter for it.
Locos, Coaches, Wagons, Tampers, Diggers, Trams, Planes, Lorrys and Buses all spring to mind.

 

don't forget the cranes, snowploughs and so on. ..... .............. slate waggons ........

 

yeah but containers!?!

 

Haha, brilliant! Yes we get them every now and then, some are all right, and some are decidedly odd! mostly turn up on gala days when the workshops are open, hoping for a full tour of the yard. If they're looking for something specific then I usually take them to see it, but an hour or so negotiating the wastelands of Winchcombe yard on a busy day - no chance! I shall be manning the workshops during the diesel gala this year, will be interested to see if we get more or less of "those people." I was disappointed I didn't get to tell anyone off for going past the barrier last year though, boring rule-abiding bunch...

 

How about BRICKS?

We had a number of bodies trying to get examples of the bricks at Grosmont from the old brickworks a few years ago.

 

bricks beats containers....

 

Hello,
Now that is a challenge I like......I might just turn up in my anorak covered in badges, my flask and back pack armed with an I Spy Carriages And Wagons book 1892 Edition........

 

surely would have to be duffle coat and a whiskey bottle of cold tea

 

Looks like I will have to come and cause you trouble then as what is out of site is better than what you can see. Wagon and coaches, especially the pre BR ones are better than the engines.

 

So what happened next year when you had to become narrow minded.

 

Yes, seen sat on Eastleigh or Didcot or Stafford stations with a note pad recording every box number.
( As described by one driver "care in the community, but without the care..." )
I wonder if these people walk round the outside of some storage compounds recording all the numbers?
The containers do have unique numbers, but as far as I remember there isn't a central registry, just a protocol for design and numbering.

Cheers, Neil

 

Do you mean modern shipping containers, or the old wooden ones? The latter were built in the same works as the wagons, by the same staff, for the same job, so what's the difference?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

i meant the modern ones.... but it could be applied to the old ones too but with one important difference. Most modern containers might rarely see a train, where as the old ones were always rail-orientated.

To an outside observer, Id say all number taking would appear odd, or even obsessive. It's hard to argue against such an opinion!

 

Not just number taking, many outside observers find the whole of railway enthusiasm odd!

Personally, have no problem with number takers. Most of them are genuinely interested and knowledgeable about their subject and if you have a collection which they find interesting, surely you owe it to them and yourself to permit and encourage their interest.

What I do find a little annoying is those who insist on turning up an hour or more before opening time, then whingeing on about how many other railways they have to visit that day, before travelling back to the other side of the country! Worse still are those who turn up when we are not open at all and assume that they can wander around at will; they soon find out otherwise! An example of this was the summer morning when our then Chief of Security, a large Alsation by the name of Lady, woke me up at 5 o/clock. I let her out, she rushed across the yard with me following in my pajamas. When I caught up, she had a chap cornered against a fence, hands in air and crying out "get it off, get it off", whilst the dog barked furiously, with her teeth about a foot from his wedding tackle. I called her off and asked what he was doing. "I was only looking at the locos" he said, breathlessly. "What, at 5 am?" "Well, it's quieter and no one gets in the way!" he replied. "And you don't have to pay. Still, you won't do it again, will you?" I asked him, as a matter of interest, where he was when he first heard the dog. "Oh, I was just coming away. I thought I could make it back to the gate" (300 yds away) "but I got to the corner and I thought "help, no, I can't!"

 

permit and encourage? No.Tolerate yes, but then Joe Public would be less tolerant and judge us all by the sterotype they see

I susppose your 5am experience is the modern equivalent of bunking a shed , maybe you should permit it and encourage it No? thought not.... I hope you checked his pockets!

 

I thought about it, but there appeared to be some dampness in the trouser area......

 

good point.....don't go there.....