Trainspotting on the BBC

[Iron Duke]

Hopefully a better offering is coming down the line this coming Thursday on BBC2?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07lpm6c

[Mickey]

A couple of spotter's showed up on the station platform for an 'all nighter' one summer evening when I was at Camden Road box on the North London line back around 2000 or 20001?. Anyway one of the gricer's was a big scots bloke who seemed to unerringly know where every train was at any given moment anywhere in the country???. The guy would have made a fantastic controller or TOPS guy the other guy was a small fella his oppo.

Anyway these two guy's showed up around 8:pm on a warm summer Friday evening and stayed all night on the station watching the traffic passing through (the passenger service finished around midnight then between midnight and dawn there was a succession of freightliners passing through the station during the early hours of the morning until about 7:am) but by about 6:am the smaller guy had called it a night and departed leaving the scots bloke sitting alone on one of the station platform benches half a sleep anyway by 11:am on the Saturday morning he to had had enough so he left the station as well after being there for around 15 hours but what made me laugh was 5 minutes after he left 5 class 37s coupled in multiple came rumbling through the station!!.

Mickey

[giner]

Hopefully a better offering is coming down the line this coming Thursday on BBC2?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07lpm6c

Thanks, Iron Duke. This seems to be more up my alley, (usual provisos in place).

[sandwhich]

I also watched this series but found it bits and pieces. The item on the synchronising of time throughout the UK was interesting as was the HST story and the fact that they are now 40 years old (refurbished and re-engineered I know). I remember when they came into service in 1976 many were saying they wouldn't last more than 10 years. The railways will all be gone by then anyway! Such was the very low morale at that time.

[strang steel]

Apart from the multifarious liveries, seen one HST you have in effect seen them all...

I don't think that you have quite grasped the main principle of trainspotting.

[delticfan]

Thought it was dreadful, did nothing for the present day image of rail enthusiasts. It did make feel grateful for what we had to look at in the 70's and steam before that.

[StevieG]

..... Whereas "Full Steam Ahead" (Part 2 of 6, this coming Thursday, 20:00-21:00 BBC2) is a very different kettle of fish : With the historical presenting team of three who did the other Victorian / Edwardian 'life'/history programmes (farming etc.) : The coming and consequences of railways; social, trade/business, as well as technological.

[delticfan]

I caught the repeat of that on Saturday, absolutely fascinating and was enthralled by the slate train running 14 miles under its own weight and gravity no engine! I think elf and safety might stop a few things we saw from happening today and probably rightly so.

[52H]

Hi all
I was also surprised at the gravitation operation, I'm surprised the loco wasn't hung on the rear to act as a brake ,because it must have gone down light engine to haul the empties back up.

52H

[65447]

Apart from the multifarious liveries, seen one HST you have in effect seen them all...

I don't think that you have quite grasped the main principle of trainspotting.

Your main principle perhaps but not necessarily mine; in my pre- and teenage years it was to see locomotives, how they worked in action and the types of trains they were pulling, and as many DIFFERENT TYPES as I could. Number collecting was a pointless exercise in the rapidly declining steam years of the late 50s and early 60s and with ever increasing additions to diesel and electric classes and especially so in GE country. I was more interested in the presence of Gresley stock in trains than trying to collect locomotive numbers merely for the sake of it.

I never owned an anorak either, even though I was more Mod than Rocker...

[kudu]

I'm amazed that anyone could find anything favourable about these lamentable programmes. Peter Snow is particularly dire - an appalling self-parody.

Kudu

[JASd17]

I never owned an anorak either, even though I was more Mod than Rocker...

65447 charging around on a Vespa. Extremely waspish.

Transport of choice to Southwold?

John

[giner]

Lambretta lad, meself. Well, a girlfriend's, actually. Nice fully-chromed side panels on 'er, too - the scooter, not the girlfriend. Anyway, I tumbled it into a ditch one afternoon. And so another fine romance came to a close.

[Mr Bunt]

I'm amazed that anyone could find anything favourable about these lamentable programmes. Peter Snow is particularly dire - an appalling self-parody.

There was a fair bit of p*ss taking going on in these programmes. I had to do a bit of a ROFL during the programme on EMUs when Snow announced in an enthusiastically OTT way that someone had e-mailed to say they'd seen a Class 444 and a Class 450 standing next to each other at Eastleigh - it happens twice an hour throughout the day, but he obviously didn't realise that!

[sandwhich]

Yes Full Steam Ahead is much better than the trainspotting programmes, goes deep into the history and the many changes that occurred during the 19th century that makes it much more interesting.