'On The Flying Scotsman'
Photo by Don Cogger

Trainspotting
By David Johnson, March 2010

Anoraks, geeks, sado's, boring: anybody who has the above mentioned hobby has probably been called one of these names at some point in their lives. But I can assure you, any schoolboy who has ever stood on a platform could have learned more on certain subjects than from any classroom.

I started in 1948 when British Railways was formed after the four main railway companies were nationalised. British Railways now controlled 20,023 steam engines, 4000 of which had names. Each individual company had different ideas about how they named their engines. Great Western Railway's used, among others, the names of counties or castles and stately homes. Southern Railways after King Arthur characters, Captains who fought off the Spanish Armada & towns of the West Country. London Midland Scottish used holiday resorts of North Wales & Lancashire, Royal Navy hierarchy, mountains and cities of Scotland.

Any boy stood on the platform at Crossgates station would have been treated to the spectacle of London Northern Eastern Railways steam trains. Two lines ran through Crossgates then, one the existing York line and another line between Crossgates and Wetherby. This line was closed under the 'Beeching Axe' in 1963. It used to run alongside Pendas Way and up to Scholes.The remnants of the bridges can still be seen near the Cock Beck and off Pendas Way itself. So the boy on the platform would have seen trains named after birds, county houses and football teams, characters in Walter Scott novels, Scottish glens, English shires and generals and battles of the First World War among others. The most famous LNER trains are both built by Sir Nigel Gresley, the Mallard which, in 1938 set a world speed record of 126 mph pulling six coaches and a dynamometer car and of course the legendary Flying Scotsman.

All the information about the trains could be found in handbooks printed by Ian Allan Ltd. Each company had it's own volume until 1948 when a combined volume was published with all 20,023 numbers in. It also told you which depot they were based at, so anywhere in the country you would have an idea of which trains to look out for. Each name meant something, so when you were underlining it to say you had seen it, you would want to know all about it.The best place to find out was usually stood at the end of the platform, a fellow trainspotter or friendly station master.

So from his combined book and standing on Crossgates station platform the boys brain could possibly have been stimulated by names such as Golden Plover, Dominion of New Zealand, Sir Charles Newton, Sir Walter Scott. All over the country brains were stimulated in much the same fashion. Throughout the Golden Age of Steam, trainspotting gave many a boy an opportunity to visit places they might never other wise have visited and an education of a different kind, not only that but it kept them out of trouble. When you are younger you make your choices, Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a hobby.I chose all of those and I chose trainspotting as my hobby and I can assure you, being a trainspotter has done me more good than harm over the years.