trainspotters

[Jonny671]

I was waiting at Guildford Station, just a normal station, with normal trains stopping but there was a man on the end of the platform taking pictures of each train that came in and out..

I did think it was abit weird but whatever floats his boat, or train!

Edited by Jonny671 on Wednesday 9th December 11:12

[JakeS]

It is just a hobby at the end of the day that someone enjoys that is all there is to it. I could think of nothing worse than going to a football ground standing in the rain and eating a meat pie when some fat drunk bloke sang and swore, but it doesn't stop millions of people doing it.

[Lucas CAV]

JakeS said:

It is just a hobby at the end of the day that someone enjoys that is all there is to it. I could think of nothing worse than going to a football ground standing in the rain and eating a meat pie when some fat drunk bloke sang and swore, but it doesn't stop millions of people doing it.

+1

[N Dentressangle]

shirt said:

indeed i am. i just fail to understand the appeal. modern trains are the blandest of the bland.

You could say that about modern cars though too, couldn't you? I used to be much more interested in cars when they seemed a bit more, well, different, but these days most of them are pretty well made, OK to drive, similar-ish looking.

My suspicion is that quite a few train and transport buffs might be somewhere on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum

Mild AS often involves an interest in order and classification, as well as a need to identify and classify objects. There's also the tendency to a degree of obsession in interests. I don't mean any of this as a slur - we're all different, and these characteristics are gold dust in certain jobs: radiology, for instance.

As other posters have said, looking at trains has the benefit of being utterly socially harmless and almost unnoticeable to the rest of the population. Personally I can't abide football, and can't understand why anyone would care or be interested: in fact, I'd rather watch trains!