Did you collect railway engine numbers, car numbers, aircraft registrations?
@owlwings (43897)
Cambridge, England
November 8, 2006 2:04pm CST
I remember our local station always seemed to have one or two small boys with notebooks hanging around jotting down the numbers of the locomotives that came through. There were kids who collected bus numbers, too, and knew all the city's fleet off by heart!Do people still do this?
3 people like this
6 responses
@pumpkinjam (8876)
• United Kingdom
8 Nov 06
I think people still do but I personally never have. I honestly can't see as there's any interest in it! Although it might be useful round here, particularly bus numbers and routes, so someone could let the drivers know!
@pumpkinjam (8876)
• United Kingdom
8 Nov 06
Now I think about it, I used to live right by a railway. It was almost literally at the end of my garden. If it wasn't for the fact I lived at the bottom of a hill and the train ran along the top, it really would have been! But anyway, we never collected train numbers but I did often stand with my son in his bedroom window and count the carriages. He knew the difference between a freight train and a passenger train by the time he was 2!
@dorypanda (1601)
•
12 Nov 06
No, it's not something I do myself, I just collect pandas and dust. I live near our railway station and I've sometimes seen people standing on the bridge looking at the trains, sometimes they take notes and sometimes they just watch as the trains go by. I watch the trains sometimes, but I prefer going to the canal and looking at the pretty canal boats.
@AJ1952Chats (2331)
• Anderson, Indiana
8 Nov 06
I'm interested in trains, so I will sometimes make a note of the engine(s) number(s) and will drive here and there to watch the train I'm tracking come through in different locations.
@Idlewild (6090)
• United States
3 Dec 06
I don't think this was ever as popular in the U.S. as it was in the U.K. And with all the terrorism concerns today, I think anyone in the U.S. who hung around train stations or airport taking notes or pictures would probably be questioned by the police as soon as he or she was noticed.
