Few hobbyist crowds are as stereotypically nerdy as railway enthusiasts, so much so that an alternative definition of trainspotting, per the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, is “detailed work that other people think is boring.”
A trainspotter is indeed, crudely, one who watches or spots trains. There are a few other words for such a hobbyist — in British and Australian English, one may also be called a railway buff. A specifically Australian term is ‘gunzel’. In America, the hilariously pejorative term ‘foamer’ is sometimes used. Nothing beats the most humorous term of all, literally denoting a studier of iron horses – ferroequinologist!
According to the British National Railway Museum, one of the first known references to trainspotting dates to 1861 and comes from fourteen year-old Fanny Johnson. Standing at Westbourne Park station, Johnson recorded passing engines in her notebook titled ‘Names of Engines on the Great Western that I have Seen’. Associate curator Bob Gwynne remarked on the excitement of this discovery that “trainspotting is perceived largely to be a 20th century hobby for men, although railway enthusiasm has existed as long as the railways itself.” Way back in 1825, Jonathan Backhouse wrote an excited letter to his sisters after witnessing the inaugural journey on the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first ever passenger-carrying train trip.
One may occasionally be asked what the appeal of trains is. Train enthusiasts are inclined to see the great metal behemoths, or metal mares, as living creatures which chirp, groan and glide. Trains have character, and they come in species.
A fascination with systems can play into railway enthusiasm. Trains and the infrastructure around them are incredibly complex, and this complexity is easily visible at the surface level in signal combinations and almost-innavigable webs of track. There’s terminology for people, such as guards and stationmasters, and equipment, such as points and rollingstock, that form a unique lexicon around railways. For all this complexity, and notwithstanding all the complaining around every transport hiccup, trains work exceptionally well, traversing thousands of kilometres of winding railway track to deliver passengers and goods to the right destination and quite reliably on time.
Trainspotting can be a solitary activity, comparable to taking a bushwalk. However, it is also social. Trainspotters venture out in groups, or run into one another waiting for the same train. Railway enthusiasts form groups around our hobby; the Facebook group for the Sydney Electric Train Society is a quintessential example. There are a plethora of YouTube channels based in Sydney alone to which enthusiasts young and old share their sightings, sometimes to thousands of subscribers. Trainspotters have our locations of choice; one of the most remarkable is Wondabyne station on the Central Coast. Otherwise, we might just prefer our local station.
It’s not just about spotting, however. It’s also about travelling, and to this end I am in the midst of daytripping to regional towns and cities by train. I have several pieces of paraphernalia from Goulburn station, an easy outing if one books the 7:40am Melbourne XPT and returns on the 6:35pm ex-Canberra Xplorer. Train enthusiasts are collectors, if not hoarders, without even mentioning the expensive flaneuristic hobby of model railways.
The train enthusiast is an advocate for public transport who appreciates the journey at least as much as the destination. What’s more, train enthusiasts are conscientious, socially-minded citizens, who want to see our cities and regions at their most accessible. We are appreciators of a rich history and heralders of a bright future.
While railway enthusiasts can be apolitical and may understandably reject political overtones, our hobby has nonetheless long interacted with politics. The author and journalist Peter Hitchens once wrote that railways are inherently conservative “because they help to conserve countryside, and because they are, when well run, a disciplined service requiring loyalty and dedication from their workers, not unlike the armed forces.” Funnily enough, this quote opens a Prospect magazine article discussing the purported obsession of left-wing men with trains, seeing their communal value. While the article suggests women may feel excluded from the hobby because of the hostility and sleaziness of men in male-dominated spaces, it fails to acknowledge that trainspotting has always been done by women.
Meanwhile, whatever the merits of Hitchens’ other observations, he is correct to set railways against the “atomisation of society” encouraged by car-centric development. Another way railway enthusiasm relates to politics is through the volunteer organisations which breathe life back into country lines closed in times of austerity, when railways were losing ridership. Groups such as Lachlan Valley Railway Society and even the Sydney Tramway Museum restore trains, stations and lines to operational condition, returning the magic of railways to places where it was lost. Byron Bay has also seen this rejuvenation, with the remarkable restoration and conversion to solar of a 1949-built diesel railcar. This exemplifies how trains, and their supporters, help make the world greener.
When I started writing this article, I wrote of railway buffs as members of a clique. It has since become apparent to me this is not an apt characterisation. There is essentially no barrier to entry for being a railway enthusiast; many people like trains.
A Transport for NSW spokesperson told me that “Transport for NSW welcomes train enthusiasts of all ages and encourages their involvement in a variety of ways.”
“We frequently facilitate requests from trainspotters, students and historians to film, photograph and write about our trains and stations.” The spokesperson stated that in the 2022-23 financial year “around 175,000 people visited our museums or took a ride on a heritage train.”
“Sydney Metro also facilitates a number of community open days which give rail buffs sneak peeks into progress on the state’s newest rail infrastructure project.”
Please spare a thought for your local train enthusiast. There are more of us than you may suspect, and we have your best interests at heart. We want you to see the joy waiting to be discovered in your commute, and we want a railway station on your front doorstep. If you agree with me that there should be a trainspotting society at the university, please, reach out to me or write a letter to the editors.