Train spotting: harmless fun or a threat to national security?

Graeme Hetherington reports

TRAIN enthusiasts are being targeted by officious authoritarians, according to one of the North-East’s leading railway experts.

That’s the view of Anthony Coulls, the curator of Locomotion: The National Railway Museum, at Shildon.

7,031 people were questioned under antiterrorism powers in 12 months at stations in the North-East, according to official figures.

Mr Coulls believes that is because railway enthusiasts are easy targets.

“People at train stations clearly have too much time on their hands,” he said. “It smacks of some sort of victimisation because railway enthusiasts are easy targets. You would think that people would have more important things to do at a busy railway station other than move people who are not hurting anyone.

“Sometimes, it is the feeling of power that these authority figures have that goes to their heads and they decide to move on people who have a genuine interest in trains and railway stations.”

According to the data, many of the people who have been stopped are being accused of carrying out reconnaissance for a terror attack when they are simply noting down serial numbers and taking photographs of carriages, the Liberal Democrats said yesterday. The pastime is steeped in history, but enjoyed its heyday in the mid-Fifties and early-Sixties.

The ABC Locospotters books, written by Ian Allen, a former clerk at Waterloo Station, gave the hobby fresh impetus.

Each one contained a numerical list of locomotive numbers, their classes and a table at the end of the book giving all the details of each class so that it would be possible to relate the number to the name.

Mr Coulls believes the way enthusiasts are portrayed has created the impression that trainspotters are “anorakwearing people with no life”.

“If people think that going out at the weekend and getting drunk is having a life, I’m quite happy with my love of trains,” he said.

“This has been going on for generations and many people have enjoyed this innocent pastime. It is a common misconception that people who are into trains are sad and that is very wrong.”