{"id":369400,"date":"2025-08-24T09:09:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T09:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/369400\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T09:09:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T09:09:12","slug":"when-ian-allans-trainspotting-gripped-the-youth-of-the-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/369400\/","title":{"rendered":"When Ian Allan’s trainspotting gripped the youth of the nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n As Memories<\/strong><\/a> told a fortnight ago, Mr Allan, who had lost a leg when he was 15, worked in the publications department of Southern Railway at the start of the war and was inundated with so many requests for information about locos that he published his first list of them in 1942.\n<\/p>\n

\n READ FIRST: A SURPRISINGLY INTERESTING HISTORY OF TRAINSPOTTING<\/strong><\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n It quickly sold out, and, seeing a hole in the market, he began publishing ABC guides to other regions\u2019 engines as well. These guides became the pocket bibles of trainspotters.\n<\/p>\n

\n But the first trainspotters were unruly, and when a gaggle of them were found on a mainline in 1944, Mr Allan formed the Locospotters Club. To become a member, spotters had to agree to abide by safety rules.\n<\/p>\n

\n Up to 300,000 people joined.\n<\/p>\n

\n Members received a badge \u2013 standard celluloid for 6d or deluxe chrome-plated for 1s 3d \u2013 which was coloured to reflect their region. In Memories 744, we took a punt and said that blue was the colour of the North East.\n<\/p>\n

\n We were wrong.\n<\/p>\n

\n Numerous people told us that it was orange, but only one, Tony Larkings, could actually find his orange Locospotters Club badge. Everyone else\u2019s had either been thrown away by the mothers or was lost in a drawer somewhere.\n<\/p>\n

\n We are also grateful to Phil Chinnery in Darlington for sending in a complete list of the Locospotters Club\u2019s regional colours: Western, brown; Southern, green; Midland, maroon; Eastern, dark blue; North Eastern, tangerine; Scottish, light blue.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cAlthough I lived in Surrey, two or three times a year, we would return to Teesside to visit family so I had both a green and a tangerine badge,\u201d says Phil.\n<\/p>\n

\n Part of Steve Shields’ collection of trainspotting booksSINCE George Stephenson put Locomotion No 1 on the tracks at Heighington station 200 years ago, people \u2013 usually boys \u2013 have been fascinated by spotting engines.\n<\/p>\n

\n John Backhouse, 14, is regarded by some as the first trainspotter as he was there on the opening day of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) and sketched what he spotted for his absent sister.\n<\/p>\n

\n The Guinness Book of Records says Fanny Johnson, also 14, became the first trainspotter when she started a journal listing the names and numbers of the Great Western engines she spotted near her home in London.\n<\/p>\n

\n The National Railway Museum at York also gives a shout-out as a pioneering trainspotter to Mr E Dixon who in 1836 published a \u201cfull detailed list\u201d of the locomotives on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway (L&MR).\n<\/p>\n

\n We are grateful to Jonathan Peacock for pointing out that this is Edward Dixon of the famous Cockfield family of pioneering Quaker engineers.\n<\/p>\n

\n The Homestead at Cockfield, birthplace of Edward Dixon, who may be the world’s first trainspotterEdward was born in 1809 in The Homestead in Cockfield. His elder brother, John, helped Stephenson in surveying the S&DR and may even have been the rider of the famous horse which preceded Locomotion No 1, with a red flag, on opening day.\n<\/p>\n

\n John then went with Stephenson to work on the (L&MR) where he was joined by young Edward.\n<\/p>\n

\n Having spotted all the L&MR\u2019s locos and compiled his ground-breaking list, Edward was taken by Robert Stephenson to work on the London & Birmingham Railway and then the London & Southampton Railway.\n<\/p>\n

\n Edward, now a resident engineer, was doing well. He had a yacht and sailed to inspect the British Black Sea fleet before the outbreak of the Crimean War.\n<\/p>\n

\n He co-founded the Union Steam Ship Company which for many years had the only ships carrying the mail to South Africa.\n<\/p>\n

\n Edward died in 1877 having been a central part of the Southampton business community for many years. Perhaps the Homestead in Cockfield should acknowledge its part in his story as the birthplace of the man who gave trainspotting to the world.\n<\/p>\n

\n Steve Shields’ Locospotters Club membership card\u201cI GREW up in Station Road in Penshaw next to the Leamside line and each night after tea I used to go \u201cdown the lines\u201d to see the little NCB engines bring the coal down from the mines and see the big BR engines couple up and take the coal away,\u201d says Steve Shields, who has many happy memories, and books, from his trainspotting days in the mid-1960s when steam was fading out and being replaced by diesel. \u201cMe and my mates were fascinated by the goings on.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI got friendly with one of the signalmen and he let us go in the box a couple of times, and with Ian Allan\u2019s Shed Directory we went to engine sheds at Carlisle, Leeds, Sunderland, Consett \u2013 sometimes we were allowed in, sometimes the shed foreman said no, but we always found a way in through the fence to collect the numbers and take pictures on a camera I had bought with my paper round money.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe used to go to the mainline stations \u2013 Newcastle, York, but not Durham as they didn\u2019t have much time there \u2013 and ask the drivers if we could \u201ccab it\u201d \u2013 get inside and have a look. That was fantastic when they said yes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Steve Shields’ notebook showing the engines he had copped\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt was an interesting period because steam was on its way out so we were trying to get round to see the engines, and diesels were coming in \u2013 they were part of the new age, their colour schemes were nice and the numbering was straightforward.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Several of Steve\u2019s favourite \u201ccops\u201d were diesel prototypes. In 1968, he copped HS4000 Kestrel, made by Hawker Siddley\u2019s Brush Traction. It was the only one of its kind and although BR allowed it to run on the network, it didn\u2019t show any interest in ordering any more so the prototype was sold to the Soviet Union in 1971.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIn 1967, I came back from a visit to York shed behind DP2, which was a prototype for the Class 50 diesels,\u201d says Steve. \u201cA week later, it was involved in the Thirsk cement derailment and it never ran again \u2013 it was taken in York shed and covered over in a sheet.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Steve\u2019s trainspotting fired his enthusiasm for railways and in September 1969, he started as a goods porter at Forth Banks in Newcastle, beginning a 37 year career with British Rail which finished with him being the signalling manager for Teesside. He has spent 55 years in railways and is now campaigning for the reopening of the Leamside line beside which it all began.\n<\/p>\n

\n DP2 a week after it was copped by Steve Shields when it was involved in a collision with a cement train at Thirsk rail, killing seven people and injuring 43. DP2 stands for Development Prototype. Picture by John Boyes, and courtesy of the JW Armstrong1953 introductory to Tom Allan Locospotters Club\u201cTHE first ABC of British Locomotives that I bought was the 1952 part 4 edition covering locos numbered 60000 to 99999 in the Eastern, North Eastern, Scottish regions, and ex-War Dept and BR Standard locos,\u201d says Tom Hutchinson.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI ‘coped’ all the A4s, plus the ‘unnamed streak’ 60700, class W1, 4-6-4. I saw it at Doncaster in 1955 when Bishop Auckland played and won a FA Amateur Cup semi-final 1-0 against Briggs Sports.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Tom concludes: \u201cMy 1953 volume is the one I still keep up-to-date as occasionally I come across one of the preserved steam locos that I haven’t seen before. That’s life!\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI USED to sit on the fence at Fieldon Bridge and watch the steam engines come and go from West Auckland engine shed (which was at Tindale Crescent),\u201d says John Askwith, attaching a picture (above) of the shed with a trainspotter getting a ride.\n<\/p>\n

\n West Auckland shed 51F opened in 1887 and closed in 1964 with its prominent gasometer being demolished in 1965 as the site was cleared. Now a roundabout, where the A6072 Shildon bypass meets the A688, is on the approach tracks to the shed which is beneath the Hathaway Roofing unit.\n<\/p>\n

\n READ NEXT: RELIVING THE 1975 CAVALCADE WITH A TIN OF GENUINE LOCOMOTIVE STEAM<\/strong><\/a>\n<\/p>\n

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