Trainspotting

Trainspotting

Spend 20 minutes at Dearnby trainspotting.
Over the 1950's 999 standard class locomotives as well as more than 1500 non-standard (pre group designs) had been built.
This great variety of locomotives running on the lines gave rise to a cultural phenomenon That celebrated this diversity.
Young boys all over the country started appearing on railway stations in droves to catch a glimpse of the weird and wonderful locos running on Britain’s railways.
The spark that ignited the TRAINSPOTTING revolution was Ian Allen’s ABC guide Southern locomotives which was published in 1942 when he was 15.
It was a list of numbers which doesn't sound very exciting it's not even a great read but the point is that you take it out on the end of the platform and you wait to tick off the engines as they come past and it became very popular amongst teenage boys.
It was the iPod of its generation. TRAINSPOTTING in 1942 was hip. Locomotive diversity was at its peek.
After the war it had not been seen as cost effective to leave steam behind as coal was still cheap and plentiful.
Within a few years coal prices were on the rise an oil prices were dropping.
The time had come to make the big switch to diesel (by the middle of the 1950’s). Also steam locos are messy things and it was becoming more and more difficult to get people to work on them.
In 1955 the British Transport Commission announced a modernisation plan. A key element of the plan was the abolition of steam locomotives. It was now felt that diesel locomotives had developed to the point where they were a viable technology. So, by the mid-1950s it was widely recognised within the industry that the future was not with steam. This being despite the fact that nearly 2000 standard and non-standard locomotives had been built. The writing was on the wall for steam power. A vast modernization plan would be carried out to the cost of more than 1500 million pounds.
The sleek new Diesel Giants began to take their place.
Quite often in the late 1950s early 1960s British Railways was faced with the unenviable sight of brand-new diesel locomotives being rescued from breakdowns by the old-fashioned steam locomotives.
However, steam was dirty noisy and impractical while diesel's were clean safe and quiet.
The modernization plan spelt the end of steam locomotives however steam locomotives carried on being built for another 5 years.

Trainspotting
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