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Love it or hate it Tech has become and integral part of trainspotting, Bashing, Gricing etc. From the excellent Real Time Trains, Traksy, Spotlog and even Part Time Spotters Blog.
This is how it’s changed things for me. Back in the past we’d rock up to a station, for example Reading, and camp on the end of a platform. We’d write down numbers in our notebooks and either line out platform 5 books on the way back or at home. Our bags had our books, a Timetable, camera and food/drinks. We didn’t know what was coming, where the missing 73 we needed was and only if you were in the know were you able to discover diversions over freight lines etc.
Still we loved doing it. Then along came Tech!
I missed a lot of the early email groups as I’d fallen out of love with spotting and generally only noted down travelling to football or work. Then I became aware of things like Real Time Trains and email groups. I promptly signed up and started enjoying that. Then along come a plethora of sites, maps, and all sorts of information.
Then Real Time Trains did allocations and Part Time spotter also chipped in too.
So how did it change my approach?
Well firstly it made planning trips a whole lot better. Using things like National Rail gives me a good idea on how to from A to B. This is all good until you have a hour connection somewhere. Then my own personal knowledge of routes allows me to use RTT to make better connections.
Groups.io (replacement of Yahoo Groups and Google Groups) allows me to interact with people and get “Gen” TOPS lists and ask questions.
Traksy and open Train time allows us to see what is where.
Twitter allows us to all chat and evolve friendships. Although how much longer now the owner is messing about with it so much.
Forums are a decent place to get info, requests, ideas and old historical info.
All these things allow me to plan my trips or follow up after my trip.
Tech allows me to do this – Trackntrains website.
Flickr gives us he chance show off our photos and YouTube gives us a chance to show our videos (mine are woeful lol )
For me the Platform % books or suchlike are long gone. I now use Spotlog to record all my sightings, haulage and photos.
On my computer I have a spreadsheet that I use to record ALL haulage and that has evolved and I now have access to exactly how many miles per loco/unit at a few clicks or button presses.