As I have already discussed in previous posts, i’m a rail enthusiast, now that may shock you. But I feel i’m quite a normal kind of guy, not your stereotypical ‘Train Spotter’. My friends would even agree with me on that one!

However, I recall showing one of my good friends, Mr Moir a few pics in the past of some ‘proper’ spotters, and he found it very amusing.

Jump forward many months and I feel that I will have to share this little thing with him also. Now as a enthusiast in all aspects of railways I do take photographs of trains. I have also been taking photographs of train spotters taking photos of trains!

Strange, weird, maybe bonkers, but still amusing. I’m sharing this with you to see what you think. Some of the photos it is a tad hard to spot the spotter. One photo even had a female spotter! simple sit back and indulge, you will however find many stereotypical spotters in this images, so you have been warned.

Follow this link here of click on the image above

Here I am again, back from the cold and wet crappy weather. Its been a while but im back here talking dribble. The title of this post refers to a new breed of locomotives for the UK. The GE Powerhaul locos for Freightliner. I managed to sneak into Stoke Gifford Sidings in Bristol the other day to see one of these new locos. Pictures can be found on my flickr photostream or here:

Now before I bore you to death talking about this i’m not going to go on about what they are and so forth just how I happened to know where said loco was.

Over the past few years rail enthusiasts (thats what I like to be know as, not a spotter!) have taken full advantage of the internet and email lists. Without these lists and updates I would have had to have waited until these locos were out and about on the national network, not knowing when they would turn up.

Now some within the railway community would say that this is cheating, but when you get to where I am with the hobby, I need less than I have seen on the national network, so I feel that this makes it a bit more fun going out and hunting these things down.

Hey there you go, if none of this makes sense then, poo to you Im just rambling and I like it!

Well been adding a few things to the blog here, namely a RSS feed from my Flickr pages and Twitter. The more observant of you will notice what is on the Flickr feed…trains!

Well i’m sure that explains the “BigColes the Geek’ name of this blog, yes as you may have guessed I am what you normal people refer to as a ‘Train Spotter’. It is a tad more complex than that one word but still more to come soon on this fascinating subject.

Now back to what I was planning to talk about; staying away overnight. Well to cut a long story short, I do work all over the country and this does require me to stay away quite a bit, now my company have a business account with Premier Inn, and so I have become somewhat of an expert in these said hotels.

Tomorrow night I will be staying in Torquay my second overnight of the week, last night was Heathrow Airport.

What I think I was trying to get at is i’m sure other people do the same, but how many different Premier Inn’s have they stayed at? Am I on a one man mission to stay in every one of them in the UK? Not sure but will update this soon with a number and we will see where it take us.

At times, a word is all that you need to get that propelling inspiration to end up scribbling a 5 para write-up that makes more sense than the life you are living. Have you ever come across such word?

Time and again, I get gooseflesh upon coming across few words – possibly new, but not necessarily so. But, time and again I feel the same, upon coming across a new exciting word. Again. That only makes me put down few gorgeously worded lines, time and again; and time and again, I also have the feeling that these words and lines are irrelevant to what I know and what I do. So what is it that I know and I do?

Today, the word happens to be a very good sounding one with an equally opposite meaning – “Trainspotter”. Because it is just a euphemism of ‘Nerd’, ain’t going to keep me away from it. Frankly speaking, I would never have accepted that the meaning – of this word – aptly represents the life I lead, had the word been ‘nerd’. I would say aloud that I am not a nerd, but I am ready to accept, with even louder voice, that I am a trainspotter. Yes! I am boringly engaged to my solitary world, where I, time and again, get lost whilst my acquaintances feel the brunt of being around.

And, if you don’t have a part of trainspotter in you, I pity you, for you are giving a miss to one of the best parts of life. Try imagining yourself walking down the lane where everything is according to your choice and your likings, and what you do is what you want to. Above that, it comes uninterruptedly, and there is nothing you have to fear about. It’s your world and everything is ‘all about you.’

But, one rule of nature holds true, even in this world. Start suspecting one thing, and the whole world tumbles – like a dominoes. Still, you get to play the spectator to the end of your world, which you never can in reality, until you age. Everyday, you have a new life to live, every hour you have a new deal to start off with. So never be bothered with a life getting doomed. For a new word awaits you with a new life.

That’s what I call, ‘Live Life A Word Size’

Ştiţi ce este un trainspotter ? Este persoana cu o puternică pasiune pentru trenuri. Cel care le analizează ca un bun observator, care notează ora lor de plecare şi cea de sosire, care numără vagoanele,  dar care în ciuda pasiunii sale nu urca niciodata treapta unui tren.

Poate că odată urcat va fi purtat…  nu în călătoria pe care o visează de-o viaţa, ci într-una în care a mai fost şi în trecut.

Nimeni nu-şi doreşte redundanţă.

Poate nu vrea să vadă defectele lumii pe care a contemplat-o până acum ca un simplu outsider.

Imperfecţiunile nu plac nimănui.

Sau poate că “sandvişurile” emoţionale cu care a plecat la drum îi sunt de suficiente.

Poate că odată urcat, o să găsească nimicul de care se teme.

Un trainspotter este un veşnic confuz, un diletant în corpul unui expert, cineva care vede nimicul în ceva sau ceva-ul în nimic, cineva care nu ştie să caute şi găseşte când nu caută, dar care nu păstreaza niciodată ce găseşte pentru că mereu aşteaptă următorul tren…

U2- With or without you

„Trainspotting“ heißt es, wenn man sich ohne Selbstmordgedanken an Bahnstrecken positioniert, um vorbeifahrende Züge zu beobachten und zu fotografieren. Laut Wiki werden „Trainspotter“ in Deutschland auch etwas salopp als „Fuzzis“ bezeichnet. Was bei den „Fuzzis“ natürlich viel zu kurz kommt, ist die Begutachtung des Zuginterieurs. Weil ich ja ein “Drinni” bin und zudem noch viel mit dem Zug fahre, kann ich diese Aufgabe super übernehmen. Mein Traum ist es eh, den ganzen Tag mit der Eisenbahn zu fahren, entweder mit Bahncard 100 oder als Zugbegleiter. Das Problem ist bei Letzterem nur, dass man dafür scheinbar gar nicht ausgebildet werden kann, jedenfalls nicht, wenn man auf der Homepage der Bahn guckt. Was aber gut ist: Bei allen (anderen) Ausbildungsplätzen der Bahn lernt man zu rangieren.

Wie auch immer, hier kommt ein erster Einblick in meine Sammlung:

ICE 546 Berlin-Bielefeld. Ein Klassiker

ICE 546. Eine charakteristische Armlehne

ICE 78 Hannover-Hamburg. Fußbereich

Auch ICE 78. In renovierten ICEs fehlt die Fußstütze

Stehen im ICE 685 Hamburg-Hannover. Nicht im Bild ist die Feuerwehr Vellmer auf Betriebsausflug