Spotting started by Victorian girl
 

Well, it seems so...

First spotters manual written by a Miss?


26 Aug 2014


As part of its preparatory research for its September-March Trainspotting season, research at the National Railway Museum has discovered that the stereotyped 'spotter' couldn't be further from the origins of the much misunderstood hobby.


Research carried out at the York-based Museum has come across a reference to a trainspotter from as early as 1861. The person recording locomotive numbers as they pass a station in London, is not a man clad in an anorak, but a teenager named Fanny Johnson.

Her notebook about Great Western locomotives passing Westbourne Park station in 1861, is referenced in a 1935 article in the GWR magazine, and is the earliest evidence found to date of trainspotting, the collecting of locomotive numbers.

First spotter's manual written by a Miss? - About us - National Railway Museum

So, trainspotting was first committed by a fourteen year old girl; which of course led to buses, and eventually, aircraft. You've got her to thank for all of this, fellas!! :ok:

Ha ha, he said Fanny Johnson.