Wednesday, July 01, 2015

Ian Allan (1922-2015): The man who invented trainspotting



From the Telegraph obituary for Ian Allan:
Ian Allan, who has died the day before his 93rd birthday, triggered the post-war explosion of trainspotting as a British pastime by publishing the first booklet of engine numbers in 1942 and starting a club which had 230,000 members by the time steam gave way to diesel.
Perhaps he did not invent the pastime - I have a friend whose father remembered collecting locomotive names before the war - but he certainly codified and popularised it.

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