In my railway career, I’ve come across some odd rail enthusiast obsessions. One signaller I knew would come off the night turn and then travel across the country to catch a special train that was being pulled by a particular type of locomotive – special because he hadn’t yet collected that stretch of line. I use the term collected because that was effectively what he was doing, much as others will stand on the platform and collect numbers.
My peculiarity is observing this behaviour when I’m waiting for my train. I find it mildly interesting. I have never come across ghost train collectors before. I’ll have to watch out for them when I’m next travelling by rail.
Have you read The Signalman, by Dickens? A fine read, LR.
A long, long time ago.
I only came across these by accident, it turned out there was a Eurostar service from Manchester but was cancelled “Due to Lack of Demand”. Of course the service was never advertised nor a timetable ever made available so the only time we Mancunians heard we DID have this service was when we were told it was being withdrawn – a month after it actually had been. Who knew “The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy” was actually a real business model!
TTFN 🙂
What really tickles me is that when the line is out of commission and the ghost trains can’t run, there’s a replacement ghost bus service.
(Link is to my own post – sorry! – as the original article is now behind a paywall.)