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Here is a rare glimpse of the last survivors of a dying breed - four 'trainspotters' waiting for a Class 40 diesel locomotive that is slowly approaching Heywood Railway Station on its return from the Fishwick Centenarian rail tour. The two lads on the left have been waiting for roughly one hour, but the two on the right wearing hi-visibility vests - Derek Gordon (left) and Steve Jones (right) have been waiting, regardless of the weather, for more than twenty-four hours just in case the loco returned early. Shunned by society, trainspotters are peculiar and obsessive creatures - they have a little booklet in their pocket where they jot down the number of the trains. Steve Jones (just returned from a two month prison sentence in South Wales) has few social skills, little sense of humour, and is obsessed by unimportant detail. Derek tells a story of a very sad and lonely person, openly admits that he has never had a friend, and says that he and Steve often sleep on deserted platforms on porters' trolleys, bunking dimly lit diesel depots, whilst eluding capture from the British Transport Police. Without any noticeable remorse, Steve says that he often travels hundreds of miles on a single platform ticket! Now most people would view this as a useless or trivial pastime, but for some strange reason these lads see this kind of behaviour, which is far beyond the comprehension of the average person, as quite normal. To their delight, we see the CFPS locomotive 40145 returning to the East Lancashire Railway. "This is exciting, is it not", says Steve to Derek, but Derek is far more concerned with getting a decent photograph. The date is Sunday 29th July 2007. John Wantling, Rochdale

40145, cfps, class, 40, trainspotters, east, lancashire, railway, heywood,