Composition Exercise 8

1. Composition Exercise 8 8. A suspicious hobby

2. Key • 1.In his childhood, Joe Harrison used to go down to collect the numbers of the engineswhich passed through the localrailway station and he is still interested in trains.

3. 2. His hobby is usually described as ‘trainspotting’, however Joe’s interests are much wider than the ordinary train spotter’s, and his personality can truly be saidtohave developed as a result of his enthusiasm for trains. • 3. He has, for example, an extensive geographical knowledge of the country from the frequentjourneys that he makes whenever a branch line in a remotedistricthas become uneconomic to run and he wishesto travel on it before it closes down.

4. 4. He is self taughtin economicsand heis fond ofquoting all sorts of facts andfigures so as to prove that the railways could prevent the more picturesque branch lines from being closeddown if theyran them as a tourist industry. • 5. His hobby has also led to his becominga skilled photographer for he loves to take dramatic pictures of express trains rushing by at fantastic speeds and ha has a photograph album full of pictures of famous steam engines, which are no longer in service now that they have been replaced by diesel engines.

5. 6. Having learnt almost everything there is to know about railways in railways in Britain, he has recentlytaken to traveling abroad and exploring the continental railway system. • 7. However, as he and a fellowenthusiast discoveredon their last trip abroad, train spotting is not as popular a hobby on the continent as it is in England.

6. 8. During the winter he and his friend had gone to Yugoslavia in the hope ofphotographing some of the grand steam engines which have snow ploughs attached in front of them in order to make their way along the snow-covered tracks. • 9. Unfortunately, they will never know whether the photographs they took cameout or not, for they were seen at the side of a railway track by a military police patrol, who naturally found their activities suspicious and arrested them.

7. 10. It was not until they had beenimprisoned for several daysthatthey managed to convince the Yugoslav authorities that they were notguilty of spyingbut had merelybeen train spotting.