The classic toy trains forum may be getting bigger soon. The other forum is starting to terminate access to the Forum if you’re not a digital subscriber. I got thrown off this morning. No big loss. They recently instated pop-up ads. It’s almost impossible to read sometimes. Full page pop-ups etc. Hoping this means more traffic and participation on this great site.
From what I read, they have a long history of pushing people out. Plenty of threads around the internet go over their… way of doing stuff over there.
I never signed up for that forum, they wanted me to disclose some information as part of the sign up process that I was not interested in providing (nor was it really necessary for them to know). Learned later that it was just as well I never signed up!
-El
Time will tell.
While I would like to see people start to become active on this site, past events where groups of people who no longer wished to participate there (or were forced not to by banning) did not introduce large numbers of new participants here.
Many of those people found new homes on other independent (by that I mean not affiliated with a magazine or other hobby company) sites that have popped up over the years.
I’ve not been a fan of the ogre in years. The simplest most harmless comments disappear without one word of explanation and have done so for years. At least since Alan Miller sold the magazine. If they want to go “pay for say” they’re welcome to it.
Yes but the old format forums under Kalmbach were extremely outdated and maintained badly. Sorry old forum mods, it wasn’t anything you caused, Kalmbach management just seemed to ignore the problem for years. The new Firecrown forums are a thousand times better and you don’t need third party image hosting sites anymore!
Oh. The “ogre.” THAT forum! I was wondering but I’m not surprised. When the editor of the magazine has to get on a topic and tell all the madmen to “Cool it!” that tells me it’s a place I’d rather not be.
With each passing day I’m getting more and more impressed with Firecrown! They REALLY seem to understand the business and the customer base.
Agreed.
Well, not to pile on, but I’ve been a member here for years and WAS a member there even longer.
Basically, I’ve not been too involved in trains for the last several years, but am trying to get back into things, provoked not the least of which by a 2 year old son who seems to have the train bug.
I posted on the other site last week trying to reintroduce myself, only to realize a day or so later that my post had been deletd and my account locked.
I reached out, and was informed by Alan himself that I now had to subscribe to participate. What followed was a few email exchanges, me also attempting to reach out to Ed Boyle who I once had a good relationship with(and was informed he was in a nursing home now unfortunately-he was/is truly a good guy), and a phone call with Alan where I felt like I was being talked to by a slimy used car salesman and ended with him basically slamming the phone down.
Suffice to say, I did not have a positive experience despite deciding I was willing to pay for a digital subcription, only in all of this to have Alan tell me I wasn’t welcome on the site anymore. He saw fit to call me a lot of rather unflattering things, including saying I was acting childish, apparently was entitled for saying I was disappointed to see that OGR had gone to this model, and several other things. Frankly, every email from Alan came across as increasingly unhinged, and at my pointing out that he’d not exactly been respectful to me was apparently the nail in the coffin to say I was “entitled, self absorbed, and combative.”(that’s a direct quote, BTW). I’m still kind of shocked from the whole experience and how Alan chose to escalate it.
I’m actually quite upset about the whole thing, as OGR was my first “home” on the internet and I was looking forward to participating there.
With that said, I have a lot of good memories here as well, where I was never AS active but none the less still active. I’m hoping to participate some here over the coming days/weeks/months.
I also always loved Classic Toy Trains magazine, and honestly always enjoyed it more than OGR even though I once subscribed to both. Tomorrow, I’m planning on putting my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and renewing my subscription to CTT. I’m just happy it’s still around, and I want to do my part to keep it that way, so chances are I’m going to get the print+digital.
Ben, thank you! I hope you enjoy the mix of articles. I was doing some issue planning yesterday and we have so many great things planned. The Spring issue, for instance, will showcase the runner-up winner of our track plan contest and we’ll have a buyer’s guide to figures. You would think that after 38+ years we’d run out of material but the stories keep coming!
Welcome back Ben!
You know, your post settled something for me. I was considering subscribing to the “Ogre.” For years I’ve considered “Classic Toy Trains” the showcase for the fun of toy trains and “Ogre” the “zen” of toy trains but considering your recent experience it seems the zen master has a bit of an attitude or people skills problem. So no subscription from me for the “Ogre,” although I may pick up an issue from time to time if there’s something in there that interests me. And Ed Boyle’s in a nursing home? How sad, I always enjoyed his “Collectors Corner” articles.
Don’t worry CTT, I’m not going anywhere!
That’s been going on for years, slowly there catching up to those who have not done what it takes to be a member of the dictatorship over there. Why do I say that? try making a comment about one of the advertiser, even trying to find out why they do something.
You still can go in and read the latest post just can’t reply, make or search, but to search use google and a lot of time a answer will direct you to what they have answered.
Welcome back smokey1! Hopefully more of the “exiles” like you and I will keep showing up, and soon too!
Thanks for the welcome back from you and everyone!
Just looking, I’ve been a member of this site for nearly as long as I was at OGR.
It’s really a shame that such a great site now requires you to pay money to use it. Alan on multiple occasions called me “incredibly entitled” for mentioning that there are multiple free sites, and that OGR gets forum traffic(and ad revenue) from contributions users(including me) have made over the years.
Incidentally too in our phone call, Alan said “You can go to other sites where they track everything you do.” I mentioned Google ads on OGR, and he came back with “Oh, we have a special arrangement with google that they don’t do tracking our ads.” and claimed they have enough traffic that Google came to them with that offer. That sounds like a tall tale to me, but what have you. I felt like I was talking to a used car salesman who had an answer for everyhing.
BTW, I was really, really sad to hear that Ed was in a nursing home. That information came from Alan Arnold, so take it for what it’s worth, but that’s what he told me. I had CCed Ed on one email(not blindly, I actually addressed part of the email to Ed) just because I’d had a good relationship with him in the past and didn’t know Alan at all. I was accused of attempting to “tattle tale” on Alan for doing that. It was bizarre, but Alan almost sounded gleeful telling me that Ed was in a nursing home-almost a “I don’t have that guy disagreeing with me anymore” but I could be reading too much into that. He had the same tone telling me that Jim Barrett had passed away(something I was aware of).
That whole encounter was bizarre, but I’m here again at a nice friendly place, but still just stinging from what has to be one of the nastiest email dressing downs I’ve ever received in response to what I was attempting to make cordial if not overly friendly emails…
Does anyone know if Allan Miller is still actively involved? I was told he was still a(very small) part owner, and is still listed, but don’t know what that involvement entails. I butted heads with Allan M. a few times, but ultimately I always found him to be a well-reasoned individual and someone with whom it was possible to have a respectful disagreement. Alan Arnold seems to consider anything but blind agreement to be disrepectful.
I won’t air my frustrations with the “other” forum here, but I am glad to see this new format for the CTT forum - I got locked out of this account here some time back, and it is good to now be able to log back in! Hope to be able to participate here more in the future.
Welcome back refugees! I haven’t been over there since Rich Melvin ran the forum. I butted heads with him and I haven’t gone back. I left around the time Alan Miller was selling the rag. Never talked to Alan Arnold. Frankly he sounds a bit MAGATY for my taste.
I try to keep such things to myself but MTH and Lionel coming out with so much politically motivated stuff in recent years has really been a turn off. I prefer simple, classic stuff, my toys don’t have to scream messages to everyone who sees them other than “let’s have fun”! I’d prefer to keep the bullying out of the hobby and out of the catalogs.
As far as role at the magazine, Allan M is currently listed as Editor in Chief. I don’t recall the details if he stayed involved continuously in some way from back in the days when it was the “group of 4” who took over from the original founder/publisher, or if he was maybe away for a time in between and returned later.
I concur, I don’t like seeing political trains either, in my mind the hobby should be a refuge from the outside world, a neutral ground where everyone is welcome if you leave the politics at the door.
However the market being what it is as long as the product sells people are going to make it. As the YouTuber “Toy Train Tips And Tricks” put it “Why should the folks at Franklin Mint make all the money!”
It definitely leaves a soured taste in my mouth seeing political themed trains. I would like to think that most train people can all see eachother as people united by a love of trains. Whether reasonable or not, I tend to keep some matters of my personal life to myself, lest I be seen as ‘bringing politics into the room’. Whatever the line you draw between what is and is not a political statement, the fact of the matter is that politically charged graphics, no matter where you put them, are going to stir up commotion between those who condone them and those who do not.
I don’t come here to project and justify my beliefs and persuasions, political or otherwise. I don’t want to. I’m here to play trains and meet other people on a somewhat even playing field. I want to share my love of the toy trains that have been a part of people’s lives long before I was born, and which I hope will continue to be a part of people’s lives for long after.
It’s not really possible to live a life that doesn’t insersect with politics. They’ll find you sooner or later. But long before the worries of the world reached my ears as a kid, there was a love for toy trains. And it’s still here. And trains are my happy place. I can’t control what others choose to do with their trains, or how they behave themselves online. But I can at least endeavor to extend unto others in the toy train community, what basic courtesy I would hope others will extend to me.
I was recently watching the ‘Century of Lionel’ trains two-part piece, and there’s various segments where Richard Kughn is waxing nostalgia about how Lionel electric trains shaped his childhood- and he talks about how playing trains with friends taught him and his peers the value and importance of getting along and working things out as a group. He cites his trains as being responsible for that lesson.
Personally, I think there’s a bit more to it than that. Clearly not everyone who plays with trains plays well with others. But all those who are willing to work with others, will reap the benefits it entails.
-El
Johnny Carson use to say" keep politics and religion out of the show" I do agree with that , just trains!!
I’ve got that “Century of Lionel” DVD set myself and remember the Dick Kughn segment well. Dick was a wise man with that observation!
“Not everyone will agree but you form a consensus and move forward to an end product.” A good life lesson!