In the past few days there have been several threads started here (and one dug up from the past and reincarnated) regarding events in the full-size railroading world. The subjects have been interesting, horrifying, even morbid. What they haven’t been is connected to modeling. (If anyone is planning a diorama based on the California crash, my apologies.)
Please, there is a whole set of forums for current and ancient full-size railroad topics! If you want to discuss the latest train crash or dropped steam loco fire, the Trains forum would welcome you with open arms. OTOH, if it happened a century ago it would probably draw more attention on the Classic Trains forum. That way, people who want to find that little gem of information needed for detailing their TT model of Podunk and Northern #10 will have a little less raw ore to process while seeking it.
also, the model railroader forums have a prototype information for the modeler sub-forum. that might also be a good place to put it, in case someone wants to make a diorama of it or make a scene on their layout of it.
One sees questions clearly suited to the classic toy trains forum on the model railroading forum. One sees model railroading reference in the prototype Classic Trains and Trains parts of the forum. Bergie himself has pleased with people not to post stuff in the trains.com part of the form that belongs elsewhere.
I certainly see your point, but at the same time, I think I’ll choose to disagree with you. On friendly terms, of course.
I value the opinions and thoughts of those on this forum. I’ve found you all to be one of the best and most intelligent groups around. The forum occasionally strays off course, but overall it represents a true “virtual community” of people who are bound by a common interest. On the other hand, it’s not our only interest. Each of us has a full life behind us, and some with more ahead than behind. We sit down at our keyboards each day with a world of new information, starting with our European friends in the pre-dawn hours, joined by us East-coasters, then the mid-west and Pacific states. Finally, the Australians join in as those layouts with realistically-sequenced lighting pull the last trains into the depot and finish up for the night.
So, I like to know what you’re thinking, not just about trains, but about many subjects. My mind is never made up about anything. An intelligent argument by anyone will always be heard.
It is funny that I was just thinking about this the other day. I was at an operating session where the owner has added extra “disaster” cards to random things up. I noticed that often the hot selling items are one-offs or fairly rare things. Go to a train show and see modules of things or at least mini-scenes of very rare events (including wrecks).
Is it just boring to model standard common every day stuff? We already run many many more trains over a piece of track that the prototype does. Does our upbringing in a video game world demand that our layouts have to be over loaded with rare, obscure, and obtuse stuff?
I have no answers but was just pondering this as I unwraped my new GN - “circus” box cars. Very rare, probably should never have one even in the same yard as another and yet I’ve got 5 soon to be 10.
A: Pick as many as you can, so that you get the widest audience. After all, the net exists to give you an audience. Ignore those who suggest you should only use groups where you think the article is highly appropriate. Pick all groups where anybody might even be slightly interested.
This is not the “General Discussion” forum. This is a General Discussion forum. To be precise, it is the “General Discussion (Model Railroader)” forum.
Kalmbach has 5 different General Discussion forums in different sections on the forum web pages:
“General Discussion (Classic Trains)”
“General Discussion (Garden Railways)”
“General Discussion (Model Railroader)”
“General Discussion” (no qualifier, but under the Trains Magazine section
Discussions about general subjects relating to prototype trains belong in the General Discussion forum under the Trains Magazine section. Discussions about general subjects relating to Model Railroading belong in the “General Discussion (Model Railroader)” forum.
I avoid the “General Discussion” area because of the continuing flame wars,insults by a certain “NS engineer” toward railfans etc.Its not worth bothering with.
Yep, and THIS one gets more attention than all those other ones put together…
I don’t do Garden Trains, or Classic Trains, or Real Trains, or Toy Trains, so I prefer to hang out here…(mountains from mole hills…)
Having set a fire under a boxcar load of bombs (a la Roseville, CA) I’ve returned to see just what has exploded. I must admit that I’m pleasantly (un)surprised at the gentle tone of the replies.
Here are my comments on a few specific comments:
PMeyer - “All evil needs to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” “If you aren’t part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” Frankly, I’m getting tired of asking the moderators to move good threads to more appropriate venues - one at a time - and I don’t doubt that they are getting equally tired of me.
Mister Beasley - It’s a matter of keeping things in their proper places (Says he, whose layout space looks like the results of a casino implosion - but it’s ORGANIZED chaos!!!) I don’t expect to find track plans and DCC advice in Hugh Hefner’s magazine, and I would be totally flummoxed if I found his latest blonde in the centerfold of MR.
Tex - If you choose the right prototype to model, you might find it difficult to duplicate the traffic density. The employee timetable for the JNR line I follow has over 140 train movements scheduled daily, so my layout, when somewhat more complete, will have to support that level of activity. As for rare, some of my JNR one-offs are strange, and some of my freelance creations (with TTT markings) are downright weird.
Loathar - I’ve found lots of fascinating stuff on the other forums. I’ve also found that the things that scratch my blackboard when posted here had already been posted elsewhere (usually in Trains "General Discussion) with an earlier time by somebody else.
I want to thank everybody for keeping things civil. What could have erupted into a flame war - didn’t. (And now I’ll adjourn to the railroad room before the temperature out there goes ballistic.)
Funny… Bergie says this in the RULES thread at the very top of the page.
“- Please keep discussions on topic (that is, railroad-related).”
Given that Bergie doesn’t say Model Railroad related, I would think it is appropriate to post about Railroad news on occasion. I wouldn’t have known about the Commuter Train accident that was posted here if it had not been posted. Oh I might have found out over across the street as it was posted over there in the Model Railroad forums. I guess my thoughts are if you don’t like the post, don’t read it.
Still, the point has correctly been made that an accident is unlikely, even very highly unlikely, to be the topic of interest to modelers except that they do want to model a real accident for some reason…in which case they would raise the topic in that context and ask only those who wished to help out to post to the thread, and for others who have no particular need or desire to participate to stay out…with thanks.
So posting about a commuter/freight hard interaction is really off topic. It may be interesting, just as real railroading is likely to be for many of us. There is a forum provided for real-world rail-related traffic. You would not expect questions about modeling to be warmly received over there…would you?
Secondly, quite a few people who really like this forum are hard pressed to find the time on a daily basis to get a good look at any of the fora. When they do get a few moments, and elect to look at X, why would they enjoy having their time populated by spurious posts unrelated to the field they selected for interest?
I think it is about respect, context, and consideration, and I would guess that this is the gist of Chuck’s request…let’s stick to the modelling here… At most, a quick alert post mentioning that something is going on and to get over to the appropriate forum would suffice. Along with it should be a request that no further posting take place to the alert. I suspect the vast majority would tolerate that type of post relatively easily?
Well, what about the Gomez Addamses among us? [:-,]
It used to bother me that as often as not people placed their topics in the wrong category, even those just relevant to Model Railroading. Now I think, why worry as long as it has something to do with railroads and modeling. I pay attention to the topic titles and avoid the 75 percent that don’t interest me.
I think it’s a general human reaction thing–we model an industry, therefore we’re usually interested in what happens IN that industry, and we share the information among ourselves. I don’t really feel that the Chatsworth incident was that much ‘off-topic’, since a lot of our posting has to do with modeling prototypical rail operations. As to which section of which Forum to post our reactions on–it’s possibly instinctive to post it on the Forum that we visit the most.
I for one, do not think it’s a waste of space, it’s a terrible disaster–the worst in 15 years, and it concerns an industry that we all model–railroads. And we all have the choice of skipping threads.
I, for one, do think it’s a waste of space. Disaster as it is, and unfortunate as it is, I don’t think that this forum is the right place to discuss it. Not only is a more appropiate forum just a few clicks away, but realy,unless you know someone involved, what are you really going to learn? That Humans make mistakes and somebody else pays the price? With all due respect, that doesn’t help my modeling.
I’d like to take this a bit further - a few days ago there was a post on an event that effected us all, and I felt that was out of place on this forum. While I understand that a lot of people spend the majority of their time on a single forum and it seems natural to want to express a opinons on a range of topics with their friends, the reality is the forum exits for a very specific purpose, and those opinions may not be appropate.
I joined this as a model railroading forum. That’s what I’m here to read. And while I can skip topics that may not fit, why should I have to? Did I come to the wrong place? Or did someone else post incorrectly.