I haven’t seen a post by Tom (twhite?) in quite a while, nor Chuck (tomikawaTT). As we close our year, I hope you will mention, and remember, some old friends who have been promoted and no longer speak with we lowly folk.
Yes, as forums go, we probably lose more members to the Big Roundhouse in the Sky than most. We try to add friends to the RIP track in the Diner, but we certainly miss a few.
Thanks for reminding us Crandell. Tom was a big help to me when I returned to the hobby saving me from future headaches and Chuck and I shared some good laughs along the way.
I thought I saw Tom on some other sites recently but I can’t be certain.
Notwithstanding MisterBeasleys comment, I would presume that a number of the forum members get sick of the forum and move on to one that better suits them, have a life style change does not allow them the time to participate in the hobby, or, for whatever reason, give away the hobby completely.
For those reasons, I’d be unwilling to nominate a member to be on the Diners RIP Track, but along with those already mentioned, I do wonder about DJ, Grampys Trains. His contributions to the WPF threads were marvellous.
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
On another unrelated forum, searching for a member brings up a display showing their last activity. I think that’s a great feature, perhaps one that could be included with the next forum upgrade.
Used to be the same here.
I hope no one is added to the RIP track in the diner, without some certainty. Which brings up the point that we all have an online presence.
I have 4 email addys, photobucket, flickr, imgur and google photo accounts, facebook and instagram, get email from 4 different forums and actively participate in 3 more. All have their own user names and passwords. I have left instructions for my sons, that detail this and what to do with my accounts.
If a forum member knows there first and last name, you can google “First + Last + State + obituary” and see what comes up.
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Short of that, it is doubtful we will ever know.
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“Space Mouse” is another formeraly active member that has gone missing.
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-Kevin
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Yea, he was so active, along with the name sake of the current forum, Jeffery, who also had a signiture at one time, declaing “Spacemouse for president”.
I know good ol’ Jeffery’s fate, don’t know what happened to Spacemouse", Chip.
After awhile, they end up here as “Anonymous”. with 300,000 some posts.
Mike.
Although the forum search engine is pretty useless these days, if you click on a user’s profile name, a list of the posts/threads they have contributed to still comes up on their profile page and you can see when the last time they posted on the forum. IIRC, Tom White last posted about a year or so ago and has been a less frequent contributor over the past 3-4 years.
Tom
Quite sad when people no longer are active on the forums. This is a fantastic resource for information and love that it’s a true community. Interacting with others further validates the importance to not stay a lone wolf. I bet if someone has a question or issue, there’s probably someone with an answer or knows where/how to get one.
I agree! I live in an isolated section of the country, and although I have been on the forum only a short time, I feel a real connection with others here.
To be fair, this forum vs. some others, has the atmosphere of being more of a coffee clutch or social club with trains as a common interest. It may be good or not depending on a persons preference. Some may be more interested in forums focused more specifically on trains rather than a the kinds of topics here.
Also, the train related discussion here tends to more to steam and early diesel, with a few modern folks, so some hobbyists may find that less interesting and gravitate to forums that have more activity and discussion on things that interest them. Yes, some of the people who we haven’t heard from in quite a while are steam enthusasts, but it may be other reasons, not the above.
This forum (as the magazine) is more of a “generalist” and there are a lot of topics about what is your favorite color, or what is the velocity of a fully laden sparrow. Could be some move on because how many times can you answer questions like, why do you model what you do, or when, or what made you get into trains, yada yada, retread. Some may crave meat rather than just jawing about whatever semi related to trains. Neither is right or wrong, it just depends on anyones particular interest. Birds of a feather flock together?
Hard to say, it may be that some have simply passed on as well, we may never know. There used to be a guy named Pastor Bob who was a serious modeler of the Santa Fe in 1989. We haven’t heard from him in maybe 5 years or more.
I met a number of Forum members over the decades - at one time we used to try to gather yearly at Milwaukee’s Trainfest, Madison’s Mad City train show, and even at Galesburg Railroad Days. Originally the plan was to wear our official FORUM MEMBER t shirts that Erik Bergstrom, KalPubCo’s original moderator, arranged to have created for us. So you’d look for folks, including Bergie himself, wearing that shirt. Still got mine!
I actually did some railfanning with a couple: you may recall “Big John” John Canazar, a very enthusiastic modeler from Arizona, and Gordon Robinson from the U.K. John has not posted since 2015 but he is evidently still a member which is good. Gordon I know is active in the NMRA and he never really did post much.
And even those you didn’t get to meet, after a while you almost associate a “tone of voice” based on the “conversations” (or lectures) one hears or carries on here. One reason we remember Jeffrey is the almost heartbreaking updates he’d give on his health which was precarious - extremely so as we now know – and his financial situation, which was also precarious.
When rather old threads are resurrected now and then - which seems to annoy some more than it does me - I find two things interesting: first the postings that are now marked “anonymous” because the poster is no longer a member or subscriber, and second the postings that retain a name but are from members who used to post a lot and no longer do at all. We can learn when they last posted but can’t tell if they are now readers and not talkers. If they aren’t “anonymous” I assume they are still full members and are “out there” somewhere. Maybe switched to just the Trains or Classic Trains forums? Maybe changed to garden or toy train modeling and are in those forums? That could explain it.
In the first group somet
Now no one get upset here, including moderators but the fact that you must get an outside host to include pics limits this forum and its future. I used to be a member of another forum and this one had many of the names, either manufactures or authors, it was sold it a take the money and run senerio. As what was stated by others this posting problem (which is controled by other companys), leads to missing pics and flustration as people try to learn the ins and outs of posting pics and remermbering the nuances of the methouds here vs elsewhere. Kalmbach needs to relize that their future to some extent rests with their digital presence as their main draw to this hobby has been their mags (on display at hobby shops) and we no where that is going (most have gone from my area). Even the train shows have droped in half in my area with a pop. of around 7 million plus(also of note there asre only two real hobbyshops in the area (real in the fact that you can walk in and out with generally need supplys for building a layout). Cubs are going away in the droves too, with only one of the four I went to, two very often are still alive (accually another one is but they have been asked to leave).
And pretty waitresses. [:P]
I agree with rrebell about the image posting, and having a digital presence.
Mike.
“Coffee Clutch” or not, the fact is that for many people on these forums, this might be the only social interaction we get with other Model Railroaders.
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I don’t meet up with Model Railroaders anywhere else. Generally, I do not get along with Model Railroaders. They tend to be very stuffy and elitist, and if you do not discuss things on their high-and-mighty level, you might as well be banging on cast metal boilers with a ball pein hammer and laughing at the noise it makes.
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Forums like this are very important to this hobby. I have given up trying to make model railroaders admit they are having fun. This is one of the few places where people really seem to be having fun with the hobby.
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I enjoy it a lot.
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If you are Model Railroading for ay reason other than the pure joy of it all, I will probably look for someone else to talk to.
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-Kevin
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Being at the mercy of a photo hosting company causes problems on many forums. I admit the number of members on the Vintage Ford Forum is a fraction of the membership here, but the owner/moderator there insists photos be posted thru the forum, keeping the photo portion of a how to question alive. Many of the auto related forums offer a “Supporting Member” status for a few dollars a month to help cover some of the cost of running the forum. Something Kalmbach might consider.
I forgot to mention the one person that started me thinking along these lines. Remember RHollowell? Rob and I did some off-line emailing, and he kindly sent me some items he was no longer using. I do know he passed in 2018, predeceased by his sickly wife about a year earlier. He must have been heartbroken. RIP, Robert and Marty.
I appreciate all your contributions.
-Crandell
I met a few people from ehre a few years back at the Timonium show. I haven’t been down there in years, but I will probably get down again soon.
I can’t say I met a single person who was “stuffy” and uptight about modeling - and that includes talking to vendors and magazine staff at various shows. On the contrary, I’ve found most of the people I’ve met, and in the case of club members, hung out with for fairly long periods of time, to be by and large not at all uptight and elitist.
Best one was probably spending close to 2 hours talking electronics with Dick Bronson of RR CirKits at one fo the Timonium shows.
–Randy
Speaking of elitiest, the other forum I regularly visit has a somewht elitiest “tinge” to it, though they would vehemently deny that. Or maybe a better word is “haughty.”
I’ve been on many different model railroad forums over the last 15+ years, and this is the one I keep coming back to, simply because it is just what it purports to be - a forum for modelers to talk about the hobby and their activities within it. There is no heirarchy of modelers. Some are really great, some are not, sure, but in this forum modelers’ skill levels do not “stratify” the discussions. In some other forums that’s not the case.
So I keep coming here, even though the software is rather antiquated and lacking in features in many ways.
In short, these forums are a community. A lot of others - not so much.