Ulrich - I am smiling at your post. Obviously if that many people are telling you that, maybe you should check it out? I admire people who can remain calm, even in a furious dust-up. But that still doesn’t mean they are right. Or maybe even wrong.
Is it possible people disappeared once the joyous novelty of typing communiques on the keyboard of their very own personal computer connected to the world wide web wore off?
Euclid: I don’t think anyone has the right to berate anyone else in most circumstances and especially not on a forum.
But I would accept what most working railroad people say, until someone that also works in the industry can prove them wrong, than I would from someone that “read it in a book” or article. A good discussion between the two would be great reading. Questions are good. Restating a thought when there is an answer more than twice, not so good.
No one is the pure source of anything. I won’t dispute that. But a plumber (ie) knows a lot more about my sink drain than I do - it is his job, it is what he was trained to do and I get the feeling the railroads don’t let screw-ups work very long in their position.
This is where you are getting away from what I am looking for (information) and going into the philisophical. If you are going to delve into this on a forum, then it should be as gentlemen - on both sides. Otherwise, take it to e-mail.
How close to the dock? Is the middle of Lake Erie ok? If so, since I think that’s right on the US-Canada border, where would they bury the survivor?
Absolutely. And at the end of the day I’m proven wrong alot of the time as well, but I’m ok with that. There’s no shame in being wrong. Fortunately for me, Ive been right most of the time on the Big Picture stuff (like who I married and my career cho
Many years ago, during my officer candidate training in the lower mainland of British Columbia where the Canadian Forces Officer Candidate School was situated, I finally had to put my foot down one evening. I called the rest of my cohort to a meeting after supper and gently chided them about their difficulty with marching in step (part of our training at that initial level of recruitment was seeing if we could be team members and actually perform drill movements on a parade square in concert).
I explained to them that I found it very easy to find the cadence and to remain in step, but that the rest of them were abysmal at it. In fact, they were all marching in precisely the wrong step! It was amazing that they could all do it incorrectly.
Due to my intervention, we eventually got it and were all in step. Took a while, though.
Of course working in one aspect of a railroad does not make one a universal expert. And more than a few railroaders only know about their little part of it; they are only there for the paycheque. And they most certainly won’t be found on a railfan forum.
The professional railroaders here care about the industry, and while not necessarily expert, have some knowledge of what other aspects entail. The train crew may not know everything about track but interactions with track maintenance forces provide ample opportunity to learn some of the basic issues. In general the professionals here know where their expertise lies and limit postings to those topics.
To use your example of a flight attendant, while she may not know how to fly an airplane I think you would be surprised at how much more she knows than the average passenger. She remains part of the crew when things go wrong, which is when the best opportunities for broader learning occur.
The only “universal experts” I see on this forum are those who know very little. The professionals remain, partly to continue to learn about details outside their own experience, and also to try to correct the misinformation that some preach.
Oh, Patrick!!
My observation - I believe the ‘bedrock’ posters that have moved on got tired of the moderation that was trying to control things to being acceptable to being shown on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood or Romper Room with Miss Nancy.
Railroading is a adult subject area whose economics and operations are contentious and entwined with politics at all levels.
Oh shoot…we forgot the pack of clowns!
Dave, oh Dave, where are you?
Information? You call it philosophical (ignoring all the rest of the post); I call it clinical.
A lot of folks come and go on this forum and other social media. Some stay for longer than a cup of coffee. Some non-railroaders chose to leave because of very juvenile personal attacks by railroaders and/or their supporters. Some had thin skins; some simply had had enough and weren’t into masochism.
Part of the problem is and has always been that railroaders seem to think the Trains forum decreed that they have a “special” place. Nowhere does it say that.
One thing about the internet, people will disagree with just about anything you say, just as an excuse to try and prove they know something useful. Everybody’s ego is on trial when posting in front of a crowd. Plus…many who are insecure, take disagreement as confrontation, even when the disagreement they feel ‘confronted’ by is only intended as per the above.
A lot of the people who are gone, had acute personality conflicts with other specific members, as I recall. Those type of people will seek out sparing partners wherever they go, it’s just the nature of who they are.
If the only way an individual can find happiness is if all people around them assume a subordinate role, is it fair to blame everyone unwilling to subordinate themselves for the former’s displeasure with them?
Think about that last part, it keys into many of the friction filled relationships I’ve seen here over the years.
Could I ask that when developing thread titles, people consider:
'
It might be preferable to delete the apostrophe that causes this, replacing it with a space or forgetting it altogether.
Alternatively, could the Forum mechanics make a modification that allows apostrophes in forum titles…
Either way, both the decent and indecent threads are equally affected…
Let’s just not use apostrophes in thread titles until the forum software can cope with it…
M636C
BaltACD, there was a time I would have agreed wholeheartedly with you but by the time I retired, nearly five years ago now, the culture had changed so much that one had to be wary of what one said because one never knew who might misconstrue, take offense, run to the nearest official, exaggerate, or otherwise wreck remarks made or overheard. Thick skin had nothing to do with it. Having said that, I will say that when I started, not quite as long ago as you, but nearly, it was a far different place, populated by a whole group of WWII vets and even men from before that, and those old guys, well, you had to have or had to acquire a thick skin.
And sometimes a disagreement just becomes too tedious to continue. Also, if most of the subjects are, for instance, east coast subjects and you live on the west coast, the interest level wanes. So maybe people (fans and railroad workers) left because there was really nothing to add to any of the conversations.
Balt - I don’t think thick or thin skin should even be part of the conversation. Polite conversation doesn’t require it.
It’s just tough to remember not to use proper punctuation, especially when it looks fine when composing, and the bad effect only manifests after submitting the post, and then it’s too late to fix it. I don’t know how to change a title after the thread’s created.