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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by railroadyoshi What is the pass exchange anyways? [/quote] Many years ago lots of model railroaders would have passes made for their model railroads, real or imagined. They'd give them to visitors and exchange them with other modelers, just like the real railroads would do. Most were commercially printed, but some were hand drawn, typed, mimeographed, even done on blueprint machines. RMC and Model Trains magzines used to run lists of modelers who had passes and wanted to exchange them with others - the Pass Exchange list. Every month there would be a dozen or so names. It was a hobby within a hobby. I participated in the early 1960's as a teenage model railroader, and had my name in the pass exchange columns several times over the years. I'd get many dozens of passes after each listing. My collection grew to around a thousand passes from all over the world. Some modelers even made up their own lists of pass exchangers and would give them to other modelers. RMC discontiued their pass listings quite some time ago, and Model Trains (a Kalmbach magazine aimed at beginners) folded a long time ago too. I don't recall when the NMRA started listings for pass exchange, but it has been quite some time ago. As noted in the first post, this part of the hobby appears to be dying off. A more recent innovation in pass exchanging has been digital passes - images of passes made on a computer, and exchanged among modelers. Most are personalized with the recipient's name before sending. This is more or less the same as the subject of this thread - virtual passes. Some of the mailing lists are still around, as I get several passes each year, got one just last week. I still have a supply of my printed passes and I do have a digital one, but haven't done much to promote their exchanging. If someone sends me one of theirs, I'll send them one of mine. My printed passes have a somewhat interesting history - again as a teenage model railroader I got together with two friends and we sent away for a real hand operated printing press. Moveable type, ink, rollers, the whole thing. Just a small table top model, but it could do professional style printing. Together we printed small items for local businesses - cards, envelopes, letterheads, tickets, membership cards, etc, and paid the $75.00 cost of the outfit in no time. I was free to do all of my own model railroad printing. I still have my printing press outfit, although I haven't used it for quite some years, the computer and printer having taken over. It was another "hobby within a hobby" for me. End of history lesson! Bob Boudreau
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