"The place to discuss Amtrak, the future of passenger rail, and high speed proposals."
I've thought for some time that this Forum could use a new topic-section, namely International Rail, where people could post things about freight railroads in Peru, say, or ask questions like Which is the best side to sit on if I'm riding the Glacier Express? Or, who's ridden the Warsaw - Berlin Express and can answer a question? Perhaps Kalmbach will consider this.
I have no issue with international passenger train subjects in this forum, and foreign freight subjects in the general forum. International posts in the other two fora are okay with me also.
Still in training.
It says, "the future of passenger rail." It does not specify any particular country. The future of passenger rail is not in the United States.
54light15 The future of passenger rail is not in the United States.
Ain't that the truth!
Actually I would like to see less seperate forum topics. I think Transit and Passenger overlap, and should be combined.
NKP guy I've thought for some time that this Forum could use a new topic-section, namely International Rail, where people could post things about freight railroads in Peru, say, or ask questions like Which is the best side to sit on if I'm riding the Glacier Express? Or, who's ridden the Warsaw - Berlin Express and can answer a question? Perhaps Kalmbach will consider this.
Agree, and in fact TRAINS covers international Passenger Rail with it's articles and not just Amtrak. From my past experience running and maintaining a discussion Forum the Forum discussion areas are like jotted down vs well thought out when the discussions are opened for the first time......then they are tweaked over time. I would be willing to bet if the Moderator were asked vs posting something like this he might probably agree the intent was all intercity passenger rail vs just Amtrak. To include VIA Rail as well. Also, willing to bet the Moderator has no clue how to change the Forum discussion topic description. It was not a well known procedure on Military dot com when they had Discussion Forums. I had to modify some of the topic descriptions on Military dot com, to make them more clear to match the current discussion of the website.
MidlandMike Actually I would like to see less seperate forum topics. I think Transit and Passenger overlap, and should be combined.
Yes so your asking Kalmbach Moderators to spend more time Moderating with each Forum Split out......so keep that in the back of your head if they say NO. Additionally, with the handful of "socially challenged" posters that we have, monitoring the discplinary issues is also more time consumming. Last the stats are tracked by how many users go into a discussion topic and the time they spend in each. Dividing a large topic and you now have two topics with less hits which shows on the stats as rather crappy. Ultimately what you want to do is add a new topic that pulls in more hits and more readers. So it is kind of a challenge and an art form to do the split properly so you up up with more hits vs less hits.
I split topics on Military.com to find in a few days the total was greater than the split and we lost traffic as a result as the two halves did less business than the one whole.
Last but not least and too many Forums which is what plagued Military.com and you will have posters stating it is too hard to find discussions and more posters will start a discussion in the wrong forum due to the confusion. So the other caveat here is you cannot subdivide the forums too much either or you will end up with a mess.
One more item I want to mention is with Military dot com the most new readers came in via finding the discussion forum via GOOGLE not via entering the website via the front door. Google a few of these discussions and you will see what I mean.
So this is not a slam dunk.
I'm quite happy with the way things currently are.
The way we get scope creep around here we could get away with a single forum.
54light15 It says, "the future of passenger rail." It does not specify any particular country. The future of passenger rail is not in the United States.
Context, pal. It starts with Amtrak.
Yes, it starts with Amtrak but doesn't end there. The future was already set in 1964 in Japan. How many years ago is that? How is Amtrak measuring up to the Shinkansen and the entire Japanese system? Not well.
54light15 Yes, it starts with Amtrak but doesn't end there. The future was already set in 1964 in Japan. How many years ago is that? How is Amtrak measuring up to the Shinkansen and the entire Japanese system? Not well.
At least that would be of some relevance. But Israel, Brighton Belle and a station? Not much.
OK, those could have been in Steam and Preservation, but so what? They do talk of passenger service and that's good enough for me. Why worry about it? This is only a hobby forum.
There is a long-standing hole in Kalmbach forum coverage between 'modern' railroading and the rolling 50-year cutoff for Classic Trains.
That leaves no proper forum for discussing historical efforts including nearly the whole modern history of true high-speed trains.
A great deal of interesting intermodal technology, including the whole of the HPIT revolution-that-failed, is largely undiscussable other than by doing Procrustean assignment either to General or by sticking it in Preservation (which is supposed to be about present-day activities).
I don't have a problem with Passenger being used for any sort of 'passenger railroading' -- separated, exactly as it is, from transit/light rail/interurban stuff. There is some overlap between the two, but it's pretty clear most of the time which 'community' has the interest in a particular aspect.
Brighton Belle -- operations go in Classic Trains, anything done with the equipment goes in Preservation.
Israeli passenger service -- it's certainly passenger service. If someone isn't interested, don't keep reading it. (I can't read more than half of it anyway on a phone!)
In my opinion at least, Penn Station (or CUS, or any other historic station or replacement) is just as valid a modern 'passenger' topic as the trains are. I'll grant you it can be tedious when "rebuilding replica Penn Station" goes forward and back multiple times, usually with typical crayonista indifference to whose OPM is supposed to produce the miracle. That does not make it any less a 'modern passenger' topic. Just let's not thread-drift discussions on what is going to be built into yet more discussions on 'when the historic station will rise Phoenix-like from the scuttling rats'...
Overmod- I totally agree with you expecially on Penn Station. The original is gone and isn't coming back but with the Moynihan train hall and what they plan for Penn is a way to acknowledge what was done and is an attempt to make up for it.
OvermodIf someone isn't interested
I agree Dave should post away as well.... :)
Out of the 10 threads after this, a few are about the future of passenger rail in the US,while three are about stations or stops and two are about railroading in Israel. Perhaps one broad forum is sufficient since the differentiation seems blurred.
charlie hebdo Out of the 10 threads after this, a few are about the future of passenger rail in the US,while three are about stations or stops and two are about railroading in Israel. Perhaps one broad forum is sufficient since the differentiation seems blurred.
I feel your pain charlie.
I doubt that the moderator will toss a thread started on an innovation that took plavr 35 or 40 years ago in passenger service and/or technology.
Don't make problems that aren't present now.
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