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Classic Trains
Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, November 16, 2017 5:49 AM

How many readers would like to see Classic Trains become a bi-monthly publication instead of the current quartery?

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Posted by Overmod on Thursday, November 16, 2017 9:49 AM

I would, if there is good-quality or even interesting material to support the extra issues.

On the other hand I don’t subscribe, so my opinion here doesn’t carry objective weight.

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Posted by Penny Trains on Thursday, November 16, 2017 7:02 PM

Count me in, three months is torture!

Trains, trains, wonderful trains.  The more you get, the more you toot!  Big Smile

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Posted by Firelock76 on Thursday, November 16, 2017 7:25 PM

A bi-monthly would be great if, if, they don't wind up exhausting their material.

Hard to imagine that happening but it can happen. 

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Posted by Miningman on Thursday, November 16, 2017 7:37 PM

I'm in as long as they don't do an ""All Diesel issue"...ever. 

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Posted by K4sPRR on Friday, November 17, 2017 8:31 AM

Be a great idea as long as the quality does not deteriorate.  Trains Magazine should also consider going bi-monthly they seem to be struggling for articles.   

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Posted by Penny Trains on Friday, November 17, 2017 6:16 PM

Miningman

I'm in as long as they don't do an ""All Diesel issue"...ever. 

 

What if it's all about the original Zephyr and M10,000?

Trains, trains, wonderful trains.  The more you get, the more you toot!  Big Smile

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Posted by Deggesty on Friday, November 17, 2017 7:14 PM

That would be okay; M10000 was distillate, not diesel.Smile

Johnny

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Posted by Miningman on Friday, November 17, 2017 7:48 PM

Fire starter for steam preservationists.... 

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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Friday, November 17, 2017 8:02 PM

Miningman

Fire starter for steam preservationists.... 

Diesel works fine for that too.  And having a little bit of diesel in the fuel on an oil-fired engine makes lighting up way easier too.

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by Fr.Al on Wednesday, November 22, 2017 11:09 AM

I'll stick with quarterly. But that's just me. Some here have called for a return of Trains Illustrated. I had thought CT was just it's replacement. Nowadays, CT is the only one I read and subscribe to. But if TI does come back, I could go for that as well.

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Posted by MidlandMike on Wednesday, November 22, 2017 8:24 PM

K4sPRR

Be a great idea as long as the quality does not deteriorate.  Trains Magazine should also consider going bi-monthly they seem to be struggling for articles.   

 

How about this; combine the two back into one monthly magazine and call it Trains (like it used to be).

TRBB, I have been waiting to hear you comments on the thread in the Trains-Passenger forum about the DBAG contract on the California HSR project.

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Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, November 23, 2017 7:39 AM

My laptop has been in the shop.  Will get back after I educate myself on the subject.

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Posted by Penny Trains on Thursday, November 23, 2017 6:29 PM

MidlandMike
How about this; combine the two back into one monthly magazine and call it Trains (like it used to be).

Not for me.  I get lost reading Trains, too much tech I haven't kept up with, which is why I don't subscribe.  I like the way CT authors often take the time to explain things.

Trains, trains, wonderful trains.  The more you get, the more you toot!  Big Smile

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Posted by Enzoamps on Thursday, November 23, 2017 9:56 PM

I used to buy Trains every month, but I have gotten to picking it up at the news stand, reading the Ask Trains feature in the back of the issue, and putting it back on the shelf.   I can only read so much about unit coal trains and Amtrak management.  I usually find CT interesting.

make it more often?  Sure, if it doesn't mean watering it down.

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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, November 24, 2017 11:50 AM

I believe Classic Trains can expand to a bi-monthly publication and still retain the content and respect it has become known as in the railfan community. I'd like to see Trains Illustrated return too, published twice a year, with each issue containing 100 pages.  Ditto with 100 pages for CT.  I'll support both regardless of any required increase in the price of both.

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Posted by BaltACD on Friday, November 24, 2017 6:15 PM

To all extents possible Classic Trains needs to find as many color photographs as possible.  Looking at everything in black and white gives me the impression that life in the WW II era and before was 'lived' in black and white.  A false reality, however, all the images of the period being B&W make it seem so.

History Channel's 'WW II in Color' gives a 'new look' to the war - a war that was covered by 99.9% B&W images.  Color brings reality home, expecially to a population that has grown up with nearly all images - photographs, film, video, TV and everything else being shown in color.  The same needs to be done with Classic Trains to all extents possible.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Friday, November 24, 2017 6:27 PM

BaltACD

To all extents possible Classic Trains needs to find as many color photographs as possible.  Looking at everything in black and white gives me the impression that life in the WW II era and before was 'lived' in black and white.  A false reality, however, all the images of the period being B&W make it seem so.

History Channel's 'WW II in Color' gives a 'new look' to the war - a war that was covered by 99.9% B&W images.  Color brings reality home, expecially to a population that has grown up with nearly all images - photographs, film, video, TV and everything else being shown in color.  The same needs to be done with Classic Trains to all extents possible.

+1 Yes

Greetings from Alberta

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Posted by Miningman on Friday, November 24, 2017 7:42 PM

Interesting.....I actually really like the black and white photos, the builders photos are especially stunning but if they colourized many of the black and white's I would have no objection whatsoever.

Would think that with today's vast colour spectrum technology great things could be done. Purists would complain however.

Sign me up.  

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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Friday, November 24, 2017 8:25 PM

Why not do both, publish the original B&W next to the colourized version for a comparison.

That ought to make everyone happy, including the paper mill!

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by BaltACD on Saturday, November 25, 2017 10:13 AM

I am for seeking out original color images.....NOT colorizing existing B&W images.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by jeffhergert on Sunday, November 26, 2017 10:39 PM

BaltACD

To all extents possible Classic Trains needs to find as many color photographs as possible.  Looking at everything in black and white gives me the impression that life in the WW II era and before was 'lived' in black and white.  A false reality, however, all the images of the period being B&W make it seem so.

 

Reminds me of the old Calvin and Hobbes comic strip where Dad is explaining to Calvin how the world used to be black and white.

https://www.flickfilosopher.com/wptest/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/calvinhobbescolor.gif

Jeff 

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Posted by Overmod on Monday, November 27, 2017 9:27 AM

Another artifact of this is the "well-known" theory held for so many years at the dawn of scientific psychology that people 'dream in black-and-white'.  That was largely driven by the fact that most experience beyond the personal was presented to people in black-and-white media, from woodcuts and daguerrotypes right up through early television. 

I was amused to find that I instinctively 'colorized' many black-and-white pictures and programs while viewing them; there are people at RyPN who went beyond this and could (or said they could) see 'color' in pictures taken with various emulsions by knowing the relative intensities inherently 'filtered' by the chemical characteristics (one effect being the disappearance of clouds in pictures taken with some Kodak emulsions).  I am not sure how this relates to making some emulsions particularly visible-red insensitive to allow darkroom processing, but I'm told there was a relation.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Monday, November 27, 2017 10:12 AM

Miningman

I'm in as long as they don't do an ""All Diesel issue"...ever. 

 
Why not??  There's a lot of Classic Diesels out there, starting with IR-powered boxcab switchers through FT's through various E's and PA's.
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Posted by Deggesty on Monday, November 27, 2017 10:24 AM

Miningman

I'm in as long as they don't do an ""All Diesel issue"...ever. 

 

If there such an issue, would you do as one subscriber to Trains did to the first all-diesel issue--he tore it into the pieces and returned it to Mr. Morgan? Big Smile

(That issue did have an item, with picture, about a steam locomotive in the news section.)

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Posted by Overmod on Monday, November 27, 2017 10:36 AM

CSSHEGEWISCH
Why not?? There's a lot of Classic Diesels out there, starting with IR-powered boxcab switchers through FT's through various E's and PA's.

Preston Cook has mentioned 'the edge of history' (which is about 50 years after significant events ... the point at which you can last expect the people who were moving, shaking, or involved in the events to coherently remember what they knew or saw).   Note that in less than two years, we will have reached that point for Alco ... ALL the domestic locomotive production of Alco, diesels and all.

The problem with the original 'all-diesel issue' and with any prospective regular issue of Classic Trains is that it socks poor subscribers who think diseasels are wicked anathema not just in the eye but in the pocketbook ... a bit like having Southern Baptists receive an issue of their favorite newspaper with nothing but pro-abortion articles.  Special or commemorative issues -- have at it!  But not one of the quarterly issues, and I'd argue not one of the bimonthlies of an expanded version.  Better to take up key topics involving diesels, or inherently including only diesels if appropriate ... and balance the issue with things either 'more for everybody' but addressing all the 'quadrants' represented in the readership.

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Posted by Fr.Al on Monday, November 27, 2017 11:01 AM

I think the Summer 2012 or 2013 issue of CT was predominantly Interurban, which upset one person enough to write to the editor. And yet, it wasn't ALL Interurban.

       Let's keep it mixed( and maybe a predominantly mixed train issue in the future?) I like all the classics, steam, diesel, and electric. Now, even the RS-1' s I grew up with on Rutland successor VTR are pretty much history. 

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Posted by Penny Trains on Monday, November 27, 2017 6:57 PM

Overmod
I was amused to find that I instinctively 'colorized' many black-and-white pictures and programs while viewing them

On my end I always remember Schindler's List in color when I think about the movie.  I think that may be a form of synesthesia or something.

Trains, trains, wonderful trains.  The more you get, the more you toot!  Big Smile

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Posted by Enzoamps on Tuesday, November 28, 2017 8:25 AM

I tend not to like all-one-thing issues, even if it is a topic I like.  SO no all narrow gauge, no all FLorida roads, no all GP7 issues.  I do like special focus issues, but not entire issues.  The all Big Boy special issue was interesting, but wasn't a regular issue.

My wife buys hundreds of rubber duckies, and hands them out to kids.  Oriental trading Company has tons of them colorfully decorated.  Soldier ducks, princess ducks, US presidents ducks, pirate ducks, Octoberfest ducks, etc.  One of my favorites though was 1920's ducks.  A flapper, a businessman with mustache, a guy in fedora, all redered as ducks.  But the detail was they were all rendered in black and white...because well everything was in black and white back then.

I don't mind B&W photos in the mag as color photos were the minority back in the steam era.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, November 28, 2017 10:07 AM

Deggesty
 
Miningman

I'm in as long as they don't do an ""All Diesel issue"...ever. 

 

 

 

If there such an issue, would you do as one subscriber to Trains did to the first all-diesel issue--he tore it into the pieces and returned it to Mr. Morgan? Big Smile

 

(That issue did have an item, with picture, about a steam locomotive in the news section.)

 
DPM also noted in a response to that reader that there weren't any subscription cancellations, including the reader who tore the first all-diesel issue in half and returned it.
The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul

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