A recent poster said she did not know much about motors and other mechanical aspets of this hobby. I assured her I did not either. That we have a very varied and complex hobby and nobody can possibly know about all ot it.
That caused me to think I would attempt to make a list of the different aspects of the railroading hobby.
Here goes:
current passenger trains
proposed development new speedster trains
past passenger trains ( i.e. pre-Amtrak)
subways
commuter
freight
regional emphasis
modeling
locomotive mechanical operation
numerous mechanical points,stuff I could never imagine and thus can't list sensibly
signaling, trackwork,bridges
stations
diesel locomotive
steam locomotives
electric locomotives
massive info to be had on underground NYC operations of all kinds, tunnels, etc.
steam engine excursions
other tourist and excursion type trains
foreign lines, all aspects as noted above for U.S For example, growing up in the 50's I was aware of the
vast improvement in Canadian ld rail in the early,mid 50's
museums
history of the pullman company, the Budd company, such as that
the many many designs of sleeping cars, way more than Amtrak has today.
the info contained in employee timetables--very different from public timetables .
railroad historical figures, such as James R. Hill, Henry M. Flagler, various Vanderbilts, ,etc,Robert .
Young, the Budd brothers, "Champ" Davis,etc,etc
This is what I came up. I will stop here. I am sure there is much that can be added. Perhaps some of it should have been combined.
My point is that while I am sure many people can claim some knowledge of say 10,12,15 of these 20 or so points, surely nobody, nobody at all, is equally interested in all of them. I cannot imagine that.
Anyway, I will repeat what I just said on another post, Alan and others have said, almost any railroad question can probably be answered by somebody or another on this forum.This considering our own diversity. We are of different ages, lvie in different places and have had different experiences.Put us all together,we can do anything..........!!!
That caused me to think I would attempt to make a list of the different aspects of the railroading hobby.
Here goes:
current passenger trains
proposed development new speedster trains
past passenger trains ( i.e. pre-Amtrak)
subways
commuter
freight
regional emphasis
modeling
locomotive mechanical operation
numerous mechanical points,stuff I could never imagine and thus can't list sensibly
signaling, trackwork,bridges
stations
diesel locomotive
steam locomotives
electric locomotives
massive info to be had on underground NYC operations of all kinds, tunnels, etc.
steam engine excursions
other tourist and excursion type trains
foreign lines, all aspects as noted above for U.S For example, growing up in the 50's I was aware of the
vast improvement in Canadian ld rail in the early,mid 50's
museums
history of the pullman company, the Budd company, such as that
the many many designs of sleeping cars, way more than Amtrak has today.
the info contained in employee timetables--very different from public timetables .
railroad historical figures, such as James R. Hill, Henry M. Flagler, various Vanderbilts, ,etc,Robert .
Young, the Budd brothers, "Champ" Davis,etc,etc
This is what I came up. I will stop here. I am sure there is much that can be added. Perhaps some of it should have been combined.
My point is that while I am sure many people can claim some knowledge of say 10,12,15 of these 20 or so points, surely nobody, nobody at all, is equally interested in all of them. I cannot imagine that.
Anyway, I will repeat what I just said on another post, Alan and others have said, almost any railroad question can probably be answered by somebody or another on this forum.This considering our own diversity. We are of different ages, lvie in different places and have had different experiences.Put us all together,we can do anything..........!!!
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