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  • Thinking of disbanding the "Hot Spots" forum

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General discussion about the RAILROAD.NET site, forums, or content ONLY. Please do not post your general railroading questions, please choose an appropriate forum. For help using the site, please post in the Help Using RAILROAD.NET Forum.

Moderator: Jeff Smith

 #340977  by Otto Vondrak
 
We have a forum called "Hot Spots."

http://railroad.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=41

It's meant for the discussion of popular railfan locations, things of that nature. It's very low traffic, and often the questions go unanswered for long periods of time. There's also a lot of redundant questions that could be better answered at some of our other forums.

>Hot Spots in Metra territory

- Better answered in the Metra forum?

>hotspots in Connecticut..

- Better answered in New England Railfan?

>The meanings of signals

- Better answered in Railroad Operations?

- CSX River Line?

- Better answered in CSX or New York State forum?

I feel that the Hot Spots forum is generating redundant questions. My thought was this... why not move the posts to our forums with higher traffic where they could get better answers and possibly generate more in-depth conversations?

What do you all think?

-otto-

 #341174  by Lirr168
 
Seems like a lot of work for you guys to move everything, so as long as you don't mind, I personally don't see any problems with disbanding the forum. As you demonstrated, a lot of these questions could be better answered elsewhere and, beyond that, I think a lot the questions in regards to hotspots are already asked in the forum for the railroad in question.

 #341176  by Robert Paniagua
 
Yeah, especially the rapid transit issues that can be answered in individual forums respectively, and Amtrak railfanning, which can always be used in the Amtrak Forum too. So yeah, I think the hot spots forum can be dissolved with the other railroad agencies forums.

 #341282  by Noel Weaver
 
I would like to see you keep "Hot Spots" because there are some places
where railfans with cameras are totally welcomed and need not fear
needless harassment by over zealous officials, police and others. There
are places in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia and other states where we
can feel free to go to the tracks for a day of enjoyment. The police are
freindly and wave to you when they go by instead of giving you a hard
time, there is a good number of trains and a good variety of power too.
A central location for these places on here has to be a plus and I hope
you will decide to keep it.
Noel Weaver

 #341444  by U-Haul
 
Railfans can be on MTA platforms with a camera as long as they do not disrupt operations.
http://mta.info/index.html
HAPPY 2007

 #341535  by crazy_nip
 
I would move them to the Rail Travel & Trip Reports forum

 #341564  by David Benton
 
That would be ok with me , though i would like to collate it into a list of places to visit/ railfan , for people travelling outside thier own area .

 #341637  by Otto Vondrak
 
I tend to agree... Those that cant be categorized into individual local forums could be moved into Trip Reports. It's been my experience that folks looking for local information tend to gravitate to one of the "local" forums and simply post their question there.

I'd like to hear a few more people chime in before I do anything, though. I know a lot of people are still out on holiday, and I'm in no rush to do anything.

-otto-

 #341788  by Alloy
 
crazy_nip wrote:I would move them to the Rail Travel & Trip Reports forum
That seems like a workable idea to me. It seems like it would still address Mr. Weaver's concern.

 #345671  by Noel Weaver
 
I still think it should be kept but maybe it could be limited to public
viewing areas such as Folkston, Goergia, Horseshoe Curve etc and maybe
you could also rename it public viewing areas. You could limit its use to
public viewing areas.
Noel Weaver

 #345769  by Otto Vondrak
 
Noel, not a bad idea, but you know what I would rather do? I would llike to create a new article that everyone could reference describing public viewing areas across the county (the so-called "railfan parks")...

-otto-

 #346109  by Noel Weaver
 
Otto, why not just rename the thing and keep the existing material intact?
It should be strictly limited to the "public" viewing areas designated for
train watching and photography.
Noel Weaver