(erielack) Trains Today / List Content

[JG at graytrainpix <graytrainpix_@_hotmail.com>]

I just wanted to quickly apologize for
messing up Keith Robbins' name in my note on the PBS story about the
CN/EJE merger.  As I said, I've been following the Iran situation
and have been trying to learn who the power players are over there; that
seems to have overtaxed my name memory capacity.  Again, sorry about
that! Also, thanks Todd for your note about the Finger Lakes. 
Certain of those regional lines really do seem to preserve the spirit
of EL-style railroading, a least somewhat.  We in NJ used to have the
NYS&W to keep us entertained, but they haven't been doing that
well in recent years.  I wish that we had something like the Finger
Lakes or the Reading & Northern in my neighborhood. And I agree
with Bradley; people living around RR's today too often forget that
the responsibility to help keep the overall social and economic
system going applies to individuals as well as to big corporations / governments.   


If I may, here's a comment on the
discussion about what is or isn't appropriate for discussion on this
list (given that my “Freight Trains Today” note was a bit
“tangential” in EL relevance).  I personally take a somewhat more
liberal interpretation of what is “EL related”, which includes
whatever became of the property, the equipment, the people who worked
for it or rode it or otherwise enjoyed it, the towns and industries
that the EL served, the successor rail lines, etc. 
I personally
enjoy many of the tangential comments from this list about the social,
political, historical, economic and technological factors that
influenced the EL -- and which continue
to influence the remnants of the EL and the places that it served.  And yea, I like you modeling
people too, even though I never caught that bug.  I believe that's
what makes this list so “lively”.  But at the same time, I don't
want to see the tangential modern-day stuff drown out the “direct
relevance” stuff, e.g. the discussions of actual EL operations by
people like Mr. Robbins, and the great memories of the EL days such
as Bill Shepard's comments on riding the cab of a roaring FM westward
through the Poconos.  


I appreciate the great job that Paul T
does in trying to maintain the balance here.  If let go too far one
way, the list will become irrelevant to the actual doings of the EL,
DL&W and Erie; if it goes too far the other, it could become a
ghost list, like the LV list on railfan.net.  Or it
could become a slow but always relevant list like the B&M
discussion group on Yahoo.    I myself hope that we can continue
having a list with lively discussions on tangential topics, and yet
preserve the nucleus of direct discussion about EL operations,
history, employees and modeling. 
This list is really a success,
IMHO.  Every day there are many comments to read; not always directly about the EL, but still 99% interesting.  It's the kind of thing that “just happens” (I could try to
put that in terms of modern scientific theories regarding complexity
and the emergence of self-organized phenomenon, but that would REALLY
be going off the relevance rails!).   What complexity theory does
show about things like this (sorry) is that when you change the rules
too radically, you can “lose the groove”; that undefinable
wonderfulness can just fade away.  If we all use some common sense
about what is or isn't generally interesting to people who are
interested in the EL, the wonderfulness can continue.  And again,
kudos to Paul T and Henry and railfan.net for allowing that wonderfulness to keep going all these
years, with hopefully many more to come.  Just my tangentially-relevant 0.02.

Jim Gerofsky

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