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RE: (erielack) Trains Today / List Content
Jim:
I am relatively new to this list, but your comments echo my thoughts about
the discussions and I hope most of the other members feel the same way.
Greg Botvinik
Highland Park, NJ
botvinesq_@_optonline.net
- -----Original Message-----
From: JG at graytrainpix [mailto:graytrainpix_@_hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 8:44 PM
To: erielack_@_lists.railfan.net
Subject: (erielack) Trains Today / List Content
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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