and in my opinion I think I have some blog posts that are better than the blogs of those who may be complaining, but it was explained very well that the editors only went 4 pages back in the blogs. I havent made a new blog for a while, so it was my own fault.

I visit the website a dozen times a day, so this article didnt really help me, but I know it was meant to help those who read the mag to find the website as a great resource to use in between magazines. And the handful of blogs that were mentioned were spot on for enticing people to go read them.

And if a persons only drive for bloging is to get recognition and not to find that 1 in a 1,000 person who really liked or needed the info in your blog, then you might be bloging for the wrong reasons.

Steven

I'll even make you all a deal ... we will include a section in the magazine of recent web posts that are interesting (have images or video, and have a good discussion thread to go with it) every month. We will go back from the front until we fill up the space in the mag. So if you want to get included in this monthly list, make new posts to your blog regularly.

And if a persons only drive for bloging is to get recognition and not to find that 1 in a 1,000 person who really liked or needed the info in your blog, then you might be bloging for the wrong reasons.

Exactly.  I update my blog because:

1. It's fun to share what I'm up to and
2. It might help a few modelers here and there.

I get inspiration and ideas from other blogs and sites, so I feel it's part of giving back to the community.  I can also learn from comments left on my blog by others, so that's a potential benefit too.   Receiving some affirmation may be nice, but shouldn't be the motivating factor.  

I have a blog to document my process, get others' ideas, and to, maybe, help others. My blog was in the list but that is not important to me.

NOTE: What is the "SAUBMIT" button at the bottom of this submission form?

I like the idea of having a list of interesting web posts in the mag, but why do they need to be recent?

It might even be better to go to the oldest and list relevant and/or interesting ones from the beginning of time forward.  After all just because a post is 4 years old doesn't mean it contains useless un-important information. I think that might be especially helpful for new readers to go back and get information already shared/discussed.

I'll just SAUBMIT my comments as food for thought.

It might even be better to go to the oldest and list relevant and/or interesting ones from the beginning of time forward.

That might be really tough on the MRH staff. Keeping track of what has and has not been included in the sequence of magazine editions would eventually be a lot of bookkeeping. Plus, selecting the content would be highly subjective and always open to criticism. Joe's most recent posts plan removes these headaches for the MRH staff. Just sayin'.

I blog regularly and was not included in the list.  I figured it was most likely because there is only so much room and a variety of topics/features was part of the goal.  If I blogged to get a mention in the magazine I'm doing it for all the wrong reasons.  I think the mention in the magazine was great to help drive people to the website.  I'm guessing it worked, too.  No need to get anyone's knickers in a twist over it.

I think the point MRH is trying to make here is to not say that by referencing a blog in the monthly column means that it is a better blog than one not mentioned. The point here is just to show each month to the high number of people who do not visit the forums that there is worthy content there available for their reading pleasure.

By noting only the most recent, then anyone with the most basic of content in their blog, a few pics or videos, and some well thought words describing very basically what's going on, can get a tip of the hat so to speak, in the magazine's column. To me it's a way of putting everyone, those who are professional writers and those who are 12 years old and just a year or 2 into the hobby, on the same level.

I can see the challenge that JoeF put out there as a great way to get those of us who blog, but not as much as we should, to create more blogs, with more content, more often. This will help a lot with drawing people, current and hopefully future subscribers, to the website. Once here, then they can go back on their own to past blogs.

Again, if your blog gets a mention, great, if not, at least someone who could have just came into the hobby was able to read it and maybe get inspired! If someone is seriously interested in getting something published, then they need to do a write up and submit it through the normal means, so it can maybe go in as an article in the next monthly issue.

Steven

When I first started reading MRH, I didn't realize the gold mine of information contained in the forums. I Seem to remember a bunch of topics and a bunch of categories to search through. Yikes! Where do I start? I basically gave up. Then one day I discovered the 'Recent Posts' option. I found useful info on he first and second pages. I have been following the forums ever since.  But as a new guy, going to the 'Community Forums' option didn't really keep me there that long.

If I had been introduced to the Recent Posts sooner, the sooner I would have discovered them. It's the target page whenever I log in.

Randy

I wasn't tying to say that because a blog is mentioned in the mag that it is better than one that is not mentioned either. Heck, when I first read your post I thought you were complaining about not being mentioned because your blog was better than others that were!

I meant relevant as in related to content in the current issue, not relevant as in "important."  I think the armchair modeling and humor post on what outsiders think when they hear model railroads talk are interesting and worth reading, but they may not be relevant/related to the content of the issue.  Of course the more I think about the forum/blog needing to be related I'm thinking that is not important either.

I was trying to point out just because a blog has not been updated in a couple months or more should not rule it out from being mentioned.  For example if someone blogs how they animate a building, and the blog was written and completed three years ago should not keep it out of running for being mentioned in the mag.

I do see Alan's point that looking through the old stuff may become a book keeping nightmare though, something I had not thought of, which makes the forums so useful.

Jim

Steven wrote: "The point here is just to show each month to the high number of people who do not visit the forums that there is worthy content there available for their reading pleasure."

Indeed.  Until just a few months ago, I had never visited the MRH forums/web pages/blogs (whatever you want to call them) as it has usually been my experience that the 'meat' to 'fluff' ratio in such environments is very low.  I had made the initial visit on occasion of curiosity ... I wanted to see what others had thought about a particular article in one of the issues.  When I got here, I was pleasantly surprised by what was actually available here.  As Joe has mentioned, some of the material here could serve as eZine articles pretty much as presented -- lots of 'how to's"; prototype information; and ideas for modeling and operations.  I check here most every day now.  Cheers.  Dave

obtw ... is there a joke about the "SAUBMIT" label on the "Submit" button?  If so, could someone please explain it to me?  (I really don't get it.)

My article was in the magazine, and a post by me was chosen as the first entry in the list.  It was a first for both for me.  Sometimes things just go in your favor.

It's easy to let the ego be affected by such little things, but at the end of the day it's a firm reminder that we are in a community of many fine modelers and regardless of who gets recognition, we all have fun.

You won't know when or where you get recognized, when it happens, it just does.  The point of the post was to get people looking at blogs and forums, not highlight "the best."  If you weren't on the list, it's not a slight, it's just how things go!

James ...

That was just dumb luck. It was only later we realized that Mycroft is your handle on the MRH website.

BTW ... James is talking about this week's email blast, not the staff notes blog list. James' post on Signature Trains is first in our list of posts to go check out on the MRH website this week. Our email guy, Jimmy Simmons, picked this topic because it fit this months magazine issue, never realizing Mycroft was James, the very same guy who authored the cover story this issue.

...and a post by me was chosen as the first entry in the list

Which post was yours James?  On the list I'm viewing (MRH staff notes - 2, right hand page), Jim Six's "Freight Car Standards" blog was the first entry.  Have I been looking at the wrong list all this time?

Therein lies the problem of screen names!

James is talking about this week's subscriber email blast, not the Staff Notes list. We picked his post on Signature Trains as a thread that went well with this month's cover story, not realizing Mycroft was also James' handle on our website until later.

I don't think it's a it's a screen name problem but then I don't think it's a problem in the first place.  Sometimes the stars align and wow, whaddaya know!

Dad taught me do not judge a beauty contest their can only be one winner and many losers.

So by the fact that Joe responded to me directly and has gone out of his way to defend the staffs actions something was not done right.  

When you keep talking about something after this length of time you are not satisfied with your orginal decision. No matter how long you talk it will not change. 

If the charge is we played favorites, then we say "not guilty". If the charge is we didn't list everybody so that makes us jerks, then okay, we're jerks.

But for crying out loud, come on. We did what was practical given our goal was a sampling - so we selected some from the first 4 pages of recent posts because we couldn't dedicate an entire issue to this (there's over 20,000 blogs on here) and we had to get a magazine out.

I have apologized and I will apologize again if anyone feels slighted because of this. I have explained that we were NOT playing favorites.

If we're being charged with being click-ish or elitist then those charges are just plain false. We did not sit around with the total list of blogs and try to create an "insider" list just for the magazine.

Once again, I am sorry you feel slighted, but at some point you need to get over it. Life's too short to hold grudges, especially when the offending party did not do it deliberately.

Art felt slighted.  

Move along folks, nothing to see here.

We blog for our own reasons, if your blog has good usable content, they will find you. 

If you want to be a modeling rockstar, start a reality show and call it "Model Railroading Ego Wars" or something. 

I don't see any reason to apologize at all.  Some are making a mountain out of the tiniest of mole-hills.  I never understood what was the issue at all.  It was a sampling based on recent posts.  Just because someone wasn't listed what's the big deal.  Now if you had PAID those who were listed, THEN maybe, those that were not listed MIGHT have an issue.  I saw the whole point of the mention of the blogs was not to highlight specific blogs, but provide recent examples of what was there to entice more readers to look at EVERYONE's posts and blogs, and I hope that goal has been achieved.  

I say give the whiner's some cheese and be done with this.  No need to continue to apologize for something that really should not be an issue at all.

Ken L .

Mycroft has been my screen name most everywhere for nigh onto 15 years now and for as long as I have been on this site.  I wasn't trying to hide anything.  I was just trying to start a fun thread.

Mycroft refers to at least 2 different characters in literature.  Who can name at least one of them, let alone both?  (hint, both of the 2 literary references, Mycroft have the same last name)

Mycroft refers to at least 2 different characters in literature.  Who can name at least one of them, let alone both?

They would be Mycroft Holmes, brother of Sherlock Holmes, and a fictitious computer of the same name (that achieves self-awareness) in a Robert Heinlein sci-fi novel.

WP8thsub - 2 for 2.  There are also 4 novels written about the character of Mycroft Holmes himself now.  And the Hienlien novel is "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"  Which also references a monorail on the moon, if memory serves.

Am I the only one who doesn't really read the magazine? I do read an article here and there when an "interesting article" is linked to from the forum, not the other way around. I get all of the questions I have answered on the forum (or other forums). On top of that, the amount of information available in the forum is vast. I have nowhere near enough time to scratch the surface of what is here when just bumping around reading interesting things.

probably.......DaveB

The magazine is great and well produced, but for me (and I am certain others) there is way too much useless information in it. I mean, this month you have 24 pages about timeline operations of a shortline in the 1940's. To me this is 100% useless. I like MRRing as a hobby. As in "Model Railroad Hobbyist". A diversion. Fun. Functional Art. Yes, even Escapism. This fascination about pretending that you are actually running a railroad (otherwise known as a really stressful JOB) has absolutely no draw for me. For those that like to pretend they are running a railroad that is fine, but for me personally I prefer real paychecks when I have to deal with timelines and stress while walking around with a clipboard yelling at people on a telephone because they are behind schedule. That is what I do for a living. I intend to keep modeling a railroad in the realm of fun, not work, thank you very much. The moment my layout is no longer fun, it will be bashed into kindlesticks.

...when I have to deal with timelines and stress while walking around with a clipboard yelling at people on a telephone because they are behind schedule.

If that's how somebody implements a timetable for layout operation, he's doing it wrong.  My layout also runs with a timetable and train orders, and we have loads of fun doing so.

You're not the only one, I don't read it either. I surf through it for interesting stuff to me and move on.

Bernd

I enjoy building houses too. And, to be honest, it is a rare occasion when I actually do have to bark at people who are behind schedule. Even so, I can assure you that I would not do it if I was not getting PAID. The time I have spent running other peoples projects are another story altogether, that tends to be insane stress all day every day. I am honestly curious about what occupations those who gravitate towards MRR "operations" have or had. Is it people who never had to deal with being in charge of something and meeting deadlines and having their financial butts hanging in the balance? Or maybe those who did in the past and now miss the action or stress? My only project at the moment is getting our house remodeled, even so it is not without deadline and monetary stress and whatnot, but at about 1/1,000,000 the level I am accustomed to.  I just can not fathom wanting to expose myself to more stress "for fun". To each his own I guess. That being said, I do think that the overall direction of "operations" as being the focus of MRRing is what is keeping a lot of newcomers from the hobby though. Who needs another JOB?? Seriously, is this a hobby or not?

Well-thought-out operations are not stressful -- except maybe for guys who don't follow the instructions and work themselves into problems. 

I don't know how many times this needs to be said:

There are a lot of different ways to enjoy the model train hobby.

There is no one true way to enjoy model railroading.

Let me drag up our club as an example: our ranks include electrical engineers, project and product managers, a railroad consultant, working railroaders, equipment operators, a building inspector, truck drivers, tool salesman, architect, social workers, newspaper editor, accountant, all kinds of people. Some are military veterans. They all enjoy doing what they can to build a larger railroad than any of us is likely to build on their own. Nobody is looking for stress. Pretty much everybody gets along, almost all the time.

Most of us do enjoy a challenge, whether it's figuring out wiring and benchwork, buildings and scenery, working out a line-up, or reading up on history.

If you don't like to read about detailed operations, don't. Nobody says you have to. Turn the page.

Frankly, a lot of jerks have ruined operations in this hobby because they DID think it meant swaggering around, yelling, and waving a clipboard.  If you have the opportunity to know a long-time superintendent, engineer, or dispatcher, you will find that most of them are among the most calm and patient people you will ever meet.

If you get into an operating session that isn't fun, walk out.  Chances are the job instructions are inadequate, the time schedule, if there is one, is unreasonable, or the railroad and rolling stock aren't built well enough to run smoothly.  That's only the fault of the owner, not you.

If you get to Oregon, call me, and we'll get you into a fun operating session. We break for lunch and BS around noon.

I understand everything you are describing in an operations session Joe, but I do not for the life of me see anything that I would consider "fun". Just me I guess. Maybe it is just the knowledge that some friends I have would give me a good solid crack in the forehead if I told them I was doing that sort of thing "for fun". That would probably snap me out of "it" too...

I do get up to Oregon quite a bit (Gold Beach/Agness area mostly), by the way, although unfortunately not this summer. It is actually this fact that has got me interested in building a MRR layout this summer. Just something to do that is inside out of the heat here in Arizona. I have no interest in making a job out of creating a model train layout. If I did, I would make it a real job, and sell things.

Joe, I've met some former railroad personalities, real railroaders, and they're about the most rigid and ironclad followers of the rules and the rule books of any type - and for good reason.

The whole discussion reminds me of the difference between playing baseball in a sandlot with the neighbor kids, and playing baseball with the neighbor kids in Little League.

Operations is Little League.

I am honestly curious about what occupations those who gravitate towards MRR "operations" have or had. Is it people who never had to deal with being in charge of something and meeting deadlines and having their financial butts hanging in the balance? Or maybe those who did in the past and now miss the action or stress?

I lead a software support group for a large software company.  To answer your question, our products execute several trillion dollars in financial transactions every day, so when something doesn't work, yeah, I guess you could call that stressful. 

I just can not fathom wanting to expose myself to more stress "for fun". To each his own I guess. That being said, I do think that the overall direction of "operations" as being the focus of MRRing is what is keeping a lot of newcomers from the hobby though. Who needs another JOB?? Seriously, is this a hobby or not?

It sounds to me as though you're equating the modeling of prototype operations with stress, and I don't believe that to be accurate in most cases.  I'm sure there are prototypes where that's true and where the layout owners and operators are drawn to that, but I'd bet that there are at least as many where it's not.  Jack's prototype, with low train counts, low speeds, etc., strikes me as the latter.  I think mine may be even more laid back, with only one mainline train, one local, and a switch job per session.  My prototype was relaxed, and I'm trying to recreate my experiences with it as accurately as possible.  If that was stressful in the least, I'd find another hobby, or another way to enjoy this one.

how would you know that if you don't read the magazine?  I read it and didn't know that number but I'm not looking for stress when I read it I'm looking for education and entertainment.I don't see model railroad operations being any more stressful than Mario Kart or fantasy baseball, these are not real trains that we are delaying or de-railing ....DaveBranum

Joe A. : Does it matter if the software you work on is responsible for "Trillions of Dollars" every day, or thousands a day for the POS (relax-Point  Of Sale- not the "other" POS)  software at the local Burger King? The fact is , that is not your money. If you are not risking your own money, it is not the same thing. At the very most what you can lose is your job, and although that might seem stressful , I guarantee it is not the same as risking your whole net worth on a project.

And yes, a bunch of guys walking around with clipboards pretending to keep a railroad schedule is at least a simulation of stress. I am fully aware that people will not die if they screw up and a couple of toy trains clunk into each other. I still do not see any draw to this type of thing. If you do, you are quite welcome to have all of the "ops sessions" that you want. I am still entitled to my opinion that this type of thing is driving away newcomers from this hobby. I have some pretty thick bark, and I can take these swipes for expressing my opinion about the state of MRRing in stride, but a lot of guys just get plain old disgusted with this attitude and walk away from the hobby and I do not blame them one bit.

P.S: Dave: I saw that 24 page ops article because it was linked to in the forum, exactly as I had stated earlier. I initially did not give it a second glance, but when this discussion came up I went back and when I looked I discovered that it was 24 pages, which in my opinion is about 23.9 pages longer than what is needed by a model railroader.

Stoker, I fail to see how the distinction you're drawing has anything to do with model railroading.   You asked how many of us had our "financial butts hanging in the balance", and I answered truthfully.  I don't have enough net worth that I could lose my job and not feel the pinch immediately.  The whole point is neither here nor there - I thought this was a discussion about stress at work vs. in the hobby.

If someone is driven away from the hobby over one of my op sessions, I'm not sure what they'd turn to that'd be less stressful. 

Joe: I am going to take a wild guess here and say that you would be able to collect Unemployment "Insurance" if you lost your corporate job. I do not have that crutch. Like I said, it simply is not the same. You can pretend it is all you like, but it isn't.

Also: I did not say anyone is being driven away from the hobby due to your, or anybody else's Ops Sessions, Joe. What IS driving them away is being attacked for wanting to just have fun with the hobby, and when this is voiced in any forum these days they get the same response I am getting right now. People who want to actually be able to drive their trains in a continuous fashion are labeled as "Roundy Rounders" and such by those that are convinced that the only way to enjoy MRRing is to drive back and forth delivering flour from the mill to the bakery and keeping track of this on a clipboard. Newcomers means young people, FYI, and I guarantee that young guys (boys) do not want to drive a short train back and forth over the same piece of track over and over and keep track of it on a clipboard. Simple fact. Again, you can pretend this is not the case, but reality says otherwise.

   I doubt newcomers to the hobby even think about operations. There's plenty to do and learn before operations become attractive. Most newcomers just want to get some trains and play with them so the price and availability of product is more likely to be a turnoff than the stress of knowing they might attend an operations session someday? There's lots of stressful paths to take in the hobby if that's what one wants, painting, decaling, scratch building brass locos, etc. Operations is just one of the choices.....DaveBranum  

We spent between 15 and 30 minutes during the last business meeting arguing about where the yard limits should start on the club layout. Nothing to do with model railroading, everything to do with operations.

The discussions over the rules and how to run really aren't benefitting anyone but the people who enjoy playing games with rules. For the rest of us, we're just happy running trains...by the rule book, because otherwise we couldn't play trains. Or we could, but nobody else would be there, and we like running together.

I can understand why so many want nothing to do with it.

Stress is your doctor standing over your bed, while your family can't be found, and without preparing you for it, telling you that you have cancer. Then, having to look up at him and ask "Is it terminal?".

Stress is your boss coming to you at 9 am in the morning and telling you that the company needs you to write a test program for production data going to the IRS - to test it for correctness, and that if it does not run correctly, they stand to be fined up to $4 Million dollars.

Running an ops session - how is that stressful?  I'm looking forward to trying one with the guy who helped me with the cover photo, when they do their next one.  I plan to take one of the easy to figure out sections and have fun.  If I don't have fun, then I wont participate anymore.

Oh, and one help in surviving cancer was starting to build a layout.  Of putting together the roofs of my covered bridges while undergoing chemotherapy in the hospital.

   That should not be an argument, that should be an educational exercise.Yard limits should be  determined by physical facts not by personalities. 30 minutes of discussing yard limits sounds like an interesting time to me if the guys doing the talking know the subject?  If real railroads can figure out where to put them then model railroads should have no trouble following their lead :>) .......DaveBranum 

What IS driving them away is being attacked for wanting to just have fun with the hobby, and when this is voiced in any forum these days they get the same response I am getting right now.

Where is that taking place right now Stoker?  I assume you don't mean this thread?

There are two equally compelling places to put the yard limits.

The real railroads couldn't exactly make up their mind either.  The longer things went, the more things changed.

In the end, you have two people who are very deeply educated and equally passionate in their pursuit of model railroading and model railroading knowledge.

It's as interesting as listening to one person saying the party hats should be blue, while the other says they should be red, when in reality they're supposed to be green but everybody doesn't care so long as we get to start the party relatively soon.

Rules on a model railroad really are as arbitrary as the person setting them.

Look at the argument about the City of Miami.  There's one camp that believes the lettering is red, while another believes it is green.  When you get to operations, with land that is already selectively compressed and selectively represented, there's no such documentation to fallback on, just a bunch of suggestions from all over documenting ways it could be done.

Joe A: Why are you assuming anything? Everything is here in black and white, I see no need to assume. I would not characterize the response pertaining to my voicing my opinion that those who want to just enjoy model railroading as something fun I am getting in this particular thread as an outright attack, but it is without a doubt unfriendly. This has been typical in my experience when saying that MRRing ought to be fun and not a job. If you want to argue about how black night is or just how unfriendly actually constitutes an attack that is your business.

P.S. The first time I heard the term "switching layout" was when I got back into the MRR hobby some months back. When I was into the hobby in my youth in the 70's, the idea of having a layout where you could not actually complete a loop was unheard of, and in my opinion for good reason. These are models, and they can not act like real trains. Walking around with a clipboard and pretending that you are running a railroad does not change this fact. You are, however, quite free to do this. But no matter how many imaginary loads of sugar you deliver to your imaginary bakery and keep very close records of this on your clipboard, in the end what you have is a model train, not a real one.

 I don't see how they can be equally compelling but why not just put them halfway between then and see if it works out? They can always be moved if the operations determine it needs to change....DaveBranum

Oh, but the midway point makes absolutely no sense. And we already moved them back and forth, that's part of what created the issue!!

To move them requires a layout change request form, which then means no less than 30 days of discussion before making any vote. Why do we do this? To prevent people from arbitrarily moving things around!!

   Then both spots are probably wrong.  It's not that hard to figure out. Hook up a switcher to the longest cut you want to handle and pull the cut past the yard throat and allow a bit of cushion then plant the sign.If you find that doesn't work in practice you can always move the limits. This is not a problem caused by modeling operations it's a problem caused by the decision making process.....DaveBranum  

Of course. But now you have gone and proven the very point I've been trying to make.