As a person, who travels for business and leisure reason quite a lot on trains (from high speed to slow regional trains) I think a European Rail forum is really a good idea.
Originally Posted by
JOUY31
I would say subway questions are best left to each destination forum.
I completely agree with this points, as I would never think about looking in a European Rail Forum if I want to know how to best go from Munich Airport into Munich downtown. The subway system belong mainly to destinations.
There might be some points (e.g. if you railticket includes a ticket for the local public transportations network at your destination and you want to know hiw this works), but it is mainly related to the destination and therefore belongs in this category
Originally Posted by
chrissxb
that was exactly the problem. there are too specific destination forum. for example eurostar. there were questions about eurostar in the uk&ireland forum, france forum and europe forum. and for train travel from italy to france ... what forum would you look for? railteam? - were does the alliance and lounge access system-wide questions belong to?
I fear that being too ambitious, the whole project may never get realized. read upthread: japan people want rail in destination forum - so exclude this from a general rail forum?
Honestly, I learnt about the eurostar in the UK&Ireland and BA Forum by coincidence. I would never searched there myself. If I search for rail related questions I usually search all forums, which is really not the way. But I look first in the Amtrak Forum for question about Amtrak.
It would be really helpful, if we get an european rail forum, because a lot of people are travelling by train within Europe and it isn't easy to find anything about rail travelling within Europe on FT.
^
We might start with a European Rail forum and eventually with a Japan Rail Forum. But I would not divided Europe into more parts, as this might be a bad idea. Especially since there are quite a number of people who travel around several European countries by rail on their trip to Europe and it is in my eyes easier if Europe is covered in one forum with all Train and Railway Frequent Traveler Programs like Bahn Comfort / Bahn Bonus in one place.
Originally Posted by
lin821
FT has been very "flyers"-oriented (it's
FLYERtalk.com afterall
), there are airlines fora. Because of travel, FTers stay in hotels and rent cars. Therefore, FT has hotel and rental cars fora. FTers go to places, hence destination fora.
What has been overlooked is train/Rail is a means of travel as well. Under our current structure, Amtrak is under "
Other Loyalty Programs/Partners Forum". The merits of train/rail as a means of travel hasn't been factored in. Like we all know, it's very difficult to find the right forum when you want to specifically ask about travel by train. Discussion has been shoveled to destination fora so far. Simply because there's no better or more logical place to place those threads.
In certain countries/regions/continents, train is a better option than taking a flight. Europe is one good example. I guess Japan and China fit the bill too. No doubt European rail travel is busy and complicated enough to earn its own place. A subforum, as suggested by
Cholula and
AZ Travels the World, under the new Train/Rail Forum can most certainly grant European rail its own track. We probably need to fine tune what subforums are needed under the new Train/Rail Forum though.
A focal forum to discuss train/rail travel is a definite plus for FT. If a Train/Rail Forum becomes a reality, whether Japan rail should stay in destination forum or be part of the new forum is up for discussion. Just like the pre-OMNI/PR era, everything OMNI was in the Classic OMNI. Now there's OMNI/PR, certain topics just can't stay in Classic OMNI no more.
I would think Japan should have it own forum, but this is just my personal opinion. The main reason for this is, that the Japan Tourist Offices in Europe promot their Japan Rail Pass and its options sometimes quite heavily. YOu have to buy this pass outside Japan and it is good for traveling in Japan and on several (afaik not all) networks.
I think Japan has a really good railway system and therefore qualifies for its own forum as well, though I have to admit, it will not become such a busy
forum like European Rail Forum hopefully will become.