Suggestion? - International Rail Travel?- Beyond Europe
 

Hello all,

I just thought I'd toss this out and if it's already in existence, I do apologize, although I wasn't able to find it myself.

I think it would beneficial and useful to have a rail subforum. While I understand and appreciate that this is a flyer forum based on flying, there are many people I'm that wouldn't mind a having a section here for those that want to travel by rail. I mean their is a cruise travel section.

It seems that their is only a European rail section, but maybe the mods (powers that be) could add more based on continent? North and South America can be combined for example, but it's nice to have a place to ask questions and exchange feedback/experiences when you have no rush to travel.

Just thought I would toss this out there.

Thanks in advance! :)

There's already an Amtrak forum for (most) USA rail travel.

Some of the destination fora, such as China, already contain information about traveling by train.

I'm not sure I see the advantage of moving all of the train information into a single forum/subforum. [OP says subforum but doesn't specify where the sub forum would be located, specifically the forum of which it would be a subforum.]

Is there a demonstrable need for a dedicated international rail forum?

I'm agree with MSPeconomist that country fora can host the occasional rail discussion beyond Europe so can't see it being necessary. Just MHO.

I bet there could be a market for an Asia Rail Travel thread at the very least. I see questions in the Japan forum about trains pretty regularly.

A friend of mind joined FT to ask about Australian trains (I'd posted links to my rail based TRs on a forum we both frequent which was how she found out about Ft in the first place).

I'm not sure how this proposed forum could work. The European one works because there are a lot of international trains in Europe and most European countries are similar in terms of ticketting, train conditions etc. Even then there are train travel threads in the fora for individual countries. I don't think other regions have that, at least not to the same extent - Chinese trains seem to be quite complicated and require specialised knowledge for example. Maybe an Asian rail travel forum might be worthwhile but I can't see a worldwide one working very well.

The Amtrak | Guest Rewards forum is currently a sub-forum of the Other Loyalty Programs/Partners forum; and the European Rail Travel forum is currently a sub-forum of the Europe Including Turkey forum.

As with airline, rental car and hotel forums, I can see a Rail Travel forum of some sort. Move the Amtrak | Guest Rewards and European Rail Travel forum to this supposed new forum; and add a new forum for rail travel elsewhere in the world.

If there is a significant amount of content pertaining to — say, rail travel in Japan — then we can visit creating a new forum...

...so I suppose what is needed to be decided before moving forward:

1. Should rail travel be specific to destination, as is currently with specific locations for food and dining?
2. Should rail travel have its own area on FlyerTalk, as with airlines, rental cars and hotels?
3. Should we simply leave well enough alone and leave things the way they are?

I too think that the current destination forums are sufficient or should be made sufficient for this purpose. We don't need to further hollow out the destination forums while also creating a potentially cluttered forum even thinner on "local" geographical knowledge.

I am not in favor of moving Amtrak to a general rail travel forum. Amtrak has a rewards program and a lot of the discussion in the Amtrak forum is based on AGR.

What I'm suggesting is that a general rail section with say European and Japanese (or Asian subsections) would make it easier for people to discuss rail options as opposed to putting it in say a country specific section, which IMO should be for more general travel questions, etc.

I just think more people would see rail related topics if there was a general rail area, as opposed to in a general country section where depending on how busy/popular it is, may or may not be seen.

I am actually not opposed to this at all, I think it's a good idea and could be very useful to Flyertalk.

I'm not suggesting moving Amtrak rewards over, but the general Amtrak section which I would think would be more of "how do I get to x" would likely be better in a rail section.

Actually come to think of it, why not also a general rail rewards area too? No love for VIA? :p

Most excellent suggestion. ^^

Weird aside, relevant to nothing specific above but because of Flyertalk I learned of the train travel goldmine that is The Man In Seat Sixty-One. It's these sort of gems that keep FT vital and growing.

Thinking ahead a half step here, maybe the new forum should be defined broadly enough to capture topics on other land-based transit modes such as ferries (and buses)?

Actually not a bad idea.

So instead of Planes, Trains & Automobiles, it would be Trains, Buses & Ferries? :)

Cheers.

True, but speaking only for myself, I was an active member on FT for at least 4 years before I ever knew we had an Amtrak forum. For whatever reason it wouldn't have occurred to me to look under the "Other Loyalty Programs" forum...just assumed it was for miscellaneous and/or non-travel stuff. And while I realize one can see the Amtrak subforum when selecting the "Miles&Points" main forum listing...but it's after the Rental Cars categories and I really never scrolled that far down when in that view.

Probably just my lack of creativity in exploring the various forums. And I'm not necessarily advocating for moving the Amtrak forum...but somehow highlighting rail travel better isn't a bad idea. Maybe if there were a Rail section a link-back to the current Amtrak forum would help. Just a thought.

I'm not yet convinced of the need for multiple rail fora/subfora and I say this as someone who has researched rail questions in quite a few countries. As mentioned earlier, the European rail forum is useful because the countries in question are small (geographically), have interconnected networks and there is significant international travel amongst them.

However, when I traveled to Japan, I used the Japan forum to research about Japanese trains. This was convenient because many of the rail questions are included in larger threads about travel in Japan. In a single thread, someone asks about what cities should a 14 day trip to Japan include, what hotels to stay at, how to get around (railpasses, point-to-point tickets, flying), etc. It seems fine the way it is.

The same goes for Australia, India, and South Africa. It is only Europe which requires a mixed forum because so many rail trips are cross-border.