Very disappointing :(

I had already made a start on an FAQ for UK ticketing and routing advice but I don't think I'll bother now.

Thanks to ScottC for trying again with this issue, though ^

This thread will remain open and active so I suggest any folks who have compelling reasons for or against a Railroad Forum continue to post.
I voted against it based solely on the comments I've read here. I felt the folks who were against a general Railroad Forum were more convincing than those who were for it.
I haven't been on a train in decades so this is one of the rare travel issues where I don't have a strong opinion, pro or con.
There's no reason we can't run this up the TB flagpole again if enough members can show a compelling reason for the forum.

Very disappointed too. Like Mr Jamieson, I had ideas in my head to start a FAQ on Eurostar, ticketing and its FTP in anticipation of a new European Rail forum but that's gone out of the window! :(

Fear not, I shall be back next year. :)

FTP = ???

Sorry too many TLAs.

Let me try to summarize my arguements (3):

You have a worldwide forum for cruises, why not trains?

With the air travel situation fubar, rail travel is becoming more popular. Eurostar bookings are up 25% since last week. (which is what prompted me to look for a rail forum)

Why make people search all over the flyertalk boards for the info about trains. Having a trains forum would be less searches and less overhead on the flyertalk computers.

I get into this discussion somewhat later (after the vote started or something), but if I were proposing this for the future, I would probably propose one board and then see what the traffic was. If there were 10 new topics a day with 4 Eurostar / Europe and 4 Amtrak, 2 more sub board *MIGHT* make sense. On the other hand if there was 1 new topic a week, the one board would suffice.

I think your point about increased rail travel as a result of the air travel mess is a strong one. And if rail bookings continue to rise, this may be yet another argument in favor of a Rail Forum.
This is just my opinion but I think the folks who were in favor of a Rail Forum needed to better layout a workable format that could encompass all forms of rail travel, on an international basis, in a single forum.
In fact, railroadtycoon laid out some serious arguments against such a forum in a couple of his earlier posts.
We know some folks were going to be unhappy about this decision but channel that sentiment into putting together a workable plan.
Thanks.

Why won't you bother? It would be a great thread for the UK and Ireland forum.

You don't need a dedicated rail forum to have a great dedicated rail thread. Seattle doesnt have its own forum, but chexfan put together an awesome definitive Seattle thread

Thank you

I would be happy to help and support any such ideas.

Although I was unable to agree with a worldwide rail forum, as described in the initial posts, I heartily agree that the question of new homes for rail queries needs to be given more thought.

Unfortunately, what was proposed, although offering a solution to some FT forum users, would have created a real nuisance for others.

I hope we can find ways to solve this so that nobody is inconvenienced by the changes and everyone can benefit.


- Sorry jenbel and ajamieson – we lobbied hard for a Japan forum as it was tricky to keep track on all the queries about this country – to have ‘our’ forum split again so soon after getting it (rail queries make up a huge percentage of the posts about Japan) was too much to bear.

And you put questions about Eurostar where???

This is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be discussed.

Personally, I think it should be in the European Forum as Eurostar travel always straddles at least two European countries. But posters have different ideas – hence the problem of trying to keep track of them all. But the proposed way to pull together rail questions in one part of FT, would splinter them in others.

Rail travel isn’t like taking a cruise.... not even a bit. I use a rail system almost everyday, and rely on trains when abroad. I don’t see rail travel as a optional ‘add on’ but as a vital and integral part of travelling.

Should it go there? or in London? or in BD? or in Western Europe? or in BA? Or in VS - afterall one of the train operators is VS, and they are one of the companies which operate an FTP (frequent traveller programme)! We've kind of made the point continually that there is no obvious place to put UK rail queries, which mean they end up everywhere. I'm glad you were able to ignore that point and assume that everyone will automatically look in UK & Ireland for a rail info thread, even though that is not the experience of those asking and answering the questions which arise. My personal preference would be for Alastair to continue the convention we've started and put it in BD - it's a stop gap, but it's better than the nothing the TB has given us, so we may as well continue to try take control of the situation and positively manage it, in the absence of anything proactive coming from the management of FT.

But I can also completely understand why he's unwilling to use his spare time to write it, when the majority of TB don't consider rail travel important enough to have its own board. If it's that unimportant, why should he 'waste' his time? Why do you think it would be a great thread, but yet you think questions about rail are not important enough to warrant their own forum? If you think it's that good an idea, you could always write it yourself. Most of the information will be already contained somewhere on FT, but you'll have to search pretty hard to find it since it is kind of scattered... good luck! :)

I want to point out that I was against a rail forum in the format presented and proposed for voting.

The problem I am (or at least how I see it here) is a consistant problem relating to British rail travel and or inter europe rail travel being posted in various other forums or airline forums here on flyertalk.

From what I see there is an already an existing travel forums for europe and various other country forums where rail related topics can be posted.

Going back to the original posts, if there is a consistant problem in the bmi forum relating to rail travel and unrelated to actual flying and the bmi frequent flyer program, then those rail related posts should be moved over to the UK/Ireland travel forum, where It is probably more appropriate for rail travel within the UK belongs.

I think rail travel is important, but I dont think it should have a general rail forum to post questions in either.

Again I think what many of us were against was not the creation or to find a better place to put rail related topics, but against the creation of a general rail forum in the format suggested and presented for voting. I repeat myself but when you have a general rail forum even one for just Europe, will you have london tube questions there to? Paris Metro questions in there? All city transportation rail questions diverted from their city flyertalk pages to this one general rail forum?
Those questions should be in thier respective city/country travel forums and NOT in some general rail forum.

Now, If you wish to have Europe rail travel section for intercountry travel (spanning two or more countries), I suggest is to create a new proposal specifically asking for a Europe rail travel section or subsection of existing travel forums,
with details of what shouldn't be in those forums (ie, posts about the London Tube should be in the London forum and Paris Metro questions should be in the Paris forum not here etc etc). If rail travel questions is all within the UK then those questions should be in the UK forum, but if it is an inter country travel like the Eurostar then those questions should be in the whateve appropriate section is created.

Now the thing the comes up the most is finding a place to put the questions or the sub forum, honestly I think the travel section for Europe is the best place to have something like a Eurostar thread, even if the eurostar runs in UK and France, have a note/stickie saying any Eurostar or inter country rail questions be posted in the European travel section (moderators be in charge of redirecting misposted questions). I'm not planning to write a proposal on this subject but whoever or whatever group does should state that from now on, Europe rail related questions that are not city/country specific or otherwise no other country/city travel forum exist on flyertalk be located in the Europe rail forum which should at least be a subsection or a section of the Europe travel section of flyertalk and stickie notices on whatever respective pages be put saying so (or somthing that is just a draft suggestion).

From what I see, Remember what was voted down was not against the creation of a Europe rail forum/subforum, but rather the entire proposed package of a general overall rail forum was voted down where all rail related questions would be posted. That was something I was against. I'm not against if you want a Eurostar forum etc.

I'm sorry, but IMHO having Rail questions in BMI is just *wrong*. I *never* would have thought to look there. And in fact the Eurostar questions are spread between the UK forums and the European forums.

If someone posted a cruise question in United (because they were going to get United miles or something), what would happen? The moderator would move the thread to the cruises forum ASAP. If the cruise was from South America and the moderator wanted to leave it there, I really don't care. I might at least think to look in South America. I don't see why rail is any different.

Because the UK users needed somewhere they could post when they needed a quick answer - there's only a relatively small subset of British based posters read the UK & Ireland forum - I usually check it personally every 3-4 days - and the users of the BD forum also are the most knowledgeable lot about UK train travel, as they tend not to be London based, so also tend to use trains a lot themselves as trains and planes tend to be pretty interchangeable for domestic travel here. So out of those two facts, BD became the unofficial place to have train queries posted about UK travel. Yes, its predominantly known about by the brits, but OTOH, questions which get raised in there get much fuller answers than anywhere else on the board. And unfortunately, if the people that can answer the questions don't read the boards which some people believe they should be reading where those questions should be posted, it's not going to work as a source of information. Hence our move onto plan B, because plan A wasn't really working that well for the people who ask and answer most questions about rail. Sorry if it offends your sense of correctness, we tried to address it once more to improve the situation, but once more, we've been told it's not appropriate for FT to have rail forums.

United is moderated. BD carelessly misplaced it's moderators, doesn't know where to find them and doesn't know when they are going to return - we've tried putting out tempting treats and everything to tempt them back ;) And yes, we could report them as misposted threads for the senior mods to pick up on, but why should we? A lot of the users of that forum prefer to have rail questions in there... There's a point where FT works because of the goodwill of the members, and this is (IMHO) one of those points.