kokonutz

Moved by bhatnasx and seconded by Cholula to:

recommend the creation of a European Rail forum, under the Travel & Dining heading.

This poll will close on Jan 13, 09 at 5:19 pm or after all TalkBoard members have registered their vote in the private TalkBoard forum, whichever comes first.

Per the TalkBoard Guidelines:
The purpose of posting voting topics in the public TalkBoard Topics forum is to solicit member feedback on any motions that are up for a vote and to allow for comments after a vote is made. It is at the sole discretion of the individual TalkBoard members whether they choose to post in the public discussion thread, there being no requirement to do so.

So while there is already a thread and discussion on this general topic, and it is safe to assume that TalkBoard members have reviewed that thread, this thread is about this specific motion. Please feel free to post questions, comments or any other sort of feedback.

tcook052

I support the motion and will look forward to using the forum would TB see fit to pass the motion. ^

gdeluca

I support this as well and think it would a tremedous resource.

fairviewroad

I support a European Rail Forum, but I think a more logical place to have it would be next to the Amtrak forum in Miles & Points.

Jenbel

That might be the logical place if you are American, but you can't expect the Europeans to look for it there....

Thanks for listening ^

stimpy

As a heavy user of rail in several European countries, and a member of several frequent train travel programs, I support the Euro rail forum. There's lots to talk about and lots of change happening over the next couple of years.

KNRG

Well, i'd use it - i'll even report back after my upcoming overnight Paris-Venice ride if the "fear-of-God-in-you" travel advisories about bums sleeping in the cars, people pretending to be the police mugging you, and bed bugs were true or not.

ajax

I support the creation of a European rail travel forum. ^

Non-NonRev

Another vote in support.

One useful function would be to discuss the various discounts (advance purchase, family fares, etc) available, some of which are not always easy to find on the various railways' websites.

Dovster

The most logical step would be to create an area called "Railways Forums" and to place two forums, "US Rails" and "Non-US Rails" in it. Any railway (British? Japanese?) which gets a large number of posts could then be given a subforum under "Non-US Rails".

ajax

Given the large amount of threads surrounding European rail journeys in particular (I would venture that well over half of the total threads started about rail journeys concern Europe in some way, shape or form), I personally would find it objectionable to have "Europe" as a mere sub-folder within "Non-US".

Doing this would clearly and symbolically relegate the European-rail-based questions to a level of importance far less than equivalent US-based questions (of which there are far fewer).

If anything should be based from the logic in the quoted post (and I am opposed to it), it would make sense to have "North America Rail Journeys", "European Rail Journeys", "Middle Eastern/South Asia Rail Journeys", etc. Thus we avoid the implicit dichotomy of "US" and "Everyone else" which the "US/Non-US" split proffered above would imply.

But I still feel that the large majority of intra-national-rail-journey-based questions on FT concern those within Europe - remember, the point of this new forum is for intra-national rail journeys within Europe and the associated loyalty schemes (unless no specific country forum exists). The creation of a forum within Travel & Dining to address these questions makes perfect sense to me.

sbm12

Why does the US get a top billing when they have arguably the crappiest rail system of any nation/region that has rail? If you really want to do sub-fora like that just put any region/country that has sufficient demand at the top level and have "other" for the ones that don't get enough action.

That being said, I'm very much in favor of getting the forum created. Pretty please.

lin821

Judging from the current motion, I don't think TB likes the idea of having a new Rail Travel Forum, which I had expressed my opinions in the other discussion TB thread.

Having said that, I don't think I agree with your ideas of subforums under the hypothetical "Railways Forums." Even FT is very US-centered, American minds shouldn't dominate every forum on FT.

Roger

Another ^ for the European Rail Forum.

I think that ajax, Jenbel and stimpy have the measure here.

Madhouse24

I cast my support in favor for a European (plus others?) rail forum^