I recently posted a story at the end of a thread and was surprised with the response I got. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a "Story Board Forum". Where we could tell the stories of the rails as they were told to us or where rails could tell their own stories. We could include: Historical Stories, Legends Of The Rails, Ghost Stories, Humorous and more. I come from a family of rails who shared numerous stories...some true, embellished, humorous and a ghost story or two. I'm sure there are rails out there today who would love to have a place to share a story or two and those of us who would love to pass on the good ones. I discussed this with Charlie this morning. And we both would like to see if there is a real interest so, your response and support would be greatly appreciated.
That's funny, I thought I heard the sound of air rushing out of a balloon. Just as I thought....post this here and many will miss it. Oh well, that's the way it goes. Would you call this...sudden death...to an idea? Perhaps. As I look at all the options here on TrainBoard, I have to wonder out loud if anyone actually keeps up with all of them? Another, "Bedtime Story Option" might not be such a good idea. Perhaps, a wiser choice would be consideration for closing some the options Ie., Inspection Pit, I'm still not clear why we have this or perhaps all the fallin flags options when maybe one would do. Never mind me. I think I will get back to having fun with my N scale model railroad...something I do control...I think. Let's see how does it go, "Change what I can and learn to live with the things I can't".. something like that. Grin!
I like the idea of a forum for stories. They could be about actual rail experiences, or maybe a place to give the history of your fictional railroad.
If "keeping up with the competition" is an issue, Railfan.net has a Railroad Stories board http://forums.railfan.net/forums.cgi?board=RRStories It sees mostly fiction.
A story board sounds interesting to me. If I wrote down all the tales I've heard or been through, it would probably fill a book. The hard part would be picking them out and getting them condensed enough be a reasonable length for posting.
Regardless of whether or not a forum is started for something like this, if you have a lot of stores to tell, start a blog! The blogging part of the site has only been in operation for a few months and ff you look at some of them, especially Bob's and a few others, you will see how many people are looking at them. Give that a few years and it will be massive in the number of hits. Blogs are a stroke of genius - not ours, but the people that developed the concept. I realize that not everyone sees the vision but believe me, if you have something to say, you can say it there, it will be indexed by the search engines, and people will see it. If you have stories to tell, start telling them and see what happens. Charlie