It's late, I missed the last expert by a 100 miles+ and a half day. Tough tiddie. :tb-tongue: But, it does appear to me that posting locations is the easier part of the contest... perchaps, the winner of the contest should be the poster of the next challenge. But, that is my biased opinion. Posting a location is easy. Finding is a bit harder.
Bob, Sorry for the late reply, I missed seeing this until now since I tend to be focused on the current games. Currently we try to have one person run the games for awhile and yes, we have had member run these games in the past with assistance from a staff member. With that said, always feel free to send a PM to me or one of the others running the games as a suggested place. I am thinking about hanging it up for awhile after I run my 100th game (which is about 30 games from now) so I will be looking for a person to replace me at that point. I myself have only 3 Beginner wins and I am not a good player which is why I run the Advance / Expert games so those much better than I can play. To run the games is more time consuming than tough to make sure you keep the games rolling. :tb-biggrin: :tb-biggrin: :tb-biggrin: :tb-biggrin:
Darren, OK, I finally read _all_ the stickies and the prior discussions and have a better understanding of where we are. I appreciate your efforts to provide the challenges for the rest of us.:thumbs_up: Would I want to take over your role now? Nope. At the moment (for a number of reasons), this provides me with fun and work I need. gvcborders intimated that he felt his successes scared off other players. There were two or three he got before me. Scott got one (at least) that that I might have nailed. Please don't quit on my account.:tb-shocked: At the same time, if I gave you a location for Expert, it's obvious that I handicap myself right now. To level the field (and give bragging rights), to participate in at the expert level, everyone would need to give you one or more suitable location(s) beforehand. If they win, their location is used for the next game. While they would have to sit out that game, they can test their competitors' skill level. :tb-wink: For example: Google shows rail lines in many countries (sorta kind of), some of the lines shown are laughable, others are skipped. An "Off the Beaten Track" (sorta like your current Expert), or multi targets: five pit mines or flood coal loaders in an area. Other themes would be up to the competitors. Just my $.02 :tb-biggrin:
Speaking as the current operator of the Beginners Contest (and with 4 Beginner wins under my belt, I can't play at that level anymore), I'm always open to suggestions for locations. I have rec'd some from the membership here at Trainboard, and currently I'm showing places I have personally railfanned in the last 3 years or so, and in some places even further back to, say, 1980. I'll also include some other well-known spots. Since it is the Beginner contest, I've been restricting the entries to places in the US, but I'm not above showing Canadian or well-known Mexican locations as well. I've appreciated the INtermediate and Expert entries, and they've been equally bumfuzzling to me- but that's half the fun.
