Title sez it all.

-----------------------------------
Dave Nelson

As one who was permanently banded from the FCList unless I apologized to
Jim Six and his supporters (not likely), I personally hope that this could
be a forum for (mostly) serious discussion about the stated topic without
all the other BS that goes along with most email lists. I am not retired
and do not want do spend my days reading nonsense, hitting the delete key
or wishing people knew how to truncate old messages. I continue to spend
time and money doing a fair amount of railroad research - some of it
freight car related. I am more than willing to share that research with
those who appreciate the effort and contribute themselves. I'd be happy
if this list had three messages a week that were useful. I will not read
25 messages a day that are not useful. (And I have yet to see 25 messages
a day that were even 30% useful.) I prefer quality to quantity.

Whether this is what Mike Brock had in mind, I don't know. Whether this
duplicates the FCList, I'll never know.

Just my 2 cents,
Dick Harley

--- In STMFC@..., "Dave & Libby Nelson" <muskoka@i...> wrote:

Title sez it all.

-----------------------------------
Dave Nelson

Because of those darn Floridians, I suppose. Everybody in the
country is slightly ticked off, and as a result, unpleasantness has
reared its head on FCL (and, I predict, on SteamLocomotives).

I suppose the list also exists to answer questions such as:
Given a commodity that was shipped by tank car, how do I determine
what type of car carried that commodity. Furthermore, how would I
determine what company or companies owned said type of car for that
commodity?

For example, I recently learned that I need to ship sulfuric acid to
a corn mill (acid was used to produce corn oil). What kind of car do
I use (and more importantly, how can I find out for myself?)?

Should I just commit the ACF book and RPCyc to memory?


Regards,

-Jeff

P.S. As a reminder, my era of interest is 1950-55.

Because of those darn Floridians, I suppose. Everybody in the
country is slightly ticked off

Yes, that accounts for much no doubt, but it's hardly a good enough reason
IMO.

I suppose the list also exists to answer questions such as:
Given a commodity that was shipped by tank car, how do I determine
what type of car carried that commodity. Furthermore, how would I
determine what company or companies owned said type of car for that
commodity?

For example, I recently learned that I need to ship sulfuric acid to
a corn mill (acid was used to produce corn oil). What kind of car do
I use (and more importantly, how can I find out for myself?)?

Surely this could be addressed on the FC list too -- and in the past, it
has.

Hmm. Looks like I need to be blunt: Is the elephant in the room (the one
that nobody wants to speak about) personality or content?

IMO, differing personalities are a fact of life (made somewhat easier by
delete keys and/or kill files) and as such, establishing yet another
discussion group provides no assurance of perpetual pleasantries. Rather
than discuss one or more persons publically, I suggest private e-mails if
further comment is needed.

OTOH, there does appear to me that there is a fundamental schism of
priorities over in FC. Hard to describe singularly, but to my view it
encompases the differing priorites of display vs. used, finescale vs. mass
market, the joy of assembly & painting vs. fastest RTR, a roster of few vs.
many, scratchbuilding vs. buying, accomplished vs. learning, perhaps others,
but generally embodied in the rivet-counter vs. goodenuffer labels. Is
something here the reason for another group?

Or am I just too dense to accept the face value assertion it's about steam
ear cars?

Dave Nelson

For example, I recently learned that I need to ship sulfuric acid to
a corn mill (acid was used to produce corn oil). What kind of car do
I use (and more importantly, how can I find out for myself?)?

Find _Tank Car Journeys_ in some used bookstore on the net. It's from the
30's and does a nice job of describing all sorts of stuff that went in tank
cars. In some instances it explains quite a bit about individual industries
too.

Dave Nelson

On Dec 12, 12:06pm, Dick Harley wrote:

Subject: RE: [STMFC] So why are we doing this?

As one who was permanently banded from the FCList unless I apologized to
Jim Six and his supporters (not likely), [snip]

Hmm. I wonder how many others are banned from FCL? Perhaps we should
invite Byron to join this list...

Regards,

-Jeff

--
Jeff Aley, Development Engineer jaley@...
Graphics Components Division
Intel Corporation, Folsom, CA
(916) 356-3533

Jeff Aley wrote:

Hmm. I wonder how many others are banned from FCL? Perhaps we should
invite Byron to join this list...

I did. Whether he does so remains to be seen. (I'm reminded of the old
Groucho Marx line, "I'd never belong to a club which would have me as a
member.")

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

On Dec 12, 3:27pm, Richard Hendrickson wrote:

Subject: RE: [STMFC] Re: So why are we doing this?

3. I'm tired of the same old topics being discussed at length every few
months, often with more heat than light, prompted by new subscribers who
weren't around when they were discussed before (and haven't consulted

the

digest to find that out).

This, in my opinion, is one of the great weaknesses of Mr. Hosker's list.
The last time I tried to search the archives, well, I couldn't. Suppose
I want to know how to tell a correct RC R-30-12-9 from the incorrect
version.
I have no intention of performing 48 different searches for "Red Caboose
PFE" (one for each month in the archive).

Thus, if I wanted to know, I'd have to ask again. (Actually, I keep my
own personal archive of messages that I think will be of future interest.
But I shouldn't have to.)

Regards,

-Jeff

--
Jeff Aley, Development Engineer jaley@...
Graphics Components Division
Intel Corporation, Folsom, CA
(916) 356-3533

I agree with Dick Harley. I would like someplace where there is only serious
discussion of freight cars, and not a lot of chit-chat, and no declarations of one's
preference for the "three foot rule" etc. Limiting it to pre-1960 freight cars is not
entirely my preference but if that's how you all feel... People like myself and Bill
Kelly and Jim Eager are seriously interested in post-1960 freight cars too, and at
the moment there is no mailing list other than FCL for that.

An egroups moderator has the power to approve or eject subscribers. I have
occasionally reminded steamloco members not to stray from the subject of the
mailing list, and I haven't noticed any serious violations. Although the recent
flareup of discussions of styrene and plastics is kinda pushing the envelope...

P.S. Dick, thanks for posting the Union Pacific drawings file. I think that type
of information will make the STMFC a useful resource. Dick's "three useful
messages a week" sounds like a worthy goal.

P.P.S. How do people feel about binaries attached to messages? Sometimes
it would be just so much easier to SHOW people what you're talking about
rather than try to describe it.

Richard writes on his reasoning for a new group:

1. ... 33,000 gal. tank cars....
2. I'm tired of being abused as an elitist snob....
3. I'm tired of the same old topics being discussed ... by new

subscribers who

weren't around when they were discussed before.

Item 1 can be addressed by establishing a different, group. The only way to
deal with item 2 is to keep the new group closed, by invitation only. Dunno
if egroups allows for that. Dunno what Mike wants either.

At any rate, what I'd like is (no particular order):

- Fine scale modeling of freight cars. Model railroading including freight
cars is meerly a coincidental interest. I can join Jim Six's group or stay
with the FC list would my priorites to reverse.

- my personal interests of historical research at the fleet level (ORER, ICC
stuff, industrial stuff, etc.) remaining welcome.

- All historical material relevant to support fine scale modeling.

- Persons having both adult opinions and skins.

- I understand opinions vary on when the steam era ended. I think <=1956 is
generous.

- While not yet an author, I have appreciated and learned from much of the
discussion over on the FC list on issues faced by authors of material on
these topics.

I could go on....

On a technical level, I do like egroups web access, searching capability,
file storage, and opinion polling -- very much an improvement compared to
FC.

Dave Nelson

As we continue to talk about talking about freight cars, :-) WRT binaries,
they shouldn't be mailed out, but put in the shared files area. The
ReeferMadness list (all refrigerator cars, all the time) does this quite
effectively, though most of the images are of (yuk) mechanical reefers.
The PrototypeModelers have recently uploaded sections of video (!) that
show specific freight car door hardware. [Now *that's* multimedia at its
finest!]

Regards,

-Jeff

P.S. Has Harley unsubscribed yet? I don't think we've had an actual
freight car discussion yet...

--
Jeff Aley, Development Engineer jaley@...
Graphics Components Division
Intel Corporation, Folsom, CA
(916) 356-3533

Dave Nelson writes:

- I understand opinions vary on when the steam era ended. I think <=1956 is
generous.

That's probably about right; some steam survived later, but not much.
However, I'm inclined toward ca. 1960 as a cutoff because, give or take a
year or two, that was the beginning of what I regard as the modern era:
roller bearings, cushion underframes, mechanical reefers, etc. Prior to
1960, only a few more or less experimental cars had those features, and
freight car technology wasn't much different than in 1950.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520

So.... I see fourteen names in the "Members" list so far, all but two of
whom I either know personally or have had extensive e-mail correspondence
with. I'm flattered to be included, but I figure I'm already part of this
particular group with or without a new list.

I like the thought of some sort of refuge where we can go off and discuss
things candidly without being badgered by the Great Unwashed, but we need to
be careful - from their viewpoint there's no discernable difference between
the Algonquin Round Table and a bunch of elite snobs holding forth in
private.

There were 199 members in the Passenger Car List when I took it to eGroups
in late September. There are now 271. On eGroups you'll be noticed and, like
it or not, you'll end up with an uncontrolled body of subscribers. If the
purpose of this list is to escape from the newbies, vesties, train set
whatevers and general nuisances, there must be some sort of control on who
subscribes. I'm not advocating this, just pointing out that when you
publicize paradise, it eventually gets overrun.

One other thing to watch out for - the archives are open to any subscriber
at any time, on out into the future. In these very early posts some of us
may be a bit too candid because it's "just among friends". Mike, you might
want to think about deleting some of these "board of directors" posts from
the archives eventually.

Tom "devil's advocate" Madden
who thinks the only good freight cars are red, black, orange or yellow, and
who favors cutting things off just before the McGinnis NH/B&M color
explosions.

From: Gail & Tom Madden [mailto:tgmadden@...]

I like the thought of some sort of refuge where we can go off
and discuss things candidly without being badgered by the
Great Unwashed, but we need to be careful - from their
viewpoint there's no discernable difference between
the Algonquin Round Table and a bunch of elite snobs
holding forth in private.

Per egroups terms of service:
Group Content may be private or public. If a group is intended to be
private, it is the sole responsibility of the member who has created the
list (the "Moderator") to use the Service properly to make sure that such
privacy is achieved, including by establishing appropriate policies for the
group and securely managing passwords and other access capabilities.

If there is a desire to go private, egroups allows one to do so. Is there
such a desire and/or is that what you want Mike?

Dave Nelson