05-29-2010, 02:02 AM
FedEx13 Wrote:Stein: I tried 3 times sending those articles to Joe Fugates MRH website. No response was ever given to me from those people.
Sorry - I hadn't read through MRH's submissions guidelines when I suggested sending them over that way. Seems like your articles just are too long for the MRH article submission guidelines. Each of your articles (at least in the form you posted them here) have about ten pages of pure text.
The MRH article submission guidelines calls for shorter articles - maximum 6 pages for the whole article, and that includes 2/3rd of that space being used for pictures. So basically maximum about two pages of text. They are also very focused on getting digital images or videos ("rich media" is a gimmick they are very fond of).
So it would take a pretty ruthless rewrite of your articles to make em submission ready for MRH. Guess Joe should have gotten back to you with a "suggest you rewrite, condense and illustrate this" rejection email. At least if you submitted the same articles there as you posted here.
FedEx13 Wrote:To be honest, I've had a great reception from the readers of this forum. I am very greatful that those of you out there reading this have shown a great deal of interest in my material.
I'm not trying to turn the model railroad world upside down with my ideas. I'm just trying to put a "real world twist" on a great hobby - that's all! When I posted these ideas at MRH, the reception to them was, well, let's not go there. To say the least, there were more "nitpickers" than just people who wanted to listen. I am always open to others' ideas and I am willing to hear critics....but when I'm told "Im wasting my time" thats when I draw the line. I don't feel I've wasted my time at all. I am just trying to share some information with new people.
Thanks again for the warm welcome!
I enjoy hearing/reading what other model railroaders are up to. And I will shamelessly steal (but of course attribute) any good ideas applicable to my layout I may stumble upon while reading or listening to what others are doing.
Btw - I got curious about your experiences with MRH and went over to their forum to have a look at the responses your posts there had found (I figured you most likely had used a similar nickname over there).
I suspect that where you may feel that people is nitpicking and being overly critical is when they point out the weaknesses of switch lists in general model railroad operations.
You seem to feel a need to keep pointing out that you are a real railroader, and that car cards and waybills are not prototypical paperwork on real railroads.
No, they are not. But then, nobody is claiming that they are, either. CC/WBs is a pretty flexible and robust mechanism used in model railroading to make cars move in reasonably realistic ways across layouts. Works both for routing, switching, for keeping track of how long cars have been unloading and quite a few other things.
Switch lists are not as good for keeping track of routing information, loads, loading/unloading times and such things. They are also less fault tolerant if a car for some reason doesn't go out on the train it was supposed to go on, and has more overhead - takes more prep work and more paperwork during the operating session.
Still, even though I am well aware of the weaknesses of switch lists (and the strengths of car cards/waybills), I still like switch lists for industry switching. Not because switch lists work inherently better than CC/WBs. But because of the nice railroady flavor they impart.
Smile,
Stein