Author Topic: Ghost Town/Facebook  (Read 1775 times)

Offline Bill Richardson

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Ghost Town/Facebook
« on: July 02, 2019, 04:37:34 PM »
Jreb is like a ghost town now.  I look now and then but rarely see a new post.  Looking at the activity monitor, I usually see a number of guests, around 40 at times, and one member, that being myself.   Occasionally I might see two members logged on, one other than myself.  There used to be a lot of traffic on this website.  What happened?  Yeah, I know.  Facebook.  I don't do FB and won't.  Don't care anything about it.  Facebook is sort of a world unto itself I guess.  People get news there, classified ads, photos, gossip, and whatever else I can't think of.  I have looked at the FB page for another RR website.  It is all a long list.  I don't think there is any search feature.  FB is a long list.  I have seen people scrolling down for half a minute or more trying to find some photo or something.  I wanted to look at dogs available at an animal shelter.  They were on their FB page.  I don't do FB, so I couldn't look.  I have seen some FB pages in which I could look, cars for sale, or something like that, but it was limited.  I'll just skip the FB pages.  Jreb was a good website.  Too bad FB shoved it aside. 




Offline NSyorktown

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Re: Ghost Town/Facebook
« Reply #1 on: July 07, 2019, 06:49:11 AM »
I think activity on this website peaked about the time of the Rat Hole line cover story in TRAINS magazine (which was the December 2013 issue).  Being a model railroader and interested in several signature scenes along that route, this was the site for current news, activity updates, etc.  I appreciated the photo's and the ability to ask focused questions here.

It didn't hurt that NS was pretty active itself during that period, with the heritage units project of 2012 and the steam excursion trips of Spring 2014.

Guess most folks have moved on . . . . . .

Offline E. Hodgson

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Re: Ghost Town/Facebook
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2019, 06:39:21 PM »
Unfortunately the younger generation of rail fans don’t know about forums and the ability to keep information in a easy to search platform for posterity of information, I haven’t been active recently on the rail side to help advertise to the younger generation to get them active on here, anyone that would like to step up I am more then willing to give them access to moderate and attempt to revive the activity life is just far to busy for anything other then keeping jreb alive and running!

Eric


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Offline thpbears

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Re: Ghost Town/Facebook
« Reply #3 on: August 31, 2019, 08:54:09 AM »
I agree at one time there was so much info sharing now it seems facebook has taken over. Would love to see the interaction on here come back.

Offline Bill Richardson

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Re: Ghost Town/Facebook
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2020, 11:03:21 PM »
   It has been a little while since I looked into Jreb.  I just saw that the last post was made last Dec.  I checked the number of people looking right now--64 guests and 2 users, including me.  There are usually around 30 guests looking any time I get on to see if there is anything new.  Tonight, 64.  Looks like people still like to look on here, mostly "guests" but nobody wants to post anything anymore, or very seldom.  Evidently there is still interest on this website.  There is a ton of material on here, so I guess "guests" can keep looking and finding things of interest on here.  It is sort of like a library now, but hardly any new material.  I suppose some of the "guests" might some day break loose and join so they can post some of their knowledge, experiences, and photos.

    For me, Norfolk Southern, from a photographer's standpoint, has become sort of humdrum.  About all I see now days are the usual black engines.  I used to see colors quite a lot, mostly from other railroads, engines leased by NS because, I suppose, not enough NS engines to carry the load.  Sometimes I saw recent acquisitions, from another RR, that had been "patched".  Another bit of color.  Rarely, I saw an NS Heritage engine.  Not infrequently I saw old engines, including "high hoods", and that was always interesting.  Sort of like finding old coins.  Now that is about non-existant.  It seems that NS has stocked up enough engines so they have enough modern ones to use, and all of their own.  I miss the colors.  I did discover one thing of interest, the SD90MAC engines that have been repainted, and with new cabs.  I happened to zoom in on one of my photos to read the type of engine, the model number.  SD70ACU.  I don't keep up on all the latest news, so I get behind on the  info.  I looked that one up and found that it was f former SD90.  I hadn't recognized it, because of the new cab, and new paint.  I realized that I had not seen any SD90s in a big while.  They were all repainted.  I looked through my collection and found that I had photos of three former SD90s.  I have photos of several of those engines in the UP paint, including a pair of them pulling a train at Danville, KY.  I posted a photo of them on here not long ago.  That was the only time I saw two of them together.  The converted ones I have photos of are not among my group of original SD90s.  Maybe one of these days I get a photo of one.

   One other item I discovered is that I have a photo or two of one SD80MAC.  I thought I had never seen one.  They don't usually run up and down the CNO&TP, not that I know of.  I had never noticed one.  I was looking at some photos one night and discovered that I had a photo of one, and it was on the Green River Trestle.  I don't have it handy right now.  I'd have to hunt for it on one of my flash drives.  Anyway, I have one of those engines in my collection, and the others just mentioned.

    I still check on trains now and then, when I can.  Probably always will.  Might see something of interest.

Offline irgoodpilot

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Re: Ghost Town/Facebook
« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2020, 04:12:01 PM »
I know what you mean, Bill.  I think NS went through a few years where they were in need of new power as a lot of the older pre-merger locomotives aged out of the fleet.  That's probably why we tended to see more diverse lashups back in the day.  Now they're even rebuilding their Dash 9s to get more life out of them.

It's a shame that there isn't as activity on Jreb these days, but it is still a great information resource.

Offline E. Hodgson

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Re: Ghost Town/Facebook
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2020, 04:38:02 PM »

It's a shame that there isn't as activity on Jreb these days, but it is still a great information resource.


Facebook was the death of information so much great information was and is shared on Facebook and is lost for the future, forums if properly maintain hold it for years in a nice searchable database, it’s sad for sure, I will continue to host jreb.org to keep the informations I have been debating trying to build a wiki like website to encourage a new source of information storage for rail fans it’s more so in the thinking stage if anything.


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