First of all kudos to David Curlee for hosting this site. I check this site frequently and understand it's free to use but takes some effort and expense to operate. I do find some gems here and hope my contributions are valued and I understand why David doesn't have the time nor inclination to "weed the garden". Who does like weeding? So I'll continue to come here and sift through the rude, combative and unintelligible posts to find the treasures. (I enjoyed reading about the back stories of the "Admiral" and the "Commodore" recently.)

However I'm always on the lookout for interesting rail related forums and have been considering a membership to Trainorders where I was once a member when there was a one-time fee "for life" as I understand it. I told the owner you don't take someone's money as a one-time fee and then pull that out from under them. It was more on principle than the small fee I'd paid. So my question to those that are currently using TO is: Do you think it's worth the effort to sign up? I don't like that you have to give information before you learn what the fee is either. Why not be upfront about it?

I know many have complained about censorship on that site but I can live with that. I'm not so proud of my own voice that I must be heard. And I imagine it takes some misstep to have a post deleted. I don't care the much about photos and I know that TO gets a lot of photo content. I also don't care it a commuter train nicked a car and will be two hours late tonight. I'm mostly interested in railroad operations especially in the "good old days" which in my case roughly equals the time before the North American Cabs become common place. I think some of you know what I mean. Back when moving the freight was a priority and the days of highball switching and operators and numerous locals. Does TO have enough information like that to make it worthwhile? I just read a TO thread about BN/NP and SP rights between Vancouver BC and Portland. Fascinating. That's my cup of tea.

Thoughts?