Rollin --
Thank you for your excellent perspective on Trains magazine. Wow..... I had no idea that an article in Trains magazine got you to seriously consider making railroading a career. How cool is that? :) One never knows how what one writes in public will affect other people, and sometimes the effect is very good.

One thing that makes publications that are aimed at railfans and that cover present-day railroading far less interesting is that most of the many Class 1s of the past have merged, so there are now only 4 American Class 1s in the entire US, plus the 2 Canadian Class 1s. And these few giant Class 1s have consolidated most of their operations into large central locations, so there are no longer any local agents or local outposts with people a person can talk to, so that important human connection is almost completely gone. And it is the human connections that have the most powerful effects on people.

Also, railroads are, quite understandably, very concerned about what some untrustworthy people might do to their operations were they to continue to be very open about their operations. So the railroads release very little info on their operations, and employees are not supposed to share any operating info with the public, except for what their PR people say and post. This makes it very difficult for railfan magazines to get interesting stories of present-day operations. And, for those very same good reasons, the public can no longer trace the movements of any locomotives or cars, except the car their new motor vehicle is in.

And, really -- who wants to photograph or look at photos of railcars and locomotives that have been defaced and vandalized by graffiti? What a waste of time and paint.

The world has, indeed, changed -- and it always has been changing and will keep changing.