11 replies to this topic

[KevinKorell]

Because the upcoming OTOL Florida RailFest is so short (only 3 days of activities within Florida, and a total of 6 days for those taking the Silver Service round trip), I've considered what else we can do over the summer. Because we have ridden every New York City subway line over the course of the past 8 years, the only activity left to do without repetition is the commuter lines of LIRR, MNRR, and NJT. To spend time riding solely commuter lines means we need to do it when the daylight is longer in the summer, rather than in January when it becomes difficult to see much past 4:30 PM. So I've considered a fest in the New York/New Jersey area for late August. But that comes with a few problems as well:

• I'm unsure whether I can get the time off from work (I'm still working weekends), so it might have to take place solely on weekdays, much like the Baltimore/Philadelphia trip in 2006.
• If I did get a weekend off, the last weekend of August is out because it is Labor Day weekend (the holiday falls on Monday, September 1st). We all know that the resulting crowds in the stations and the lack of affordable hotel rooms (if any) would pose a problem.
• Moving to any earlier weekends in August might put it too close to our return from Florida in July. Financially this might be an issue to some.

The three fests I have written involving New York and New Jersey (Garden State RailFest, Metro New York RailFest 2 and Metro New York RailFest 3) assume we will be hitting the rails on Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday. The possible activities were mixed and matched about 6 months ago to provide the optimum in variety while making it easiest for us to make connections. If we were to move to weekdays only, the schedules are very different and as written these fests don't work well with the adjusted times. So more mixing and matching would have to be worked out.

If we are to do anything in August of 2008, planning really needs to get underway now, since it will closely follow the Florida trip. So for my purposes, I need to know what everyone's feelings are on this before I start working on possible plans. We also need to determine whether anything we do in August would replace a fest the following January, or be in addition to it. Don't expect a BARF 2009 as those events have been; if everyone still wishes to get together in the cold we would again be doing commuter rail, albeit much shorter days than possible in August.

The only other possibility for January 2009 would be to do a fill-in subway fest for those who might have missed one of our other AppleFests or Big Apple RailFests (BARF) in the past 8 years. It would be a program of miscellaneous subway lines, going out to various endpoints that somebody might have missed before or not travelled with us when we did it as a group. That event would be known as the Big Apple All Request RailFest, or BAARRF!

Now conisdering all of the above, the reason for the poll questions should be clearer to you.

[CNJRoss]

Kevin, Thetre is a problem with your poll questions and answers. One must vote on all 3 questions in order to tally in the poll. However, one of your questions did not have a correct answer for me - the second question does not allow a person to indicate that they could only participate in January. Ross

[KevinKorell]

Yeah you're right, Ross. I'll take your preference into consideration and omit one from your response to the 2nd question. It's really a complex situation here, and maybe a better way of doing this would have been to have just one question with all of the many possible scenarios to vote upon.

[AlanB]

Ross, I have ammended the poll to add that choice, Jan only. However, I'm unclear as to what choice you did pick for that second question. Please let me know, either here or privately if you prefer, and I can move your vote to the Jan only choice for you.

[CNJRoss]

Ross,

I have ammended the poll to add that choice, Jan only. However, I'm unclear as to what choice you did pick for that second question. Please let me know, either here or privately if you prefer, and I can move your vote to the Jan only choice for you.

Alan,

I had replied I would attend both - seemed more likely to result in a Jan 2009 fest that I hope to attend.

Ross

[AlanB]

Ross,

I have ammended the poll to add that choice, Jan only. However, I'm unclear as to what choice you did pick for that second question. Please let me know, either here or privately if you prefer, and I can move your vote to the Jan only choice for you.

Alan,

I had replied I would attend both - seemed more likely to result in a Jan 2009 fest that I hope to attend.

Ross

Fixed.

[KevinKorell]

Thanks Ross for pointing out the error and Alan for repairing it.

[jis]

I have some additional challenges I can attend a January fest only if it is after January 20th. I will be out of the country on almost the diametrically opposite side of the world from December 29th to Jan 19th. As far as I know all of August is pretty open on my calendar so I can attend a fest in August but only on weekends.

[KevinKorell]

I have some additional challenges

I can attend a January fest only if it is after January 20th. I will be out of the country on almost the diametrically opposite side of the world from December 29th to Jan 19th.

Well, Jishnu, I believe that the majority have preferred the MLK holiday weekend, as it allows for an extra travel day and hotels don't typically get sold out or their prices inflated for that holiday. That looks to be January 16-17-18 (Fri-Sat-Sun) next year.

As far as I know all of August is pretty open on my calendar so I can attend a fest in August but only on weekends.

Don't count out weekends yet; I should know more about my vacation situation by this time next week.

Edited by KevinKorell, 12 June 2008 - 12:26 AM.

[steve4031]

I certainly would be interested in any fest, and would try to work it into my schedule and finances. Participation in August would depend on me getting my stipend earlier in the month. Of course I plan to be their for anything that happens in Janurary because I have a lot of gaps to fill since I missed the earlier fests.