Great Western Coffee Shop

From the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-58668109)


I looked around the Coffee Shop and found no public board in which it is appropriate to post this, and yet it "feels" like it may be of interest.  So - posted in "intro and chat" and asking members whether such things are of relevance to post.

The forum was founded by a few of you (did you know each other before the forum went live?) to discuss rail issues, and to assist each other on rail issues.
Look at it now.
Massively expanded (to your credit), and of invaluable assistance to those of us who travel nowadays.
Actively campaigning (notable success with 4tracknow!); know people who know.
Yet it's still friendly and helpful and contains as much 'trivia' as expert knowledge.
A massive breadth in a forum.
I voted 'within limits' but what limits! as I also love model railways, but it would be a shame if the forum spun off in to a modellers haven, and the main line became secondary.

Thank you to the founders

Founded by grahame and myself back in 2007, with the original influx of members being drawn from my messaging members of the old TransWilts Save The Train Forum and asking if they wanted to join our new, wider forum. It was right in the epicentre of the "More Train, Less Strain" FGW "passenger rights" era, so there were a number of similar forums that existed with buoyant membership numbers, so word spread and our own numbers expanded.

We seem to have become the forum that came through as the long-term standard bearer of that genre, with expansion of topics and interests covered naturally evolving along with our wider membership and admin/moderation teams, all of which are a great mix in my opinion.

There are still a number of former Save The Train forum members who regularly post today, along with great stalwart supporters and regular contributors who have joined since, and that mixture, along with the warm welcome that we always strive to give new members, is what makes CoffeeShop what it is, and is the key to its longevity.

Indeed, Lee ... eleven active members have been with us over 14 years now ... - that's people who joined from February to August 2007 and still log in from time to time.

Was the 'original' forum on this site, or did you have a different web address - I guess faceache wasn't around then anyway.

So it was a basic TransWilts forum that has massively grown into a UK forum with some touches worldwide.

As for model railways, we are now touching on cruising (SHIPS), so the occasional mention of the likes above isn't really out of place in my mind.

A transport forum!

The Save The Train Forum and this forum were always two seperate websites.

The Save The Train website - including much of the Save The Train Forum material - still exists as an archive at http://savethetrain.org.uk/

Should we have model railway posts here ...

Yes - the more the merrier   - 0 (0%)
Yes - within limits   - 11 (42.3%)
Yes - occasionally   - 2 (7.7%)
Yes - if of exceptional interest   - 7 (26.9%)
No.   - 3 (11.5%)
Don't know   - 0 (0%)
Don't care   - 3 (11.5%)

Only 3 out of 26 are an absolute "no", but no-one at all saying "yes - the more the merrier".  And the big question - which had struck me when I first asked - was where if the appropriate place?

If pushed, we could add a new board.  But I have a different idea - it may be "marmite".

I look at

and wonder about

Not totally happy with this, though. Please, someone, do better for me!

Perhaps:

Change made ... http://www.passenger.chat/24494