Hmm... I shouldn't but i will...
"I had no idea that so many Subtalkers were so narrow minded, so stupid, so ignorant, as to get that vitriolic over a fellow poster's airing of HIS personal opinion. "
way to go winning over the crowd. expressing opinions is just fine, but when your opinions and ideas aren't exactly smart ones based in reality, what do you expect? did you really honestly think people would agree with you that ANY part of the subway system ought to be removed?
"This Board has been reduced to a joke, a popularity contest, a forum for ass kissing and consensus, rather than a forum for the airing of ideas."
when did this happen? i've never seen much ass kissing in these parts, and i've seen ideas aired every day. usually they're ideas on how to expand the system. yours is to remove a part of it (without a good logical reason). maybe you oughta find a pro-car, anti-transit website to post on? you might get a better response.
"As a writer of a book on transit, I have been often often criticized for being so narrow minded as to write a book on trains."
Anyone can write a book. that doesn't make your ideas any more valid. Just as an example, hitler wrote a book...
"They have said that railfans are kooks and you nitwits have proven them (for the time being at least) right. That is unfortunate for to be a Railfan does not mean that you have to be intolerant and ignorant. That is the real tragedy of these past few days, for all of you could be so, so much more. "
kooks? a railfan is no more a kook than someone obsessed with old cars, women with too many shoes in the cloest, etc. everyone has their dementia.
if your opinion has been met with intolerance, maybe you need to stop pointing a finger of blame at those heckling you and think about your delivery of the opinion, and the audiance your trying to deliver it to - and even the merits, logic, and reality of your opinion - because quite frankly your opinion has no logic. "the line only has 5 stops, so let's take it down'? i could see maybe if they were 5 underused stops, but with the exception of 39th av, that's not reality. you said it oughta be taken down because bits were falling off of it in the 1970's and 1980's - guess what? everything owned by the city at the time was neglected. the god damn city was bankrupt for petes sake!
i've lived in astoria my entire life, through good times and bad, and i've heard nothing but praise in the last 10 years for how the line has been served. ever sicne the switch from the r to N, it's been damn nice. even before that, all things considered in perspective with the rest of the system at the time, it was a good line. it's structurally in great shape, and i dare say if you took your opinion to one of the stations in the morning, and asked people to sign a petition to have the line removed, you'd end up getting a lot worse treatment that the few insults you've gotten around this board.