total package

Isn't this what they call, "pie in the sky"?

I personally have no desire to replicate reality in any scale, i live in it every day. trains are a bit of an escape so I like the toy aspect of the hobby

Congratulations, Rick, for you've gotten just what you wanted: to push everyone's buttons. It's obvious that you don't consider yourself "one of us" whatever the heck that means, anyway. Were this the 60s or 70s, your point of view might be written off as just another acid-head (I liked it!), but your verbal sparring with good people who have taken your idea seriously enough to respond to you, reminds me more of a comment my wife once made. We had just walked into a train show, had been nearly trampled and pushed aside by guys who were trying to get to tables, etc. She said to me, "I've never seen so many people with Aspberger's all in one place"...

No wonder some people outside the hobby look at it's participants as being...

A simple suggestion, for a new approach, gets this kind of reaction.

It almost appears that some of you are actually afraid of my ideas; it's just an idea.

Even if it became a reality, you wouldn't have to use the system, unless you wanted to, or the government had other plans; just like you don't have to watch TV, read books or go online.

Nobody's going to try to take over your mind...

Rick

Nothing can be real if it is virtual. That's what the words mean. 

One source for railroading realism: try working for a railroad. Just a suggestion.

Pays well, too.

Sitting here, right now, in front of this computer is tedious enough; the idea of trying

to have a hobby on one... Oh. My. Goodness. 

We've heard all this before, but it's still about the "toys", the

equipment, the tactile sensations of a mechanical experience. The railroading accuracy was -always- second fiddle, and that's not just here in 3ROS.

One does realize that a 3-D model is far more realistic than an electron image on a 

screen, doesn't one? The image has only 2 dimensions and cannot be touched no

matter how well rendered...oh, well, that's OK - more second-hand O-scale stuff on

the market.

I don't consider playing with toy trains attacking life with gusto either. It's just a small part of my life, I go skiing, rafting, fishing, swim, go camping, raise chickens, have a fairly large vegetable garden and a small orchard, photography, astronomy, archery, am looking to get a boat this summer, spend time at my beach house with friends and family...these are what I consider as an active, interesting life.

If you want to waste away plugged into a computer because the real world scares you or minimizes you or you have no life, hey knock yourself out become an electronic hermit!

The rest of us when on our death beds won't be bemoaning the fact that we never lived life to the fullest we could unlike the trolls such as yourself who seem to infect the internet.

Jerry

Hey guys? Whatever happened to them VR headsets that you used to be able to get? One of them combined with something like an adaptive chair that vibrates and hand controls that give feedback as if you're actually touching something. Now that could really work and work well.

It'd be like that "sex" scene from demolition man!

XBOX came out and destroyed them....

I don't think it's the idea as  much as how it was presented. By degrading a hobby that's over a century old one can alienate alot of folks who enjoy building things "hands on".

Penn,

I wasn't degrading anything.

At least for me, this hobby has phases; I'm probably in the final phase.

Rick