# Trains.com not worth the hassle!!



## Steve Stockham (Jan 2, 2008)

Our good friends at Kahlmbach publishing have gone and bolixed up their website!! Apparently, everyone who was registered has to re-do everything again except there's a catch: the password doesn't work! Solution? Call customer service and they will send you your password! Simple! Right? WRONG!!!! Do they send the password that you know? Nope! For "security's sake" they have generated a completely new password which makes no sense! Still, I should be able to go with the flow and will then be able to change it after I'm logged in. One slight problem: the new password doesn't work!!! 
I don't know if anybody from Clam-bake is reading this but your website leaves much to be desired! There are so many hoops to jump through that I have decided it's not worth the hassle! You lost a subscriber to your website! (Y'know, to add insult to injury, I just tried to re-subscribe and it wont let me do that as I already have a password!!) If this was something I cared about like MLS I would pursue it till I was able to get back in but Trains.com?!! Not bloody well worth the aggravation!!


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Nothing strange for me today. 

Other times, I got a message to log out and back in to update my account. (Old cookie, I guess). I've noticed it's like 2 logins there, one for the forum and one for the Klambake part, sort of, can't explain it better. 

Maybe that's what happened to you, one login is fixed and the other is in outer space. 

It definitely weirds out sometimes. 

Regards, Greg


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## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

This are the things the IT-crowd on my work do almost every week with the systems I have to use.... 
The call it "upgrades" and they do it for "better performance..." 
I always wonder if it is some sort of self provided work for the helpdesk guys...


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

I have been using trains . com regularly for the last several months without problems and I have not received any request to "redo" anything.

I "did" have a problem when they updated their system back in September/October of 2008. The text of any posting I made got deleted (whether a reply, a new posting, or even when sending messages through their system, which included the method they provided to tell them of problems!) when I hit "Send".

The "Subject" line would get posted, but not the text/body of the missivve. I had to post several new messages to the troubleshooting forum before they recognized my pleas for help. Then Erik Bergstrom (Bergie) contacted me via regular e-mail so I could respond using something other than their Messaging system. But, they were unable to help me get it to work... so I gave up and stopped frequenting their site completely.

Then a few months ago, I tried it again and it all works just fine. I have no idea if they fixed something or if maybe one of the plethora of Microsoft updates since then fixed something in my computer.

Anyway, I have been frequenting their forums and it works just fine, and I have not received any requests from them to "redo" anything (well... yet!).

What was the content of the "request" you received?


Are you sure the request came from Kalmbach? (Was it some sort of "fishing scheme"?)

Bergie, Ebergstrom at Kalmbach dot com is the one that finally contacted me and he passed me on to agaudynski at Kalmbach dot com once I was able to explain the problem.


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## Steve Stockham (Jan 2, 2008)

Nah, nothing out of the ordinary except that they said to use my old login which I tried to do and it said that it was invalid! I just followed their instructions and they sent me a new computer generated login which doesn't work! Now, I'm stuck with a new login that doesn't work and I can't access the site!! Like I said, not worth the hassle!!! (I'm venting...) Oh, and no, I'm NOT interested in jumping through any more hoops to try and access this website! If I need to find out something I'll just do it here on MLS thankyouverymuch!! (More venting...)


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Steve, I frequent that site. In my estimation, there's not much different that goes on there, many people post project info identical to their postings here. 

Kevin is over there a lot. 

There's some people local to San Diego that I enjoy seeing there. 

There's some newbie stuff that is a little different, and it's quite often an N scale or HO scale guy will post on the G scale forum. 

I go there because it only takes a few minutes each day, and I get it free. 

Regards, Greg


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Paulus on 18 Jul 2010 09:08 AM 

I always wonder if it is some sort of self provided work for the helpdesk guys... 

Correct, now let's show Paul what he has won...


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Steve, 

I haven't been on the Trains.com site for a while and after seeing your post, decided to go there this morning. Everything is working good for me. I decided to log-on to check my password and it worked just fine. Per Greg's Elmassian's suggestion this week, by e-mail, I decided to run "Malwarebytes" and Microsoft's "Malicious Software Removal Tool" more frequently than I had been doing. Found numerous trojans and hijacking gizmos that tend to throw our websites into chaos and hijacking passwords. You might want to give it a try. Good luck.


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## xo18thfa (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Steve Stockham on 18 Jul 2010 07:25 AM 
Our good friends at Kahlmbach publishing have gone and bolixed up their website!! Apparently, everyone who was registered has to re-do everything again except there's a catch: the password doesn't work! Solution? Call customer service and they will send you your password! Simple! Right? WRONG!!!! Do they send the password that you know? Nope! For "security's sake" they have generated a completely new password which makes no sense! Still, I should be able to go with the flow and will then be able to change it after I'm logged in. One slight problem: the new password doesn't work!!! 
I don't know if anybody from Clam-bake is reading this but your website leaves much to be desired! There are so many hoops to jump through that I have decided it's not worth the hassle! You lost a subscriber to your website! (Y'know, to add insult to injury, I just tried to re-subscribe and it wont let me do that as I already have a password!!) If this was something I cared about like MLS I would pursue it till I was able to get back in but Trains.com?!! Not bloody well worth the aggravation!!












Don’t you just love it when you are the only one having the problem? Everyone looks at you like you have an appendage growing out of your forehead and tells you it works fine for them.


I still can’t MLS to work with Firefox. All the hoops I’ve jumped thru to fix it. Firefox works perfectly for every other site I go to, just not here


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## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

Posted By Spule 4 on 18 Jul 2010 12:21 PM 
Posted By Paulus on 18 Jul 2010 09:08 AM 

I always wonder if it is some sort of self provided work for the helpdesk guys... 

Correct, now let's show Paul what he has won...








Ah thanks! I guess the first price is a free upgrade


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## Steve Stockham (Jan 2, 2008)

Okay. This is weird so stay with me. I decided to take some good advice and try again after I cooled down and waited a couple of hours. Since the password wasn't working I had them send me my old password _but they sent me a computer generated one for security purposes. _This one didn't work. I tried every combination I could but it just wouldn't work. I got mad. _Really_ mad! I vented here on MLS. That much you already know. Here's the rest of the story:
I needed the computer generated password so I went back to find the e-mail sent by Kalmbach. Imagine my surprise and confusion when I couldn't find it but I did find one that told me my original password!! (This is the point where Rod Serling is supposed to be standing over in the corner narrating,"Picture if you will a man frustrated by a force he couldn't imagine let alone control..." and of course, the creepy music then starts up...) I sat there thinking that maybe _just maybe_ everything reset again! So I went back to trains.com to try and it still didn't work but rather than throw my hands up in resignation, I looked again at that mysterious e-mail and it hit me the e-mail address was all in capital letters! The website has me down as lower case but the e-mail says it's upper case (which it never has been!) I tried it and (surprise surprise!) it worked! I then double checked and the website still had me down as lower case(!) I changed my email address to lower case (from lower case!) and it accepted the change! The computer generated password? Gone. It's like it never happened....








Anyway, somehow (don't ask me how) I am back in. And as I type these words I can hear Rod Serling starting his commentary letting all of us know that I hit a minor pothole on the information super highway. A pothole that caused me to take a minor detour through....The Twilight Zone! (Da da da da da dum!)


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

I just went to GRYS site. and I was still loged on and went right to forums. thats on trains.com????


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## Del Tapparo (Jan 4, 2008)

When Trains.com first started, I was eager to check it out. I ran into problem after problem, and reported the same. I got some lousy feedback from them and I guess I just gave up on it a long time ago. I do go to the Garden Railways forum once in a great while, but I don't find much of interest there.


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## jfrank (Jan 2, 2008)

I guess they just don't like you. I never have had any problems with it. I go to the Trains.com website and it pulls up my name every time without even signing in. It can't be any simpler.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Steve Stockham on 18 Jul 2010 02:51 PM 
Okay. This is weird so stay with me. I decided to take some good advice and try again after I cooled down and waited a couple of hours. Since the password wasn't working I had them send me my old password _but they sent me a computer generated one for security purposes. _This one didn't work. I tried every combination I could but it just wouldn't work. I got mad. _Really_ mad! I vented here on MLS. That much you already know. Here's the rest of the story:
I needed the computer generated password so I went back to find the e-mail sent by Kalmbach. Imagine my surprise and confusion when I couldn't find it but I did find one that told me my original password!! (This is the point where Rod Serling is supposed to be standing over in the corner narrating,"Picture if you will a man frustrated by a force he couldn't imagine let alone control..." and of course, the creepy music then starts up...) I sat there thinking that maybe _just maybe_ everything reset again! So I went back to trains.com to try and it still didn't work but rather than throw my hands up in resignation, I looked again at that mysterious e-mail and it hit me the e-mail address was all in capital letters! The website has me down as lower case but the e-mail says it's upper case (which it never has been!) I tried it and (surprise surprise!) it worked! I then double checked and the website still had me down as lower case(!) I changed my email address to lower case (from lower case!) and it accepted the change! The computer generated password? Gone. It's like it never happened....








Anyway, somehow (don't ask me how) I am back in. And as I type these words I can hear Rod Serling starting his commentary letting all of us know that I hit a minor pothole on the information super highway. A pothole that caused me to take a minor detour through....The Twilight Zone! (Da da da da da dum!) 


Thanks for the laugh! Good compareson with The Twilight Zone... I've been there many times in association with cornpewters. 

Good on ya for noticing the capitalization of your e-mail name... many folk would not ever see that. That sort of thing has caused me no end of trouble in other systems, too.


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