Trains – 3+ members are put on a ‘train’ together. There are different types of trains
Regular Train – Coupons are put in and the envelope is sent from person to person with people taking from the envelope and adding back coupons. Say you find baby coupons but do not have children, you could take beauty or food coupons and add the baby coupons for a member who wants those etc.
VWT Train – A Virtual Wishlist Train – each member provides a wishlist of coupons they want. You send a certain amount of coupons (or $ amount of coupons) for each person to the conductor and they send you back all the coupons sent for you.
Buddy Train – The conductor will pair you with a mystery buddy. You are given their wishlist and someone else receives yours. They send you an envelope of coupons directly.
Gift exchanges - are not allowed without permission from the Package Train Moderator (see this thread for current package trains and information). They are usually run for holiday seasons and include actual items. There are additional requirements for riding and running these trains which the moderator can explain to you.
Conducting a Train
Please make your own train outline and do not copy those from other trains.
Please change the 'Thread Prefix' from Boarding/Full/Ended to allow people to choose trains to board more easily. (Go edit your first post and then click "go advanced" to change the prefix)
Please check the trade ratings of members before agreeing to have those members on your train.
Rating a Train
Train conductors, please leave appropriate feedback for your riders, if a train gets 'lost' in between stops please leave neutral explaining this.
If you are for sure your train was stolen leave negative.
If the train moved on and arrived at the next stop leave positive.
Please allow some lee way between stops in case a train does appear (use your discretion)
If there is a boarding pass, you may wait until the train arrives home to rate.
** If a member gets a negative or neutral rating on a train that was derailed please do not take the rating personally, as it is to safeguard the conductors and riders****
Passengers please leave a trade rating for your conductor! Do not rate them on how you 'liked' the coupons but on how it was run, and that they sent it out, its a great thing to run a train and it takes time to do so, please give them the appreciation they deserve.
For regular trains, each member should rate the conductor and the conductor rates each of the riders. The riders do not rate each other.
For VWT trains, all members are rated however, it is the conductor's responsibility to ensure rules including appropriate coupons sent - please bare that in mind when leaving ratings.
*NEW* Round Robin Trains (multiple cars sent by each rider) - these are getting problematic as ratings are being left when they should not so a new rule has been added
You should rate ONLY the conductor and MAYBE (this is currently being discussed with Boo) the person sending the cars ONCE. Too many traders are padding their scores with multiple ratings from these. NO RATINGS SHOULD BE LEFT FOR A PERSON NOT ON YOUR CAR - if you were not involved with a trade with them, do not rate them!
This thread replaces (you can read conversation in each of them)
What is a train
Train Rating System
How to rate a reg train
Regarding gift exchanges