There is a discussion on the Model Railroader magazine forum that the Fall issue of GR will be the last. I haven't subscribed since Marc left so perhaps it was in the magazine, but this is the first I have heard of it. If it is true, it is strange that it was posted in on the non-GR forum first.
Modeling the D&H in 1984: http://dandhcoloniemain.blogspot.com/
Garden railways magazine did notify each subscriber via email before it was released
Subscribers were notified, and postings were made on Facebook and this website. Subscribers will receive Model Railroader for the remainder of their subscriptions. If you'd like another magazine (such as Trains) or a refund, please contact Customer Service at 877-243-4898 or email customerservice@garden-railways.com
I've worked for GR for 22 years this month. A lot has changed in the hobby and overall print magazine since 1998. I will miss this magazine a lot--the contributors especially were an awesome bunch.
Rene Schweitzer
Classic Toy Trains/Garden Railways/Model Railroader
So what is the disposition of this forum? Will it go away? I noticed some strangeness in logging in recently...
Greg
Visit my site: http://www.elmassian.com - lots of tips on locos, rolling stock and more.
Click here for Greg's web site
Greg Elmassian So what is the disposition of this forum? Will it go away? I noticed some strangeness in logging in recently... Greg
Same here, it's like it doesn't want to recognize my login.
What a bummer timing wise. I'm just getting my layout together after God how many years and now the mag is going away.
Rene, will the forum remain or will it be rolled into the MR forum?
Have fun with your trains
I'm sorry to hear that the rumors are true. I started in G in '95. This seemed to be the boom years, with many train manufacturers jumping into the game to produce G gauge trains. We had an all G gauge train show at the Queen Mary every year, and many hobby shops carrying plenty of G. G was promoted as the hobby for the entire family. Mom could work in the garden , and Dad and the kids could play trains.
One by one, manufacturers, discount mail order and others have dropped off. So, I understand the financial pressures.
I'm sure G will continue with a dedicated following, which still exists. Garden Railways Magazine has given us so much, and sad to see it go.
Paul
Rene,
I've said it elsewhere, but thanks to you and all the staff for a wonderful product through which I've me the wonderful people that got my trains out of their boxes and into the garden where they belong!
Aloha,
Eric
P.S. I too, was experiencing the same issues with the forum and was curious about its fate.
Everyone, I honestly don't know the future of the forum. Kalmbach is working on a revamp of the train-related family of websites, and with this news, it throws a wrench in the works. Sadly, there are lot of things to deal with in the coming months.
Rene, am I reading the latest announcement correct in that 2020 will only have 3 issues instead of 4, will subscribers receive something else for the missing issue? Thanks, Bill
I have noticed occasional trouble logging into the forums, both CTT and GR. I don't worry about it too much.... many times Saturday afternoon, and I think it's just heavy traffic, too many people logging in or viewing.
I usually just try back later, and it works fine.
We still have LGB/ Marklin and Piko cranking out product, so we'll be just fine.
Gonna miss the magazine, though....
chocho willy Rene, am I reading the latest announcement correct in that 2020 will only have 3 issues instead of 4, will subscribers receive something else for the missing issue? Thanks, Bill
Bill, you will receive Model Railroader for any remaining issues on your subscription. If you'd rather receive another magazine or get a refund, please contact customer service for that. MR is going to start including seasonal large-scale content and perhaps even a regular column. With the news being so fresh, nothing is fully firm yet.
Too bad being as we are in Florida I always look for the wintery one with the snow, take care and thanks for the reply, Bill
I never said so in my original post, but thanks to you and Marc and everyone for making it a great magazine. I really miss the passing of Peter Jones, whose sensibilities I have come to adopt as part of my own modeling. There will be a large vacuum caused with the ending of this magazine and I don't know what will fill it.
Yes, talking about those special moments, and those who have stood out with great influence at GR,
Peter Jones
Don Parker
and the articles GR ran on the " Martin Lines".
these have stuck with me with great influence...
Rene, any update about this forum?
Surely some decisions have been made by now, since I'm sure it costs something to run.
Greg Elmassian Rene, any update about this forum? Surely some decisions have been made by now, since I'm sure it costs something to run. Greg
As far as I know, this forum will remain until at least early 2021. After that, I'm not sure what will happen. Sorry I don't have more details.
Then I would suggest to all that they start archiving any threads here assuming the forum could disappear in the beginning of the year.
With no committment past that, we would be foolish not to.
No offense Rene, I know you only can tell us what you have been told, but pretty poor situation, not your fault.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but anything posted here may live forever in cyberspace, anyway. If you Google the name of the thread, or the topic. I have googled a topic, and have pulled up some very old threads...
Eric, I think you may have to do screen shots unfortunately, hence the warning.
Paul, I am correcting you. While the forum exists, of course all the old posts are "here", but if it goes away, it is gone.
The "internet wayback machine" archives SOME of the defunct web sites.
The forum costs money to run, the server space and I am sure some other monthly maintenance costs, nothing is free.
Perhaps to help you, try accessing old LSOL pages, a forum that went away some time ago... you can't find them.
Since Garden Railways is part of the forum run by Kalmbach, I would guess that as long as Model Railroader and Trains have the forum, the Garden Railways forum entries would remain.
That said, I have no knowledge of if this is true. It's merely my belief.
York1 John
I would assume that the most recent active threads would likely get rolled into the MR forum, but stuff past a certain time would be let go. There are posts on here going pack to the late 1990s, thats a hellova lot of data to shift around. 95% of those post haven't had a reply in a decade, some maybe long not after the intitial posting date, so thats a huge chunk of data storage that will likely get purged. So maybe update your old threads if you want them to live on or just leave them where they lay if they are very very old.
In my experience, moving posts into another forum has been problematic.
Remember what happened to MLS pictures!
There's a lot of uncertainty about the forum, and I get that. We fear some things may be lost forever. But, it was Google that lead me to the forum in the first place. I have Googled for tech tips on repairing trains, and it takes me to the CTT forum, or the GR forum, depending on what I am fixing. I realized " these people really know their stuff"! So, I started asking my questions on the forums ! Finding things on the internet is another issue, but these threads are still out there.
Here's a parlor trick :
if you know the Exact Name of a previous forum topic, try Googling the Exact Name of the thread, with a space, and then Garden Railways, or Classic Toy Trains.
These threads can be located through Google, and probably every other search engine ! Try it !
The point is not being able to search with google, but that the forum database could disappear.
Google does not "have" the pages, it just provides links.
If the forum disappeared tomorrow, there would be nothing, google's links would give you a 404 error, page not found.
So back to the point, if there are threads you want to archive, do it now. If there are pictures you like, archive them now.
You should have been around for the great "deleted picture" situation at MLS, then you would not be arguing.
Greg Elmassian In my experience, moving posts into another forum has been problematic. Remember what happened to MLS pictures! Greg
That is the understatement of the year
Postwar Paul There's a lot of uncertainty about the forum, and I get that. We fear some things may be lost forever. But, it was Google that lead me to the forum in the first place. I have Googled for tech tips on repairing trains, and it takes me to the CTT forum, or the GR forum, depending on what I am fixing. I realized " these people really know their stuff"! So, I started asking my questions on the forums ! Finding things on the internet is another issue, but these threads are still out there. Here's a parlor trick : if you know the Exact Name of a previous forum topic, try Googling the Exact Name of the thread, with a space, and then Garden Railways, or Classic Toy Trains. These threads can be located through Google, and probably every other search engine ! Try it ! Paul
Paul, Greg is correct, if you lose the main database you loose the thread, there might be some form of cache copy of it floating around on the web will only be a snapshot, maybe incomplete. I know that when I lost my photo database at MLS I pretty much lost all my the threads as well because without the photos the threads were pretty useless. As much as I wanted to find a cache copy, I couldn't, most of what photos I was able to salvage were thumbnails or secondary website records of images. So if GR dumps the forum database you will only have an incomplete cache picture at best as there is no web database to connect to.
The internet is a funny place: something you really want to keep, you may have to archive. Yet some images tend to float around in cyberspace. Some of the pictures I have posted here in the forum are already showing up in "Google Images"! Sorry you lost yours in the past. So, I see your concern.
Remember that when we post images here, we are only copy and pasting a link to a share site. This is where the images actually reside, not here in the forum. Theoretically, if you have the correct URL, you can still see the images.
Also, I think our situation here is different in that we use the "Trains.com" server, which seems to be common to CTT, GR,MR, etc. Hopefully, and unless someone managing the server decides to delete things to clear up space, most should be retained. But, if you have concerns, sure, archive.
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