I know John, it's a pain. No idea as to why it's set up this, and in another thread asking about searching the archives, the OP didn't get much of answer from CS.
Hopefully that link stays up for a while.
Mike.
My You Tube
mbinsewi The index is back up. Go to new home page, and point your mouse at Model Railroader Magazine. A list appears, click on Anual Idex. Then you can open a pdf of the years mags, with aa alphabetical listing of topics, with the month and page number. That's about the only "search" for the archives that I can find. You can still access the "old" archives here, but I'm not sure how ling that link will be good. Mike.
The index is back up.
Go to new home page, and point your mouse at Model Railroader Magazine.
A list appears, click on Anual Idex.
Then you can open a pdf of the years mags, with aa alphabetical listing of topics, with the month and page number.
That's about the only "search" for the archives that I can find.
You can still access the "old" archives here, but I'm not sure how ling that link will be good.
That seems like a very inefficient way to search compared to the old way. Often I will remember an article from decades past but not even know what year it appeared. If I want to find that article I would have to go through many indices before finding what I'm looking for. For example the last archive search I did was for a railroad called the Midland Valley. I forget the owners name but he built the railroad in his garage and suspended it from the ceiling. He built a pulley system that would gently lower the layout down when the cars were not in the garage. When he was done, he could raised the layout back up to the ceiling and put the cars back in the garage. It was an ingenious system. Because I remembered the name of the layout, a keyword search located it immediately. I think the layout was featured in the late 1970s or early 1980s but I'd just be guessing at the year. I would have had to go through all those indices to find that article with the new system.
Update: I went to the old archive through your link and with just a few keystrokes and clicks, I found the article immediately:
Jun-1977 (trains.com)
Had I done it with using the indices, I would probably have started searching at 1979 and gone forward from there. After striking out I would have started working backward in time until I found this article. This new system is definitely a downgrade from the old one.
Update2: I went to the Annual Index page and discovered the indices only go back to 2005. I sorted them by oldest first and 2005 was the first one listed. I guess if you want to find something older, you're on your own.
I am having the same problem with the whole site. I can't even find the photo gallery anymore!
I am trying to learn to navigate my way through the new format of the archive. With the old format of the archive, you could do a keyword search to locate a specific article from past issues of the archive. I see the capability of searching whatever issue I have already selected, but that doesn't help me find an article if I don't already know which issue it is from. Does anyone know if it is still possible to do a search on the entire library of past issues?