Anyone know what is up with this website? It is down for several days.

There is no record in the ICANN database for rrpicturesarchive.net. If there existed a previous registration for the domain, then this usually means that the domain has been expired for a time period longer than the redemption period, and has been removed.

Additionally, the facebook page for this domain: https://www.facebook.com/rrpicturearchives/

has not been updated since December of 2020, and the phone number that was listed was 867-5309 (from a song lyric).

That's not good, not just for photos but as a database of roster information it is my go-to.

Note those are two different (partial) domain names. One has an "s" in the middle, and the other does not.

There IS an ICANN record for "rrpicturearchives.net" that shows up here (at this time):
https://www.whois.com/whois/rrpicturearchives.net

Note the expiration date of May 2023. Screenshot:

Excellent. I simply used the Unix whois utility to query the database. And got nothing. I'll know better the next time.

I need to apologize even further, I got the domain wrong on top of everything else. I guess old age has scrambled my faculties more than I thought.

I Can't do much but here is the latest capture on the wayback machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/202110252038 ... fault.aspx

I can only pray that this website will come back online at least enough time for it to be archived thoroughly. The copious amounts of information the website contains is almost overwhelming and would be a big loss to information of locomotives, rolling stock, and locations on the Internet. I guess the lesson from this is don't put all your eggs in one basket in terms of info.

RRPA has gone on and off several times over the last few years.

I wish they would put up a donation drive to get a secure server with some long term planning and no advertising. I know they would have no issue raising the money.

Keep in mind that the domain name registration and website hosting are two different things though both are required to have a functioning website. Their domain name ownership hasn’t expired so a website will usually go offline for two other reasons: 1. Technical glitch, or 2. Cancelled or unpaid hosting. Let’s hope it’s a technical glitch.

This seems to happen at least once annually.
Also, the site goes offline daily at around midnight for about an hour.

I am more than willing to chip in some funds to keep this site going and/or make it run smoother. It is an excellent tool for tracing locomotive heritage along with organizing and archiving photos.

I have used this site daily 365 for years and have never seen it off line for more than part of one day.

Anyone know how to contact the owner or server?

It has gone off before for maybe a week in the last few years (I am also an active user of the site, since 2014). Either way this has been one of the longest outages I have personally seen. I hope this just a technical issue and that Mr. Huemmer is doing well!

Contact:
Tim Huemmer
info@rrpicturearchives.net

Tim replied to me and said it is a firewall problem failure and new device due to arrive tomorrow. Hopes to be back on line then.

Back Online.

Tim advises temp. repair made, hopefully it will hold up, still waiting for new part.