Pricey, but impressive.

As for disappearing formats - you can still read from a 3.5" floppy, as well as a CD that was introduced in the late 80's. One step further, you can STILL buy record players, if you didn't hold on to the one you had.

/Mitch

I wonder how hard it would be to convert this to show on a Kindle? I have most all the mags from #5 through 1963, and really enjoy reading them, but they do take a lot of space!

Steve

Actually, no. Magnetic media, by comparison with CDs and non-moving memory, is amazingly fragile. Ever tried to salvage a flooded cassette? Or rebuild a damaged VHS or VHS-C cassette?

I was brought in to one museum project when their inventory data--as I recall, it wasn't even a database or spreadsheet, just a couple WordPerfect documents--was all stored on a single floppy that got corrupted--chipped, flaked, whatever. Nope, they didn't have back-ups. I had to do an amazingly primitive drive/disk rescue to pull most of the usable data off the floppy and rebuild their inventory to a usable and more up-to-date format. It took months of spare-time work. And every couple months, I go in and back up their current version to their XHD and my own hard drive, just in case.

I think I'll keep my collection of TRAINS that begins with the Nov. 1940 issue, same as me. Unless of course someone wants to wave serious money at me. Digital storage has its virtues, but I still like being able to take some 1940s issue and read it at my leisure, unencumbered by any requirements for 21st century technology.

Branford Electric Rwy. Ass'n., operator of the Shore Line Trolley Museum, has discovered that their Gift Shop can sell at a discount back issues of Trains, Railfan, Railroad, Model Railroader, Railroad Model Craftsman, Railway Age, Progressive Railroading, Railway Track & Structures, International Railway Journal, Tramway Review, Traction & Models, Official Guide of the Railways, Official Railway Equipment Register, etc. Except for the last 2, the purchasers of recent issues are more likely to be mothers buying train pictures for their toddlers. Glossy paper sells better than older non coated "pulp" issues. Trolley Talk doesn't sell too well, it may be too flimsy and not in color.

I think this is great; I hope they include all ads, not just selected ones.

On the other hand I am very disappointed in Kalmbach for shutting down their hobby magazine index:

The advancement in Internet browser technology has created an insurmountable problem for the Model Train Index, which has been a fixture on Trains.com for many years.

The information in the Model Train Index and its integrated software originally were written in MS-DOS language 20 years ago by a train hobbyist on his PC as a personal project. It was not designed for the Internet and the software is unique to the index.

Kalmbach Publishing Co. purchased the index and its software many years ago. We created a website interface for the index and made the index a featured part of the Trains.com website.

Today, the progression of technologies on the Internet and the antiquated software of the Model Train Index have intersected to the point that we can no longer offer the index to our website visitors because we can no longer keep the index free of viruses or other even more significant Internet security risks.

The index software cannot be rewritten to update its security level, nor is there any method of transferring the index text information to a more modern software platform since the design of the index software and the index text information are integral to each other.

Because of these issues, we have reluctantly removed the index from Trains.com.

I find that very strange. I think if you can read the data you can design a conversion routine to move it to a new DB platform. But even if you don't and kept the old DOS system running I'm not sure how a database which is read-only to users could be used to spread viruses. But then again I fully admit I may not know what I'm talking about. But it's a shame; that much is certain. I hope it will return some day.

Steve
(BSCS)

Complete collections of Trains are like ones of National Geographic - too nice to throw away, but lots of people have them and they aren't that valuable on the collectables market.

Lots of good points all around about storage mediums and problems. Hopefully the solution lies in a strategy of diversification of collections and methods of preservation. At least all knowledge about railroads and preservation is not in one place, subject to one mass disaster - like the destroyed ancient library at Alexandria, Egypt.

Preservation of media of various kinds is going to be a huge issue. Already the Library of Congress is collecting every obsolete media playback device they can lay their hands on - Beta and U-Matic tape decks, early computer storage systems, etc. You name it, if they can find a device they can get working or use for parts, they will take it.

If you personally, or your organization, has a complete file of any of these magazines in good condition, plan on holding onto them, or seeing that they end up someplace they will be cared for and appreciated. We're going to lose a lot of them in the next Century through fire, flood and other natural and man-made accidents, so we'll need a fairly large pool of them to start with.

Probably the software has no absolute "read only" setting, and Kalmbach thinks that you must use that software, even to read. Hardware solutions to prevent writing were available back in the DOS age, but that's different from today's high speed virtual and cloud storage.

I note that Kalmbach had stopped updating the database with material from new issues a year or more ago, and I suspect that the decision was made not to spend any more money maintaining this service. I suspect that the security issue is simply a cover story; an excuse to drop the feature. There was some pressure for Kalmbach to donate the database to some other organization that would keep it available, and there was some talk a month ago of Kalmbach donating both the database and search application to the National Model Railroad Association. I haven't heard anything since, but letters to Kalmbach encouraging that might make it happen.

The user is interacting with the DOS system via a web front end. Surely it's read-only to the user unless there's some sort of secret commands that can be put into the search field to change data and even so there's no reason those cannot be blocked from ever reaching the DOS app. I agree they were making excuses. I do hope it's donated and that it's left intact, not with some agreement requiring the new owner to excise the Kalmbach data.

Steve