Some OGR Forum History Questions

1. When (date) was the OGR forum launched?
   I don't have an exact date, but I think it was some time around 2000.
   
   
2. What was the initial hardware / software used?
   Initially the forum ran on a small Cobalt RAQ server. The software I used was something called PHP BB, a PHP based Bulletin Board app. It is still available today.
   
   
3. Any statistics on the forum's size or growth over the first year would be of interest.
   I can't specific cite member growth numbers, but I can tell you that the little Cobalt RAQ server was overwhelmed within the first year. After a few months of operation I began to notice that the performance of the forum was slowing down. I logged into the admin section of the server to look at some of the performance numbers. The CPU (the Central Processing Unit) was running at 100% almost all the time, and the server was being hit with forum page requests every few seconds!
   
   At the time, PHP BB offered hosting services on their servers. So we paid the extra money to move the forum to their servers, which solved the performance problems.
   
   
4. When was the first OGR Forum meeting in the York Grandstand?  (I recall the forum membership being small enough for each of us to introduce ourselves.)
   This one I can't answer. Someone who was there may be able to nail down this one.

Thank you, Rich!

I recall those days happily (although not with complete clarity).  You created a great, powerful, and beneficial tool for all 3-railers with this forum!

George

Some of the first forums I ever joined used phpbb. I remember seeing it at the bottom of the screen.

I'm glad I joined the forum! I'm only disappointed that I didn't join sooner!

I was one of the original Forum members. My recollection was joining in August of 2000. I honestly don't remember my original Forum "handle", but using a clever pseudonym was all the rage in those days.

I seem to recall that the Forum also displayed a member number by your name  which corresponded to the order in which you joined.

One of the pivotal events took place in 2005 when there was a server change and everyone had to re-register. Sadly we all lost the all important tag line..."member since  (insert joining month) 2000, thus designating an original or charter member. It was important to many of us. A real source of pride and bragging rights but I guess it couldn't be fixed.

We have many of the original folks still here. I really miss the "elders" that have passed through the veil. I'm sure I'll have my memory jogged by the other's reminisces and look forward to seeing those posts.

This is an enjoyable and useful thread. @G3750 thank you for starting it

John

@Rich Melvin posted:

1. When (date) was the OGR forum launched?
   I don't have an exact date, but I think it was some time around 2000.
   

I think it was June or July of 2000. I lurked for several months before joining in December 2000.

I joined the summer/ fall of 2000. In early 2001 I asked to change my forum name and at the time the only way was the delete me and I rejoined.

Oh no not the elders.   Some folks thought too highly of themselves and coined the term “Forum Elders”.  I pretty much laugh every time I hear that now.

@John Meyncke posted:

...One of the pivotal events took place in 2005 when there was a server change and everyone had to re-register...We have many of the original folks still here. I really miss the "elders" that have passed through the veil. I'm sure I'll have my memory jogged by the other's reminisces and look forward to seeing those posts.

We have had to change servers and platforms several times during the evolution of this forum. As we added members, we steadily outgrew the servers and the platforms we were using.

The move in 2005 was when we moved away from the PHP BB software and went to the Eve platform. We had outgrown the capabilities of PHP BB app, and the forum performance was suffering for it. Eve offered much more robust servers and more features. Because the PHP BB app was so different from Eve, there was no way to migrate members and posts from PHP BB over to Eve. Believe me, I tried, but it just wasn't possible. We successfully used Eve for many years before we outgrew it's capabilities too!

After several  years with Eve, the same company that built and hosted Eve (Social Strata) came out with a more robust app that they called Hoopla. Because it was within the same company, we were able to migrate all  forum members and all the Eve threads into Hoopla. Hoopla added features we didn't have in Eve (embedded video clips, for example). Hoopla then became Crowdstack, and that's what we are using today.

We have grown from that little Cobalt RAQ server that served a couple of thousand pages per month, to having our own, high-powered, dedicated server at a major data center in Seattle that served almost 10 million pages last month! During the fall and winter months, we regularly see over 12 million page views per month here. The recent maintenance window we had back on June 24 was to move us to an even bigger server, with more disc space and RAM.

I, too, miss many of the "elders" as Bob Coniglio named our early members. Bob was a key figure in the early development of the OGR Forum. For several years when we were on Eve, Bob posted new threads here on a daily basis, and they were good threads, from a very fertile mind. Bob used to email me every once in a while in recent years, however I haven't heard from Bob for many months now.

Good thread!

I suppose you can laugh if you want to Marty. I was unaware of a derogatory connotation to the term "elders". I was trying to pay homage to folks like Bob C. whom I think you would agree did not think too highly of himself and was/is an all around good guy...

John

Thank you George for the question.  Thank you Rich for all the work you have done the last 21 years to make the forum available to us!  I first learned of the forum in June 2012 and joined the same day.  While I wish I knew of the forum and magazine sooner, but I’m glad I was better late than never!!

George......here's a picture of the 1st Forum meeting.....Fall 2000? I'm in the back with my son, Charles.....he was born in August 92....8 years old looks about right.....

....there's Allan in the 2nd row with a big smile....maybe he can pinpoint it.....

Peter

Thanks Peter!!

I lurked through the latter part of 2000 and joined in January 2001.  I think the first OGR grandstand meeting I attended was April York 2001.  The group was a bit bigger than pictured, but we still went around and introduced ourselves.

George

@Putnam Division posted:

Hello Peter. I always enjoy your contributions to the forum. This is another great one. This group of folks put down the foundation of a conversation that is now now 12 million inquiries a month. Wow - do the math!  Awesome stuff.

I think that this forum started late in the spring of 2000.  I started lurking early on and finally registered in August,2000.

The forum was really free wheeling back then.  There some real characters that participated and sometimes discussions sort of took a turn!  Ha,ha.  But in the end every thing worked out.  There was a whole lot of info coming into the hobby then  and the OGR Forum was,as now,the best place to get it.

Unfortunately some of the most interesting members have been long gone.

Norm

Great photograph, Peter!  Our two daughters sandwich Charles in age; June '91 and May '93.

From humble beginnings…

I joined on October 31,2000. Whatever happened to Mrs. Eileen Cozzi? I really enjoyed her column and even got her autograph one time. I hope I got the name correct.

I was at York for the first meeting but I lost track of time and missed the meeting which is why I am not in the picture. I remember merging Myron Biggar and Barbara. They were such nice people. I hope they are doing well.

This image is from the "Eve" platform I mentioned above. Note that five of the posts on this front page were authored by Bob Coniglio.

@Norm posted:

...The forum was really free wheeling back then.  There some real characters that participated and sometimes discussions sort of took a turn...

Yes, there was a lot of trouble here at first. The old AOL boards that were popular back then were essentially un-moderated. Political discussions, personal attacks, threats, and name calling were commonplace there. Many who registered here in the early days thought they could bring that same kind of uncivilized behavior here. When we deleted posts and banned members because they refused to follow our rules and behave in a polite manner, it generated a lot of turmoil for a while.

Thankfully those days have passed. We now have a truly wonderful group of people here who are genuinely interested in talking about O Gauge trains and helping people.

Some of the "discussions" were so bad, you could not help but keep up with them. One got so heated that i stayed home from work to keep up with it.  I even got a e-mail threat  for making a comment on it.

Doug

Very interesting for us late comers to the Forum.

It looks like all of the subjects need to go through a spring cleaning.  Many posts are long out of date and if possible should be deleted.  This isn't meant to be negative but why keep so much stuff posted when it's no longer needed?

Joe

Fact is, half the stuff that was posted back in the day about elephants and such would be deleted today.  Back then with a smaller group, and then only a few that would stray so far off topic, it wasn't bad for the occasional elephant story.  Now with so many members, even if a small percentage would talk about elephants we'd have a herd.

BobC was famous for his "Trains for Kids" program.  I seem to remember that I turned in 3 kids and not once got a train.

OGR back in 2009 was at the Super Bowl.  Only 4 forum sponsors at the time.  I might even have one from 2002 at home.  Will have to check.  Back when I used to travel, OGR's forum was a welcome distraction from being away from home.

I started following the forum sometime in 2001.  I remember some heated discussions and decided not to join partially because of that.  I finally joined in early 2003 because I had a question about TMCC .  The one thing I remember about that topic was all the replies saying how they hated TMCC, even though some had never even seen it.  Basically, I got the feeling if you weren’t conventional go away.

I did get a good answer to my question, which helped me get started in command control.  Wish I could remember who posted it.

@Trinity River Bottoms Boomer posted:

...It looks like all of the subjects need to go through a spring cleaning.  Many posts are long out of date and if possible should be deleted.  This isn't meant to be negative but why keep so much stuff posted when it's no longer needed?

We used to prune (delete) inactive threads from the forum after a certain time. It was an automated process. However, in the process of deleting these old threads and the "SOLD" threads in the For Sale forum, we made a terrible error. There was a long-running thread about the Natty Boh Reefer that was very interesting. The OP was Paul Strickland (VaGolfer1950) and he had put a lot of effort into starting and maintaining the thread. This popular, long-running thread got deleted! The word "sold" had been added to the title, and the automated process of deleting the "SOLD" threads on the For Sale forum got this one! Paul has never forgiven me and I don't blame him. He has not posted here since December of 2019.

We don't have to pay extra for disc space because its very cheap. You can buy a 4 Terabyte drive at retail now for about $100. Just a few years ago that kind of disc space would have cost thousands of dollars. So, we no longer delete old threads, however we do close them after six months with no activity.

If you ever run across an old thread that you would like to see re-opened, report the thread to the moderators and ask that it be re-opened.

I was member number 72 here in the Fall of 2000 with my original handle, Conrail4Me. I was sixteen at the time, I turn 37 in September. I have spent over half my life on this forum.

The early days were indeed different. There were times when 100 replies to a thread were a big deal and topics could stay on the front page for weeks, not hours. There were topics such as the original Coffee Pot / Caboose thread, Hoenwald, and a myriad of other fun and whimsical topics which usually don't pop up these days or would not fit well with the current forum structure.  Something that I have always felt contributed to the growth of the forum was the speed at which the industry was moving in the early 2000s. At that time, the print magazines were still the only real source of hard news and it could take months for something to make it into print. This forum I believe contributed to speeding up the "news cycle" in the industry. I remember threads about the early DCS development and delivery, Lionel's dive into the deep end of the scale model pool (The Challenger and Acela come to mind), and much more.

I've spent countless hours here, and I'm grateful for ALL that OGR has done and continues to do to keep this forum alive and relevant. My sincere thanks to @Rich Melvin who has busted his tail more than a few times putting up with software issues, unruly forum members, and the great Lashup debate. In all seriousness, Rich has done A LOT to make the mechanics of this place function and he along with the rest of the OGR team deserve kudos.

The AOL boards were the Wild West, with a lot of know-it-alls, who were decidedly lacking in factual knowledge, but making up for it in sheer bluster. When the Forum started, a lot of AOLers migrated, but didn’t realize there was a Sheriff, who was big on law and order. Oops! See ya!

Quick AOL story - one of the regulars was a rodeo cowboy, who was drinking, and playing with his trains, the night before he was flying to compete on the rodeo circuit. He drank enough to fall asleep, and crawled off to bed. Flew out the next morning, and when he returned home 2 WEEKS later, he found his trains still running!

I started viewing the forums around 2005 or so, finally joining in 2008. The early days were a bit crazy to the point where I hesitated entering some conversations for fear of some snarky remarks.

Nice to see that 99% of today's conversations remain civilized!

Even now, I still learn something new everyday - thanks!

As I note in my Profile, I originally joined the Forum in 2001 and was around for 4-5 years but eventually went on "a sabbatical" for a few years.  I've been back full-time with no interruption since 2011.

I still recall well the early days and two categories of posts really stick in my mind. The first was what I would call the "TMCC versus DCS wars" as DCS was in testing then and would be released soon. The animus was real and got quite heated. The second topic was the York Meet. That, as we know, is still discussed in detail today.

Final verdict: The OGR Forum is THE place to be online for all things trains!

@Mark V. Spadaro posted:

The AOL boards were the Wild West, with a lot of know-it-alls, who were decidedly lacking in factual knowledge, but making up for it in sheer bluster. When the Forum started, a lot of AOLers migrated, but didn’t realize there was a Sheriff, who was big on law and order. Oops! See ya!

I think I came in from the TRainNet forum on CompuServe.  It was definitely tame there.  Gary Moreau even came on there occasionally and chatted.  I believe there are still a few of us here on OGR.  We used to do a "meet at the fry stand" at York.

I have to echo Derek's praise of the staff of OGR for keeping this the place to be. Also the membership. Nowhere is there a bigger knowledge base and a group of folks that are willing to help. 

Having lurked and then joining almost since the beginning, I can definitely say that I have a true appreciation for this forum's moderation.  It really was dicey at the beginning, with a number of former AOL members that could not play well in the sandbox.  The forum moderators took control and ensured that this place remains the best forum to talk about trains and train related issues.

The early years were so fun.  Smaller group, you knew everyone.  Lots of the originals have either moved  to the great layout in the sky or just moved on to other forums.  I joined in late 2000.

@Putnam Division posted:

....there's Allan in the 2nd row with a big smile....maybe he can pinpoint it.....

Peter

Ah, the good old days! I remember it well! It was, indeed, the Fall 2000 York Meet. . . seven years before I joined the magazine as Editor-in-Chief. I was among the very early forum members because I had already been very active with the original AOL forums that pretty much were THE place to be in the early days of social media , but do not recall the exact year or date.

@Putnam Division posted:

George......here's a picture of the 1st Forum meeting.....Fall 2000? I'm in the back with my son, Charles.....he was born in August 92....8 years old looks about right.....

....there's Allan in the 2nd row with a big smile....maybe he can pinpoint it.....

Peter

Yup, I'm in there. Back row on the left with the baseball cap. I'm not certain I lurked for any length of time before joining up, as my Y2K join date, and my appearance above, will attest. I may have jumped aboard as soon as it opened .

Pretty certain everything in my collection then is still with me now.

---PCJ

@Rich Melvin posted:

We don't have to pay extra for disc space because its very cheap. You can buy a 4 Terabyte drive at retail now for about $100. Just a few years ago that kind of disc space would have cost thousands of dollars. So, we no longer delete old threads, however we do close them after six months with no activity.

Definitely grateful for this. A fair number of old "What did you get at York?" threads have allowed me to pin down purchase dates for quite a few of the pieces in my collection I'm adding to my electronic inventory.

I wonder if any of the PhPBB forum posts exist in the Internet Archive?

---PCJ

Yes, thank you to Rich and your partners and your staff for providing this great place to discuss, learn and congregate. I have met many people from all over the country that I consider friends.... that I would never have met without this Forum.

Peter

The only downside has been that sometimes you will notice that someone hasn't posted in awhile and then you realize that they are probably no longer with us.

Yes, quite a few good members were called home over the last several years.

I'm still on top of the grass.  I believe I joined the forum in November 2000.

Dennis

I have been a Forum member since 2005, looking at some of the joined dates I feel like a rookie. The best Tread I remember was the Kline engine blowout thread when a company called Sun Manufacturing got a hold of Kline’s remaining K4 and Berkshire engines and was blowing them out $350 for a CC K4 and $450 for a CC Berkshire. The tread was like going to a prize fight went on for over 20 pages. I bought a #1361 K4, still have it, had it fixed once but runs great to today but now stays in a display case as I have two Legacy K4s to run now.

JohnB

OK so I found this picture from when OGR Magazine was at Super Bowl 36 February 2002...Unfortunately it looks like I was doing an intercom save so the forum wasn't up.

And another from Super Bowl 43.

Love it Marty!

I never worked an event as big as a Super Bowl when I worked for an ABC affiliate, but those surroundings do look a bit familiar. Well...at least the patch panel and the monitor do. There were no computers back in my days doing remotes.