Thor Trains

Definitely a useful site. I'm sure it has helped many modelers come up with ideas.

It really is a fun site. I used to visit it often. Not so much these days but I wouldn’t want it to go away.

Well worth keeping out there.

PD

@Dennis-LaRock

Dennis:

I was not aware of your web site until just now. It looks to be a source that I will visit now and in the future.

Hi Randy,

It's not my website...  The website author and mega train enthusiast was Thor Sheil.  Thor, sadly, left us in '18... but, is now the engineer on all the Marx Steamers (NOT GG1s) in heaven.  I just keep the memory alive.

Thor was a member of my Jersey club and a good friend to me and all the other members.

He would be running a Marx steamer, not a boring electric.

@CSXJOE posted:

He would be running a Marx steamer, not a boring electric.

CORRECTED ABOVE!!@!!

Dennis,

Thor Shiel aka Tom Shiel was a member of our club for many years. He would run conventional trains at a 1,000 mph and always said that a cab-1 or TMCC was junk. Thor was a good friend of mine at the club and I always gave him a ride home at night. For some reason, he did not drive and took the bus to the club and I usually gave him a ride home.
A real good guy!
I did get your email to the club and have to see if any members want to take up your offer. The contact us button is set with my email that goes directly to the club president.

i enjoyed the site over the years

I'm amazed it's been round 20+ years - since the 'dawn' of the internet. That site never gets old. Thor was quite the character.

Dennis......I refer newcomers just starting out to the site.

It is a valuable resource. Does the hosting cost much? How long does a hosting cycle last?

Peter

Peter,

It's cheap to keep it going... around 30+/- bucks a year and there isn't any maintenance to speak of.  My concern is that I get hit by a truck.  When I put the site back up I had to get a new url extension thortrains.us... because the original thortrains.net had lapsed and was scooped up by some southeast Asian entity.  I do not mind paying for it... but, I would really like to have someone or some entity  listed with (or, without) me as the 'owner/co-owner' of the url so that it never expires.

Also, is Dale Manquen's site still up???  I can't find it.  I have a copy (some where) of his website as well.

@Dennis-LaRock posted:

Also, is Dale Manquen's site still up???  I can't find it.  I have a copy (some where) of his website as well.

Dale’s site appears to be down.

Thanks, @Dennis-LaRock, for keeping Thor’s site up! It is a wonderful resource.

My vote is to keep Thor's website alive. When I got back into the hobby (late '80s / early '90s), I referred to it quite often, sometimes for information, and sometimes for the pure pleasure of reading it.

I also liked his Army Men website. Don't know what became of that one.

Wow, that's a real Memory Lane item. When I got back into O gauge (the first time), I started searching for small layout ideas and I think Thor Trains was the first site I visited. Spent an hour or so there just cruising around. Re-visited it now and then but had completely forgotten about it.

By all means, keep it going and thanks.

@jay jay posted:

I also liked his Army Men website. Don't know what became of that one.

http://www.thortrains.us/toysoldierart/index.html

@DaveP posted:

I'm amazed it's been round 20+ years - since the 'dawn' of the internet. That site never gets old. Thor was quite the character.

Time is flying fast.  The explosion of the internet, the initial mass-migration to it that really launched it to stardom, occurred in the summer and fall of 1994.

Next year it'll be 30 years.  Are we getting old or what?

Good work Dennis.  We have to find more help to keep these old sites alive.

Mike

Dennis

Thank you for starting the Thor site back up.  I have used both the Thor and Dale sites and found them helpful, especially when working on track plans.  They both are well worth keeping up for future and old timer O gauge fans.

Charlie

The variety of track plans is impressive and indicative of someone who really loved the hobby.  Please keep this site operative.  My grandson is interested in trains and track plans.  Thor site is user friendly.

Would it make sense that OGR host these legacy sites for historical benefit?  I would gladly pay an annual access fee for the Thor site and the Legacy K-Line site.  Perhaps just another benefit for digital subscribers.

Just a thought

This was Thor's pride and joy when it came out. He had it flying around the club layout.

https://ogrforum.com/...0thor%2520435.00.jpg

That's great of you to keep it going, thanks. I've never seen it before last night. I am looking forward to digging around more on the site.

Dennis -

Do it!

- Mike

It would be cool to keep it up. It has tons of useful information (I was digging the holiday layouts section, gave me some ideas for next year!) and who doesn't love the old school look of the website? Good stuff!

Is it archived in the Wayback Machine?

Please keep it.

A very useful resource over the years, especially for relative newbies to the hobby.

Commendable that you will continue to keep this resource alive.  I'm sure that someone will step up and be listed as a contact along with you.  Personally, I think that having one of the established clubs as the co-owner is best due to having safety in numbers - each of us is ephemeral.

I checked the internet archive Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) - thortrains.us has been captured several times, but thortrains.net has been "excluded" (their word).

Please post regarding the outcome.

I just looked at this website for the 1st time and IMO it is very informative, especially for model railroad beginners. Arnold

@NJCJOE posted:

http://www.thortrains.us/toysoldierart/index.html

Cool, Joe! Thank you!

@BillYo414 posted:

Is it archived in the Wayback Machine?

Only part of it is, if we all worked on it together, we could get all links/images on the website saved

@Oscale_Trains_Lover_ we can do that? I didn't know that! I thought it was like something they just did themselves. I didn't know it was like a community effort. What's involved in us doing it?

@BillYo414 posted:

@Oscale_Trains_Lover_ we can do that? I didn't know that! I thought it was like something they just did themselves. I didn't know it was like a community effort. What's involved in us doing it?

Yes we can!

If you go to https://archive.org/web and in the bottom right corner there is a "save page now". You simply post the url into the box, click "save page", and then click "save page" again on the new screen. Sit back and let it do its thing, time to complete all depends upon the size of the website. I just did it so there should show a capture from today.

If you navigate around the Thor Trains website via the wayback machine and click on all of the links, some will populate others will not (you need to click on every single link to check, it's very time consuming). Those that do not: rinse and repeat the above.

My buddies and I have done this to a few non-train websites that had great tips for model painting and miniature gaming which are now the way of the dodo...

Best,
Bryce

Well that is nifty @Oscale_Trains_Lover_. I didn't know you could do that! I will likely work my way through the website when I have free time. A little at a time will get this job done.

I still dig the live website for the nostalgia factor and hope it can stay up.

@Dennis-LaRock posted:

The site expires next month... should I extend the hosting services ...i.e., is it still a useful resource for the ORG community?

Are we SOL now? The site is down.

I just tried the site and it is still down. Is it down for good?

Sorry for the delayed reaction on my end but I'm buried in 'projects' at the moment.  The site is in the process of being moved... I'll let you all know when it's back up (hopefully, pretty soon).

It is well worth preserving, if possible. Excellent info there, especially for newbies.