Alan, That is great news!  I was notified by email a couple days ago to log into the new portal, and it works slick.  I wasn't aware that all 50 years of OGR are available until I read your notice.  I'm especially interested since I only found OGR in 2012!  

Many thanks to you and all who made this possible!!

WOW, cool!  That's great!  Nice little plus to the subscription!

Absolutely fabulous! This makes it easier for me to look up the old issues....I don't have to "fire up" the DVD player anymore!

Thank you so much!

Peter

That is remarkable to see those issues as you scroll down the page. Great work!

This sounds great Alan. The info in past issues is always relevant as many of us run vintage trains. The layout stories, pictures and building techniques are too.

My collection of hard copy OGR mags starts from August 1974 when it was OSR (O Scale Railroading). I've been a subscriber since February 1990.

Needless to say, I really enjoy OGR, Thanks to everyone for making it what it is.

Well finally, an offer too good to refuse... I have now become officially... a digital OGR subscriber!

John

Alan: Does this mean I can git rid o f the 4 drawer file cabinet full of O Gauge Railroading Magazines? Even more great reasons (50 Years worth)to stay a digital subscriber!

Ala, thank you! I know I'll use the benefit. There have been tantalizing mentions on the Forum wrt old issues that we will now be able to research.

Cool link and it works. I am looking for a combo deal on the hard copy of the magazine and the digital plan. I still have two more issues coming.

I do not want to give up the hard copy.

Suggestion: I would be interested in a combo package…….

Gary

Worth way more than the $$ spent on subscription. I'll be looking through them all.

Thanks indeed.

Gary (and others!) when you go to your RENEW page, just scroll down and you'll see where you can add a Digital Subscription.

You guys rock!

This is fantastic!  Fans of Frank Ellison and his Delta Lines will want Runs 108 and 109 to start with, especially if they don't already have  print copies of these issues.  Very interesting to read all the material and see where the hobby was at different times.

Thank you so much!  

That's awesome, thank you!

That really is fantastic!  

Great additions to the benefit of a subscription.  Thank you!

What a great time to be a Digital Subscriber!  More reason I am happy I renew every time!  Thanks for this!

I just went back re-reviewed Run 120......Cover picture: Marty Fitzhenry's Layout.........a great article with great pictures, including a great picture of Marty in his late 40s.

Peter

Peter, I just logged in and found Marty's article.  His layout was great looking almost 30 years ago!  I will definitely read it.  Thank you for the tip, and thank you again OGR management and staff for making this available to us late comers!  

Outstanding!!!!👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

This is great! I subscribed tonight.

Putnam Division posted:

I just went back re-reviewed Run 120......Cover picture: Marty Fitzhenry's Layout.........a great article with great pictures, including a great picture of Marty in his late 40s.

This is part of the unique enjoyment value to be found in those old issues. Besides Marty, there are other contemporary modelers that were in the magazine many years ago. See if you can find them!

And of course the old ads are fascinating. too. Many of those ads are from companies that were big names 15-20 years ago, but are no longer in business. See how many of them you can find, too!

Rich Melvin posted:

Putnam Division posted:

I just went back re-reviewed Run 120......Cover picture: Marty Fitzhenry's Layout.........a great article with great pictures, including a great picture of Marty in his late 40s.

This is part of the unique enjoyment value to be found in those old issues. Besides Marty, there are other contemporary modelers that were in the magazine many years ago. See if you can find them!

And of course the old ads are fascinating. too. Many of those ads are from companies that were big names 15-20 years ago, but are no longer in business. See how many of them you can find, too!

Those are two great observations and two great challenges, Rich!  I'll be looking!!

Aside from the Lionel starter set I got when I was a kid, I joined the hobby circa 1994.  What's fascinating to me is, based on these back issues in the digital library, I now realize how fortunate I was to join at that time.  OGRR magazine was clearly getting more colorful and the contents show a fast evolving, modernized hobby at that time.  Arttista featured its first ad of its awesome little detailed people that I discovered a few years later.  As Rich Melvin says, we can look back at those old companies.  My first hobby shop was Owen Upp in Milwaukee, featured in ads of that period.  The owner is long gone now.  But it was a wonderful experience stopping at his shop.  He was a cranky old guy who probably got tired of asking dumb questions from newbies like me.  But, as he discovered my seriousness, he took me under his wing, accepted me because he saw that I appreciated that his shop offered so many dreams... very cool to look back.

Mike

Always enjoyed OGR Mag for probably the last 25 years, even had pictures and an article printed in them, but this digital is so much better, don't have dig through those boxes anymore.

Thanks OGR for a great product

Thank you great seeing friends in articles like Chester Holley's Collection again and Marty Fitzhenry's awesome layout and other friends I would see at York who are no longer with us. 

Alan:

You have finally convinced me to buy a two-year digital subscription with access to all 50 years of OGR. Now that this massive resource of information is available, is there an alphabetical index of articles encompassing the entire 50 years? If not, there should be.

Ok I have a question. How do I get back out of a magazine once I’m in it? 

This is a great magazine, and 50 years worth!  It will take me a while to get thru all that. Excited to see how things have changed over that span of time, all in one place. Thx.

Solved. 

The reply by Gene H. regarding Chester Holley brings back fond memories.  I met Chester in 1962.  The father of a buddy of mine who, like me, also threw The Tampa Times, the former Tampa Florida evening newspaper, introduced me to Chester.  Mr. Collins had a neat compact HO layout in a small building he had built in his backyard.  He also had a shelf in it where he displayed some O gauge trains that he had purchased from Chester as well.

Chester "The Most" Holley was a Southern Gentleman if there ever was one.  He and wife, Margo, were also instimental in organizing the Southern Division of the TCA.  Chester had a fantastic collection of tinplate trains displayed in his house.  Trains that couldn't be displayed due to lack of space were stored in the attached garage.

During summer vacation from high school in 1963, Chester permitted my late best friend, Robert Taff, and me to man the shop while he took Margo to a York TCA meet.  Their daughter, Diane, would spend some time with us chatting as well as serving hand made sandwiches and cold iced tea for lunch.  When Chester and Margo returned from their trip, Robert and I retuned to railfanning the Tampa area in his dad's 1955 Pontiac.  We always ended up Saturday afternoon to spend time with the family in the shop.  

I am thankful that I not only met the Holley family but became close friends with them as well.  Sadly, Margo died of cancer, Chester, a few years later as a result of a bad fall down the steps in his house.  Even Diane is no longer with us.  She and I attended T.R. Robinson High School together during our senior year.  After graduating in 1964, I joined the U.S. Army Transportation Corps.  After MOS at Ft. Eustus, Virginia, I was stationed here in Germany where I got to witness first hand, all the steam on the Deutsche Bundesbahn a young man had missed for the most part while growing up in Texas on my grandfater's small farm, north of Dallas in Farmers Branch.

Item: I do remember the last of Katy and Cotton Belt steam in the Big D area, plus of course, Dallas Union Terminal 0-6-0, which wasn't retired until the early 1960's.

The large steel prefab building still stands in Tampa on South Himes albeit is no longer a train shop.  The collection has been sold to collectors worldwide for the most part, however, Chester Holley's memory still lives in the hearts of many model railroaders and in the three part series that was featured in O Gauge Railroading Magazine.

RIP Chester.  We miss you!

Joe Toth

OGR CEO-PUBLISHER posted:

Visit the new OGR Subscription Portal
and Private Reading Room

With an OGR DIGITAL Subscription, you’ll find ALL OUR BACK ISSUES there,
in your own private reading room.

Over 300 issues of OGR going back more than 50 years
are all available for reading and downloading with a DIGITAL Subscription.

LOG IN HERE to visit the new OGR Subscription Portal.

Guys and Gals....OGR is proud to announce a new way for digital subscribers to read and access our magazine.  No more email and password logins and no more apps to download that sometimes don't play nice with web browsers.  Now it is much more simple and the best news is......ALL 50 years of O Gauge Railroading Magazine is available!!!!  We invite you to become a digital subscriber now...even if you are a print person the digital magazine has expanded coverage of what we could not include in the print magazine....plus you now have access to ALL of our past issue that were published!

Hi Alan. Thanks for this very cool plus to our subscription. It's a wonderful walk down memory lane.

Glad you all like this great 50th anniversary plus for our digital subscribers!  Now....we need more folks to subscribe!!  If you are a member of this forum and don't have a subscription...print or digital...we need your support!  50 years worth of magazines in a digital format represent over 300 issues...at only 10 cents an issue!  Come on....you spend more than that on ONE piece of rolling stock!! 

Peter, thanks to the reference to Run 120.  I'd never seen Marty's layout.  Only met him after I'd stopped commuting from VA to Boston.

This library is great.

Is there any way to find a particular article I recall from the last century?

OGR CEO-PUBLISHER posted:

Glad you all like this great 50th anniversary plus for our digital subscribers!  Now....we need more folks to subscribe!!  If you are a member of this forum and don't have a subscription...print or digital...we need your support!  50 years worth of magazines in a digital format represent over 300 issues...at only 10 cents an issue!  Come on....you spend more than that on ONE piece of rolling stock!! 

Agreed.  The magazine has evolved over the years and truly gets better every year!

The  new portal with 50 years worth of our past issues is absolutely GREAT!

When I do research for upcoming Collector's Gallery articles or other features I am doing...it is so much easier to find things or just merely to enjoy vintage OGR articles. And now that I am finally doing my own layout, after doing everybody else's plus club layouts for 25 years, the articles on layouts and scenery have become priceless to me.

Now that "S Gauge Insights" is a digital feature of OGR, that adds even more value to a digital subscription. Let's face it, a lot of us O gaugers are also closet S gaugers too, and as "S Gauge Insights" evolves and grows it will be more and more a place to get S gauge news and views.

Digital subscriptions will help to sustain O Gauge Railroading and the Forum as we head deeper into the 21st Century and the technical and operational delights ahead of us. Trains will be easier to run and do even more things and I want to be there to chronicle the progress.  You can help us do it by getting a digital subscription.  It is worth it!

Ed Boyle

PGentieu posted:

This is fantastic!  Fans of Frank Ellison and his Delta Lines will want Runs 108 and 109 to start with, especially if they don't already have  print copies of these issues.  Very interesting to read all the material and see where the hobby was at different times.

Runs 125 and 126 also have great articles on the Delta Lines.  Reviewing everything that has been published from all sources, I would put runs 108 and 125 at the top of the list for anybody seeking a definitive history of the Delta Lines: Run 108 covers the Delta Lines during its existence and Dr. Sam Sach's article, "Delta Lines: The Final Chapter" in Run 125 is the authoritative source on the ultimate fate of the Delta Lines.

3/19/20 - To make this complete, there is also the video "Frank Miller's Delta Lines" on the Video Digital Library page.  This includes video of an interview with William Harry, one of the original Delta Lines' crew who took advantage of the lighting a TV station had set up to take the only known color slides of the Delta Lines.  This is also the only video I have seen of William Harry.   

All, I haven't been on in awhile due to work and this is great!  I'm like a kid in a candy shop, though a big kid.  LOL  Thanks to everyone who made this happen.

Vr...

BAMBAM

BAMBAMMorris posted:

All, I haven't been on in awhile due to work and this is great!  I'm like a kid in a candy shop, though a big kid.  LOL  Thanks to everyone who made this happen.

Vr...

BAMBAM

You are quite welcome!!

WOW!!  I have just recently purchased a digital subscription and have been reading the back issues from the beginning.  Quite the history lesson!    I am glad you include these and it really adds value to your subscription offering.  Thanks again.

Rolland

@PGentieu posted:

Runs 125 and 126 also have great articles on the Delta Lines.  Reviewing everything that has been published from all sources, I would put runs 108 and 125 at the top of the list for anybody seeking a definitive history of the Delta Lines: Run 108 covers the Delta Lines during its existence and Dr. Sam Sach's article, "Delta Lines: The Final Chapter" in Run 125 is the authoritative source on the ultimate fate of the Delta Lines.

3/19/20 - To make this complete, there is also the video "Frank Miller's Delta Lines" on the Video Digital Library page.  This includes video of an interview with William Harry, one of the original Delta Lines' crew who took advantage of the lighting a TV station had set up to take the only known color slides of the Delta Lines.  This is also the only video I have seen of William Harry.   

For Frank Ellison and Delta Lines enthusiasts, another issue of note is Run 141 from June of 1995, with the article, "The Model Builder, Lionel's O Gauge Magazine" by Jeff and Janet Madden.  Frank Ellison's name appears 26 times and "Delta Lines" appears 13 times.  A few quotes: "Many Lionel archivists, paper collectors, and advertising freaks will have a field day poring over over these issues in search of historical interest material.  Fans of Frank Ellison's Delta Lines will also be in seventh heaven."    "To me, the outstanding constant throughout Model Builder's existence was Frank Ellison."  "The complete Model Builder collection becomes a gold mine for Ellison and Delta Lines enthusiasts."  "Even today's O gauge operators and collectors would enjoy reviewing Ellison's copious articles in Model Builder, as most are as germane to the hobby today as they were then."  "When my MB collection was finally complete, I determined that Frank Ellison was the glue that had held the magazine together over the years."   

@Randy Harrison posted:

...is there an alphabetical index of articles encompassing the entire 50 years? If not, there should be.

THERE IS!

CLICK HERE to see the All-Time O Gauge Railroading Magazine Index, from Run 1 in June of 1969 to the current issue. Type anything you want into the search window that comes up and you will be amazed at what you find! If you discover an issue you would like to have, they are all available, either in hard copy or a digital download. Just click on "BUY."

As an example, here's the search for "Delta Lines."

This index is updated with new information every time we publish a new issue.

I had forgotten about this thread.  Thank you PGentieu for the information on Frank Ellison in Model Builder.  

Rich, thank you for the information on the search feature on the All Time OGR Index.  I need to make use of it.

@Rich Melvin posted:

THERE IS!

CLICK HERE to see the All-Time O Gauge Railroading Magazine Index, from Run 1 in June of 1969 to the current issue. Type anything you want into the search window that comes up and you will be amazed at what you find! If you discover an issue you would like to have, they are all available, either in hard copy or a digital download. Just click on "BUY."

As an example, here's the search for "Delta Lines."

This index is updated with new information every time we publish a new issue.

BRAVO, Rich!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is GREAT!!!!! Thank you for remembering my humble suggestion. I trust that this will be continually updated?

I don't want to seem picky, well maybe I do.  Until all of us old people over 60 die and stop buying hard copies I am not sure the Magazine can survive with digital only subscriptions.  I may be wrong but I am pretty sure the net revenue from hard copies and the adv. revenue it generates is still positive.

The other option is that the net revenue from hard copies is already negative and through the addition of digital only perks you are trying to break the old age bad habit of buying hard copies.  If that is true let us know and we will consider evolving.

Bill, the missing piece in your hypothesis is the high cost of printing the magazine and the postage to mail it. They are huge line items in the budget! With a digital subscription, there are no printing or postage costs associated with it. The digital subscription is a fixed cost item.

The gross revenue from print subscriptions is still much higher than digital subs because there are more subscribers to the print than there are for the digital. That is slowly changing as we see the print number remaining essentially flat, while the digital number is growing.

We would prefer that new subscribers sign up for a digital subscription, both because it's better for OGR, and because a Digital Subscription opens up a lot more perks for you in the form of back issue access and the OGR videos hosted here on the forum.

I used to hate digital version of any publication.  Now it is my preference for all but newspapers, so that I don't have a stack of old magazines taking up space in the house.

@Randy Harrison posted:

BRAVO, Rich!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is GREAT!!!!! Thank you for remembering my humble suggestion. I trust that this will be continually updated?

Th index is updated every time we publish a new issue.

Rich, I really do understand the issue.  I used to own Video Stores (9).  Life was great right up to the time it was not.  The question, especially for a small business, is do you want to be the last guy making an excellent Buggy Whip.

Us old guys pretty much do the same thing over and over.  Trying new things does not come that easy.  I am confident that when the lines on the chart begin to cross you will tell us and then we all will go this new fangled digital route.  Me, I have just never met a pixel that I trusted.

@Bill DeBrooke posted:

...I am confident that when the lines on the chart begin to cross you will tell us and then we all will go this new fangled digital route.  Me, I have just never met a pixel that I trusted.

I literally laughed out loud when I read, "I have just never met a pixel that I trusted."

My advice would be - DON'T FEAR THE PIXEL! They're very tiny and can't hurt you.