Q&A Board Discontinued

Since 2003, Railroadiana Online has maintained a Question and Answer Board for collectors to share information. As one of our crew said, this was "crowd sourced", meaning that collectors contributed what information they had, and everyone could learn together. Since we don't require membership to use this website (no login or authorization needed), the board was basically open to the world. The idea was that we were far enough off the beaten track that no bad actors would bother us. For years, this idea seemed to work.

However, in recent years, we've experienced a number of behind-the-scenes attacks on our Question and Answer Board. These could be managed with a little cleanup and minimal damage, but there was a sense that we were on the radar screen of some bad actor(s). In October, 2026 we were attacked in such a way that the database for the board was damaged more severely than before. Whoever did this is unknown. There are small-minded types out there who try to destroy things rather than build things, and we finally became a victim of that mentality. The web has evolved (deteriorated?) to the point where the model of wide-open participation without authentication is obsolete and maybe even naive, so this may have been inevitable. There is the possibility that AI played a role in designing the attack, but we can't confirm that either.

At any rate, we've reluctantly decided to discontinue the Q&A Board. Besides the attacks, the board's email address now seems to be on every junk mail list in the world, so the amount of spam mail has become overwhelming. At some point we may look into creating a PDF of the questions and answers so that all the information won't be lost. This will require some database re-construction though so it won't be real soon. To all of those who participated in this board, we extend a hearty "thanks"!

Current plans are to continue the rest of the Railroadiana Online website, so the other resources and information here will still be available.