Welcome to ATRRM’s new online Tourist Railroads & Railway Museums.
The stories are divided into 4 categories:
ATRRM Business
Heritage Railnews (short newsworthy items)
Features (longer feature stories)
Regulation (Bob Opal’s FRA advisories)
Within each category, the newest stories appear first, but readers can scroll down to view previous stories. All photos within stories can be enlarged by clicking on them.
Toward the bottom of the page are a pair of Photo Sections. These are not news, but will show artifacts, rolling stock and rail preservation activities that many may not have heard of.
At the bottom of the page is a feature called Progress Reports. It will follow all the major rolling stock restorations or other large projects across North America. Here are numerous links to museum and tourist railroad websites, making it possible to follow these long term projects. That will add a level of reporting not available in the print magazine, where there isn’t room to track the small steps of a restoration.
In the Categories box at left are Rail Preservation Links to websites that should be useful to our readers.
Using our existing listserve function, ATRRM members can be alerted by email when new stories are posted. Readers can also sign up for automatic updates. ATRRM members can post comments, although that requires the ATRRM member user ID and password.
To reach the largest possible audience, especially younger people, updated material will automatically be posted on the ATRRM Facebook page.
The right-hand and left-hand columns of all pages will show advertisements. These will rotate so that all receive equal viewing time. Clicking on the company logo enlarges it. Clicking on the ad enlargement takes the viewer to the advertiser’s website.
Preferred Sponsor ads are in the right-hand column. All other ads are in the left-hand column.
Moving the magazine will greatly reduce its production cost, and we plan to pass that on to the advertisers. They currently pay $1600 per year for a full page ad, $1800 for an inside cover and $2000 for the rear cover. All advertisers would pay no more than $1000 a year for online ads, a significant reduction.
There will also be affordable classified ads available.
The online magazine is available for anyone to view, not hidden behind the member wall. The goal is to maximize viewings, and posting links on Facebook would negate the restriction of the member wall anyway. The magazine should be self-supporting through advertisements, and having it available to everyone will make it much easier to sell ads. That in turn should attract more commercial members, who will get a discount on ad rates. The idea is to generate as much traffic as possible, thereby upping the visibility of ATRRM and its website.
I really think this will be a major step forward for ATRRM. We need to attract more readers to the magazine and more members to the organization. Going online is how to do both.
See you in York.
G. Mark Ray