About MRJ Index < Back to search
Background
Model Railway Journal has held a place close to my heart ever since my teenage years when, as a keen railway modeller, I picked up a copy one day in my local model shop. It was issue 39, which contained a large full-colour poster of Martyn Welch's superb 7mm layout 'Hursley'. I had never seen a model railway that looked even remotely as good as this before, and the rest of the magazine proved equally as inspiring. Ever since then that image has been burned into my consciousness.
My interest in railway modelling was recently rekindled after fifteen years absense from the hobby, and I was delighted to discover that MRJ was still in circulation. I started building up a collection with the eventual aim of owning a full set (something made so much easier with the aid of eBay and other online retail sources).
As my collection has grown, I've often found myself wanting to find an article on a particular topic, or a specific item I remember having seen, but haven't been sure where to start looking. While other indexes do exist, I found them less than ideal for my own requirements and so the idea for a completely new, online searchable index arose.
As a professional web developer, and being only too aware of the rather 'average' quality of many of the existing web sites relating to railway modelling, I was keen to produce something that not only did the job but worked well, looked good and was easy to use.
Model Railway Journal Index is the result of many hours of dedicated work to produce something which not only meets my own needs but hopefully proves to be a valuable resource for other railway modellers and MRJ readers.
Credits
Special thanks to all who have helped out in any way, big or small: Chris Baker, Dave Booth, Ian Sutcliffe, Adrian Marks, Gary Johnson and Brian Tuckey. Your contributions have been invaluable.
Technical stuff
I developed the site and its supporting database from scratch, allowing everything to be tailored specifically to the task in hand rather than trying to hack an existing piece of software. The system includes a secure web-based admin area allowing multiple editors and administrators with varying levels of control over inputting and editing data.
The whole system is extremely lightweight and portable. As a result, it would be very easy to create parallel websites for other magazines. If you are interested in taking on such a task (inputting the data, that is - or at least overseeing it), please contact me.
Matt Ots
http://line2nowhere.blogspot.com