Forum
The online forum is where most of the publicly viewable activity takes place. It was the first tangible signs of the company on the internet. It began as a purely free online forum, however has since grown into the formation of the company Nat Pres Limited. The original forum now serves as both a discussion board and as a place where the company advertises products sold by them, and where various special events or mainline railtours by heritage railways and mainline tour operators can be promoted. There is now a regular flow of information and news from some of the major players in the UK railway preservation sector. These include the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust, the 82045 Trust and the group aiming to rebuild a GWR Grange locomotive, no. 6880 Betton Grange, as well as many smaller groups, trusts and societies. This is in addition to many ordinary members of the various heritage railways in the UK, from some of the largest, such as the Severn Valley Railway, Bluebell Railway and North Yorkshire Moors Railway, to some of the smallest.
The forum first came to mass attention during 2006, with an incident involving British Railways 4MT no. 76079 on Exeter Bank, near Exeter Central station, when the locomotive slipped to a stand on a railtour. The forum became a centre for the activity on that day, as news broke of the incident and reaction given from various sources, including the locomotive owner Ian Riley. This led to the forum being cited in the report on the incident in Steam Railway magazine by David Wilcock, the first example of the importance of the website being recognised by major players in the railway preservation movement.
As of 17 February 2009, the forum has 3,833 members, who between them have posted over a quarter of a million articles to the forum. On average, the forum has gained about 160 members per month since the start of 2009. The forum has added roughly 1,000 to its membership year on year since its formation in 2005.
| Year Ending | Forum membership |
|---|---|
| 31/12/2005 | 400 |
| 31/12/2006 | 1,158 |
| 31/12/2007 | 2,182 |
| 31/12/2008 | 3,528 |
| 31/12/2009 | 7,945 |
| 31/12/2010 | 11,394 |
| 31/12/2011 | 13,643 |
| 31/12/2012 | 15,934 |
Read more about this topic: National Preservation
Famous quotes containing the word forum:
“If I should ever decide in the future to discuss my deep Christian beliefs and condemnation and sinfulness, I would use another forum besides Playboy.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call Classics, and the still older and more than classic but even less known Scriptures of the nations, shall have still further accumulated, when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and Zendavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shakespeares, and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)