I’m one of several people on the forum who was alive before the Internet and email (along with forums) connected us all.
Those were hard times, let me tell ya.
If you had a question, you could write a letter and send it to a train magazine (toy train mags didn’t really exist) and they might answer it in a few months.
There was an adult HO club in town but they didn’t want kids hanging around (seems today everything is kid-centric).
As for photos of real trains; you couldn’t share them online. Instead, you made prints from negatives and mailed them to others across the country, who in turn would mail you photos or slides of trains from their part of the world (I still have the swapped photos somewhere).
For instance, I had photos of the FJ&G and B&M & would swap those for some GN or Walla walla electrics in Washington state.
As to catalogs, you couldn’t go online; instead, you had to SASE (remember that term?) someone or some company for a catalog, often for a fee.
I had a round-robin letter with some young fellow modellers. Like a huge, slow discussion thread, we would mail around photos and questions and observations. We ended up agreeing to a minimum of five pages so we’d ‘delete’ the oldest page as it went around to keep it at the weight for one stamp. I pored over anything train-related or model-railroad-related in print.
There were fore runners to THE internet. I remember using dial up services like CompuServe and Genie. There were SIG groups in the USENET news system that predated the internet by 10 years or so. I do rmember sending in dimes and quarters taped to index cards for catalogs and for prizes in cereal box top promotions but that was when a computer was the size of house trailer and you needed the operator to place a long distance call (like more than 20 miles away).
Dave- You are so right about the Internet & how it has changed our lives in terms of making communication faster & easier than ever before. Sure have met & communicated with some very nice folks on this forum, That’s for sure.Take Care.
Yes, things have changed a lot. I have two grandchildren (girl - 8, boy - 3). They have access to a computer at home and know how to send grandpa pictures of what they want for Christmas and birthdays! She loves dolls and trains and he loves trucks and trains. They have a Thomas layout in each bedroom. He wants to access the “wailwoad foam” like grandpa does. I just eat it up.