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Sign Up To Create Your Own
Web Site At TrainWeb.org

At this point you may be asking: "What's the catch? There is no such thing as a free lunch." In a way, you'd be right. The catch is this. Before you apply to have your own railroad related web site hosted free, you need to know what you are doing. Hosting your web site at TrainWeb.org is not for the inexperienced, unless you are willing to do a bit of learning on your own, or ask a friend with web publishing skills for help.

There are no templates or any way to just log in and fill in forms to create a web site at TrainWeb.org. You need to know how to use a web authoring and publishing tool such as Dreamweaver in order to create and post your web site to TrainWeb.org. We will supply you with an FTP upload address (publishing address) and a login ID and password. But from there, you are on your own! If you have previously created web sites with Dreamweaver, or with other web authoring tools and FTP, then you should have no problem creating your web site at TrainWeb.org. But if you have never created a web site and have no idea how to create a web site, then you are definitely going to need some help or to do a lot of self-guided learning.

On the other hand, if you are a very experienced web designer and want to use all sorts of fancy web features and tools, then TrainWeb.org isn't for you either. We only support hosting of simple web pages and images. In order to minimize system support and maintain reliability we have disabled support of most of advanced web features.

We want to let you know right up front, there is NO TECHNICAL SUPPORT at all available from TrainWeb. There is NO tech support phone number to call. You are welcome to send email to support @ trainweb.com, but the ONLY email that we'll respond to immediately is if you are reporting a problem with our web server. We do not provide any tutoring or technical help. There are only 3 of us at this end with lots of responsibilities and more than 1000 of you hosting your web sites at TrainWeb.org. Since 1996 hundreds of web authors have had their web sites hosted at TrainWeb.org without a problem. So, if you are having a problem, it would be best to find a web experienced friend and see if they can help you figure out what you are doing wrong.

So that is the catch! There are just too few of us at this end to provide technical support and help to so many of you at that end. But if you can work independently and resolve your own technical problems, maybe with a little help from your friends, then you should be able to host your web site at TrainWeb.org without a problem.

There aren't many restrictions for what sites can be hosted at TrainWeb.org, but there are a couple: (1) Your web site MUST be railroad related and (2) Your web site CAN NOT just be a gateway to a web site hosted elsewhere. In other words, you can't just obtain a web site at TrainWeb.org and then just use it to forward visitors to a web site hosted elsewhere.

We have removed some prior restrictions: (1) If you have a railroad related web site hosted elsewhere and would just like to upload a mirror image of it to TrainWeb.org, you are welcome to do so. (2) If you wish to host a commercial web site at TrainWeb.org where you sell things for a profit, you are welcome to do so. But do keep in mind that we provide NO TECHNICAL SUPPORT and we do not guarantee up time even though we've had an excellent historical record. If you host a commercial web site at TrainWeb.org, we will not take liability for any business loses due to down time or technical difficulties. We don't recommend that you use TrainWeb.org to host a commercial web site, but we no longer have any rule that prohibits that.

There are a few more minor restrictions and additional answers to the most frequent questions that can be found at: TrainWeb.org/memfaq.html.

If you haven't been disuaded and would like to join the ranks of more than 1000 railroad related web sites hosted free at TrainWeb.org then CLICK HERE to send an email to newaccount @ trainweb.com . Please include the following information in your e-mail:

1. Site Name :
   (15 characters maximum, all lowercase, no special characters, no spaces, and must not start with a digit.)
   The Site Name will be appended at the end of TrainWeb.org/ to form your web address. For example, if your requested Site Name is myrail, your web address will be TrainWeb.org/myrail. Type your desired web address into your web browser's address bar to make sure it hasn't already been taken.


2. Site Title :
   (50 characters maximum: shorter is better) This will just be used as a descriptive name for your web site.


3. Site Description :
   (80 characters maximum, not 80 words!) What do you want to tell visitors is the content of your website?


4. Site Category :
   Visit the TrainWeb Directory to select a category.


5. Your Name :
   Provide us with your full name to be used as the authorized point of contact.


6. Your Email Address :
   Provide us with just one e-mail address to be used as the authorized point of contact. This is where we will mail your access codes when your new account has been created and where we will mail your access codes in the future if you forget or lose them. It should match your current email address from which you are originating your email to us.

Please allow us 2 to 3 days to create your web account and to e-mail the access codes and upload instructions to you. Sometimes we are able to respond more promptly, but please wait 3 days before inquiring about the access codes for your new web site. Thank you!