Thanks for the kind offer. If I'm unable to bring the site back on my new hosting company then we can discuss this. Between the admin system for the site which I wrote and the site itself we're looking at about 70,000 lines of ColdFusion code and 6,600 lines of Javascript. So the conversion process would be painful.

My new hosting company basically said, upload the code and we'll make it work for you. Or no charge if we cannot. This is refreshing. So while the monthly bill went up the service looks a lot better than what I had.

My grandson is learning ColdFusion and MS-SQL so that he can absorb some of the issues. I do want to put a forum system back on the website and have been looking at Xenforo to replace phpBB, I need to find out if my new hosting company will support that.

PHP and MySQL seem to be the way to go with conversions. Since what you're doing is a pretty common requirement, should be able to find some example code etc. Even if they still run ColdFusion, would be great to transfer over at some point.

As for Xenforo, I have extensive experience with Xenforo, so I can help with that. Here's a sample:
https://modelrailroadforums.com/forum/index.php

If it were me? I'd use Next.JS and have V0.app do all the heavy lifting of conversion.

This is good.

That whole website has been VERY beneficial looking for basic performance stats on steam, including weights and dimensions, and unless you're willing to dig for hours online or libraries, has been a go-to for me.

So it's worth it. I'd pay for a membership if it comes to that.

My web consultant read this proposal and replied:

"I don't know if anyone wants my advice but I would do all of those things. Revive it on the trial plan, throw in a few ads, and while its up and running on ColdFusion start porting it to something else.
And also back up all the stuff off the site. Better not to risk losing all the raw content...."

Okay, I'm busy porting it to the new hosting environment. I haven't yet decided whether I'll write ad management code and ad it to the admin interface or not. If I can successfully get it back on line in the new environment, then I'll make an effort to finish a bunch of features and fix a number of bugs that I know exist. This will be done in ColdFusion. Offsite automatic backups are already arranged. I absolutely will not be porting this to php or any other language include C# .NET etc. It is what it is, and Adobe has committed to long term support of Coldfusion.

Please understand that I'm not doing any of this for whatever audience the site may have, I'm doing it for my grandson who loved the site and was heartbroken that it was gone. I hope that I have enough lifespan left to finish these tasks. If not, well then it sucks to be me, I guess.

If I can get it working, wonderful. The steps I've described above are about the limit of what I'm willing to do. Oh, and based upon prior experiences keeping the site away from the NRHS is a long term goal of mine. Though in my case "long term" may not mean much. Surgery on January 8th, to tidy up the wreckage left by radiation and chemo. Wheefun.

Regards,
Doug

Three cheers to your grandson for picking you up on this, Doug. He's a good kid. :)

I guess this is the flip-side of the obstacle commonly encountered when approaching other parties about preserving that rare piece of rolling stock in their backyard or beside their shop:

"Oh, no--my grandkids would throw an absolute FIT if I got rid of 'their' caboose/railcar/trolley!"

I've heard this verbatim. Twice.