Tim Gilbert wrote

If the "mood" is to create an "all-time" Freight Car data base ...
What would be missing from this data base? Used Car Sales to other
roads? Some renumberings & conversions (into other car types)?

Tim, you are thinking two dimensionally. Try thinking 4 dimensionally!
A Wiki consists of 2-dimensional pages that are hyperlinked thru space
(3D) and time (4D). When I pull up a WIKI-ORER entry for a particular
year, I should be able to trace the origins and dispositions of those
cars by sliding backward and forward through time-links, and I should
be able to find related prototype and model information by type-links.
Once we understand the -layout- of the ORER pages, we can automate the
linkages according to the type of information in each area of the page.
Of course, people with browsers don't know any of this -- they just
click on entries and are transported magically to relevant content.

And NOTE -- a Wiki is a framework, not a database. The database hangs
off the framework -- which is how it is able to grow from nothing into
a huge encyclopedia. So don't think of Eric's or Tony's or Ted's data
as being the foundation. Those are just a few sources in a very wide
spectrum of expertise, and a Wiki can tap the full spectrum. That is
why it is so powerful and why it can grow exponentially.

Tim O'Connor