Re: research, index,db,yeah, steam era and freight cars, can this group help?
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Al and Patricia Westerfield <westerfield@...>
Gordon - One thing to remember is that the plans published in the model railroad press are often far from accurate. The further back you go the worse they get as does the accuracy of the data. When I first went into the business I ran through all the old back issues and made a list of the cars I wanted to do. I eventually made about six out of twenty. My suggestion is to use the Official Railway Equipment Register to determine several cars of significance to the line you're interested in. Then check with the historical society to see what data is available. - Al Westerfield
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From: Bushnell.mp77 Account To: STMFC@... Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 4:50 PM Subject: [STMFC] research, index,db,yeah, steam era and freight cars, can this group help? I am considering an article for a historical society publication related to researching and building a freight car model related to their specific railroad. My "criteria" (personal) also narrowed my scope by suggesting that it must be steam era - I can justify the model on my steam era railroad even though the prototype is NOT the one I model. So my first frustration is the fact that WE no longer have the old "trains.com" site to look through previous magazine articles for basic info! I'm surrounded by YEARS of Model Railroader magazines dating back into the 1940's and an entire collection of Mainline Modelers. Barring looking through each one there is no way to easily glean contents. (Yeah, I know Hundman published article titles each month for previous issues- I even complained to him about that AND MRR had a yearly index but that is a LOT of indexes to look through!) I "wisely" recycled my old "Stephan's" about a decade ago since it was fast getting obsolete and I could use the trains.com. That will teach me! It would really help to find drawings that I can start with since the article will be as close to "scratch" as I can get. As far as I can tell when Kalmbach gave their data (supposedly) to the NMRA they might as well have tossed it in the nearest dumpster. I don't have a lot of faith that NMRA will do anything more than committee the data to death or hold the data hostage for tons of money that few will pay. I will also state for the record that I'm not enamored with the Kalmbach management for their decision. I can no longer state that my collection of magazines is "growing at a steady pace." So I'm turning to this group. (hope springs eternal and all of that...) First is anyone (at a minimum) tracking articles related to specific railroads? Are any historical groups tracking magazine info for specific railroads? How about a listing of steam era freight car articles? Is there a chance that maybe a group like RPI has the data in an accessible format? Does anyone have a good way to locate articles? A few members are probably "data savvy" and if WE could get the raw data WE could probably access the data and at least create a few "reports" that would be MUCH BETTER than nothing. Heck, at this juncture just a huge PDF file sorted by something as simple as "railroad" is better than nothing. (what a certain decision gave us) I hope someone has a better answer than "wait". I'm willing to join with others to tackle raw data. If I could get the raw data I might even be able to do create something that many of us could use. That all being said, my "selfish" first desire is a way to find ALL articles related to SOUTHERN RAILWAY. (BTW if and when I create a list I'll make a PDF and post it in a file section for this group!) My second hit list would be anything between 1894-1953- after all that's when Southern and STEAM were together. It seems to me that members of this group might share a similar interest and a similar frustration. How about a similar solution? Gordon Andrews very frustrated in Richmond, Virginia |
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