This DVD-R has been highlighted on one of the model railroad forums here in the UK, and, given its content (and price) it might be of interest to some of you the other side of the Atlantic.
I know nothing about the Charity selling it, but it is a DVD-R containing 112 old (ie 100 years old +) railroad books in .pdf format. 47 of the 112 titles are listed on their e-bay advert and the person who has bought one says that there is "a lot of North American" material.
Three that stand out in the advert listing are
a) A 352 page Brooks Loco Works catalogue from 1899
b) An 1871 Baldwin Loco Works catalogue
c) A 1920 published history of Baldwin.

Silly thing is the price - £1.99, which equates to about $2.50 at current exchange rates!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/112-Vintage- ... %7Ciid%3A1

I've just ordered one, so will advise if it is any good when I get it early next week.

If anyone not in the UK is interested, I suggest they perhaps contact the charity selling them direct and see what the postage rates would be outside the UK.

(I've obviously posted this first on interchange, but move it to classifieds if the Mods see fit to do so...)

International shipping by Royal mail to USPS is the same $2.50

Even more of a bargain then!
My copy has been dispatched today, so hopefully I'll be able to find some time to look at it on Sunday (or earlier if it turns up tomorrow) and see what else is on it.

My disc turned up this morning and I've been able to have a quick look at its contents.

The most modern publication on there I have fund so far dates from 1922, which is a substantial US published volume on (mainline) Electric Railroading.
There are a significant number of books of US origin on there, including a selection of Locomotive Manufacturers Catalogues. In fact, most of the originals scanned (including the British books) seem to originate from various North American Universities !

Disc is rather anonymous (no printing anywhere on it) and in a thin clear plastic wallet with a paper insert that indicates they produce lots of discs on other subjects.

There certainly looks to be some interesting/obscure titles included - particularly those from the mid 1800's. There are technical books on Signalling, Locomotive operation etc as well as the historical/guidebook ones.

Whether I'll ever be able to find time to read the thousands of pages is another matter!

My disc arrived and won't open. Unfortunately, the complaint resolution contact is a telephone number in England. I'm running 64 bit Win 10 Pro if that helps provide any advice.

I think it is not your computer. US discs run on NTSC format, and European discs run on a different one
called PAL. They are not compatible. Some DVD players can play bothe formats.

It's a data disc, not something you play/watch on your TV.

Is Never Twice Same Colour/Perfect At Last even a thing anymore in the days of Digital TV?

Yes, it is unclear as to what format is being used here - there's a notice sent with it that is generic for all the discs they produce which by trying to fit all ends up not offering clear and valid advice for this (or potentially any) one. The disc also is solid white on one side, not translucent as are most of those I am familiar with, but then I'm a dinosaur working in what's really an operating museum of a first generation data center.

Dave,

PDF files are pretty much a standard for document files nowadays. You should have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed (or similar PDF reader) to open them. For some reason, computers don't come with it pre installed and you're stuck using the web browser plugin if your browser has it. Reader DC, is free. If you don't have it:

https://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/

Watch for click-bait - a pre-checked box for something you don't want from a paid partner. I don't know if Adobe still does that.

Since it's a data disk, you open it with Windows Explorer like it's another hard drive to see the folder and file listings. Windows may ask you what you want to do with the disk automatically. View Files or Open in Windows Explorer.

I thought the "instructions" were minimalist as well....
My internet linked computer has a dead disc drive, but I just fired up my 15 year old Windows XP back up computer (!) and can confirm the disc goes in with the white side on the top. That produced a list of every file with its title on my copy, even if I couldn't look at any of them as Adobe Reader has never been installed on that one.
To see what was on my disc when it arrived, I actually took it round to my Fathers and put it into his (Adobe installed) laptop, and it just went straight to the list of .pdf files to click on and then open/read.

Thanks guys - dug out an old Dell running XP with Adobe and there it was. I'm a bit overwhelmed with the amount of stuff on that disc. Unfortunately many of the publications (all scans of pages) seem not to have tables of contents so it's going to take some exploration to see just what they contain. Just the thing for long shifts on winter nights.......

Just as a note: when I went to order my copy for 'testing', I discovered that they're now bundling the "200 railway posters" collection with the 112+ railroad books.

Dave, you might check to see if your copy has these included. I suspect that if you're interested in that kind of poster, this makes the offer almost compelling. While most if not all of the 'books' on the DVD could be located and downloaded (in the USA) using Google Books, the economics for a poster collection -- both in time needed to find the item URLS and get permission to copy them, and in actually downloading them all -- wouldn't be nearly as good as having them at hand on easily-transferred removable disc, likely with thumbnail browse capability and quick file-transfer speed.