<P>The time has come for the railroad preservation field to mature a bit and publish something unprecedented...a primer on the methodology and techniques of restoring historic railroad vehicles. The idea is not new to the history of transportation; in fact, the historic carriage people have done it--see The Restoration of Carriages by George L. Isles. And the historic aircraft people have done it. The best work I've seen to date (which I highly reccommend) is Restoring Museum Aircraft by Robert Mikesh, formerly of the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum. Both books approach historic vehicles from the perspective of "historic structures." They are treated like old buildings and conserved and restored in a like manner. Many of their techniques are directly applicable to restoring rail vehicles. Our "restoring railroad vehicles" book could be divided into the following chapters: 1. Cosmetic Restoration of Steam Locomotives and Diesel Locomotives; 2. Conserving wood carbodies (trolleys and rolling stock); 3. Conserving/Restoring steel car bodies (trolleys, passenger and freight equipment); transportation and shipment of historic rail vehicles (how to prep items for shipment via rail, proper loading procedures by truck); glossary of restoration/conservation terms; how to research and document a historic rail vehicles/sources for mechanical and historic information, parts suppliers, contacts, etc. The emphasis would on the conservation and exhibition of rail vehicles in a museum setting, NOT restoration for operation. The book would be very information-rich, with practical techniques and advice given by some of the top restoration people in our field (i.e. Allan Martin, Dave Conrad, Kyle Wyatt, Chris DeWitt, Ron Goldfeder, Dennis Daugherty, John Bush, Chris Ahrens, Linn Moedinger, Glenn Guerra, et al). A radical departure from our profession is that it would not be railfan literature but rather a serious, nuts and bolts type book. This would make an excellent project for ARM and would be beneficial to the field. If the other historic transportation museums can do this, then why not us? <br>




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