Ted, I think you're sort of misinterpreting the person's posting. It doesn't sound like he's discussing technological changes to historic artifacts as I think you think. Here's the reality though: Technology in this country is continually evolving. Industrial practices and techniques are constantly changing. How is this relevant to railroad presevation ? The gentleman talking about the rod which was fabricated at Strasburg was designed and manufactured using CAD/CNC machining is a good example. CAD/CNC is neccesitated in today's economy because of how expensive it is to manually machine things. Often, such links in the old days were drop forged or forged in some other way. At that time, 60 or more years ago, equipment to do that was readily available at a plethora of places. Now large forces are few and far between and extremely expensive to use if you do find one. So now in some instances if a component needs to be replicated of one which was forged, it's probably now machined and heat treated instead. In reality, such things actually DO serve railroad preservation, by enabling to continue to be able to replace parts, even though the skills and techniques and equipment that would have originally done the job have become extinct. In the case of something like CAD/CNC, it probably is even better than doing it using old techniques because the cost is so much lower. Just my $00.02 . Preserving industrial history is striking an intricate balance between using old and ways of doing things, and being historically accurate and safe by modern standards.Regards,Trevor Hartford