OK, i don't understand this - if they don't wish to share they just wouldn't offer it. If they do wish to share why would sharing it better make them stop? If they only want to share with a certain entity, it is effectively still in their control.

Caveat Emptor to anybody using Ebay from a POV of ignorance.

As to the rest of this, it is starting to get way complicated - two wikis? Haven't got one damn thing done yet and we just doubled our mission.

If Randy is going to run it up the flagpole and see if he can find sponsors to get a guy like Kurt to take advantage of the offer of free hosting, which means Kurt will spend most of his life in front of a scanner for the forseeable future, wonderful and thanks. If anybody else has a practical idea about getting it "real" to try, also fine. Best the rest of us can do for now is see what in our collections we might have to benefdit such an endeavor should it materialize.

dave

Okay....two wiki's it is. I'll set it up this weekend. It may not be pretty at first, but it'll be functional.

I could go into a long explanation of why people in the industry issue out information to preservationists on only a "need to know" basis for specific projects, but honestly, I can see that it is just going to start more arguments so why bother. Just expect the consequences next time you call your "pal" in the industry for help with a project.

And if the objective is to "share" everything, why just ask him for help with one project. Maybe you should ask him to send you the company archives. Be sure to tell him you are going to perform a valuable public service by posting everything to the internet. Maybe he will jump through hoops and over hurdles to help out!

By the way, what happened to that free internet journal of preservation that got so much discussion here about two years ago, right before the supply of articles on RYPN dried up completely? Look around the internet and see how many of the articles written for this and other websites have been stolen and are being sold by internet information services, and you may understand why so few people are writing for the internet any more.

PC

OK, I will take you at your word based on your experience working in the field. Mine is different......but I suppose I have never asked for more than some technical assistance. Corporate archives are beyond the scope of what we started discussing here.......

My greatest difficulties in information sharing have happened within our industry in my experience. There isn't enough of a market or resources worth fighting over for any of us to have proprietary information in terms of technical stuff, yet many people act otherwise. One notorious contractor had a copy of the Baldwin S&P and attempted to cause his subs to sign a nondisclosure agreementg about it as if it was his own. The E&S committee developed a "cookbook" on how to do the new Form 4, based on a case study, which they then refused to share with anybody and everybody who needed to learn how to do them. I had one individual who now seems to share his work freely refuse to share his information of the Porta design for piston rings because he didn't want to annoy his employer, another contractor who now also seems to want to share information. Maybe some of us are starting to grow up a bit.

This doesn't help us grow stronger and more robust as an industry. Tourist railroads and railroad museums don't compete with each other, we collectively compete with other entertainment providers, and our weakest are our own worst enemies in terms of losing available market share by providing customers with a bad experience that makes them never want to visit any of us again. Any information that can help any of us get stronger needs to be freely shared to make us all healthier.

dave

All very good points Dave and I certainly appreciate your perspective on this.

PC

Preston,
I respectfully disagree with your arguments about going forward on this project for the following reasons;
The people whom you are referring to (as the knowledge pool, including yourself, myself, and all the other experienced railroaders), are not going to be here forever and when they are gone so is their knowledge pool.

I am looking at the future. Who will safely maintain and restore these machines for the public to experience without the knowledge of experienced railroaders? Alas it will be inexperienced railroaders with a passion to see history kept alive, using books and reference materials to back them up. To keep this knowledge from future generations is short sighted.

I do agree with you about the unfair profiteering from these resources, but putting them all in one easily accessible place available for anyone willing to subscribe (fee or free) to the site should dry up their market, and may be able to be turned into a source of funding to perpetuate the site.

I appreciate everyone's input, pro or con, and look forward to more of your input as this project progresses or stops right here in this forum.

Thanks,
Mike Tillger

Doug,
Thank you for your offering of resources and help to get the ball rolling. I imagine this project will evolve and grow as its users contribute.

Can anyone possibly point me to some resources about what a Wiki is and how to use it? (Can you tell my age from my request? The Wiki has left me behind in the dust of technology growth)

Many Thanks again and again,
Mike Tillger

All:

I think a knowlege pool is a great idea and one that is long overdue. I'll be happy to share my relatively meager collection of manuals if they're of any help to anyone.

I only have one small concern with the "wiki", i.e. editable by all, format. I've observed that many groups / people / contractors / whatever tend to do things different ways to accomplish the same task. Not all are necessarily wrong, but with the stong-minded opinions that come along with many folks in this business, you'll get the obligatory "he's doing it all wrong," "that's not the way the XY&Z did it," or my personal favorite, "that's going to blow up the first time you light it off." Two different guys go about tram running gear different ways (and perhaps that's a bad example, as I've never done it), then proceed to claim the other is a complete idiot. All the while both engines run great. Anyone observed this kind of happening before?

It's one thing to be able to access boiler and machinery repair & construction manuals and appliance catalogs online (which is great). The wiki could be great as well, as long as we can keep debate about the different approaches healthy, and not turn it into and editing battle. The fillet welded staybolt thread here is a great example. In any event, this is a great idea and I applaud all involved.

Singing Kumbaya around the firebox,
TB

Edit: PS - Mike, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Doug, can it be configured so contributors must register to add/edit?

I think Mike is correct, if the site is well known, the market for buying "stolen" info will be minimal. So it's up to us to publicize the hell out of its existence.

Stephen

Mike, I don't disagree with your point of view about the disintegration of the knowledge base, many of us have seen this coming and are turning our attention and as much of our spare time as possible to doing interviews with those who lived the history and to writing articles to try to preserve some of the information.

Unfortunately the influence of the internet on Preservation and on Railroad Historical Groups is not all positive. I have gotten railroad suppliers catalogs illustrated with photos taken from sites where they were posted with copyright notices and I where I know the photographers were never asked if they could be used. There is virtually no respect for ownership now and very few can afford the legal expense to enforce copyright.

In three local historical groups the program chairpersons tell me they could not get anyone from the industry to come out and talk to them this year. A fourth group got the President of a railroad, they were lucky. The drought in speakers has nothing to do with homeland security or the economy, it has everything to do with the distorted or incorrect accounts of comments at meetings that some folks attending meetings run to post on discussion sites where a persons boss can read them. As a result, now you either get the President of the railroad or nobody from the railroad, usually the middle management people won't touch speaking engagements. These folks really don't have any obligation to do anything for preservation or railroad history, and when their reward for helping out is to be publicly attacked, you can't blame them for turning down requests. Another negative consequence of misuse of the internet.

Frankly, I would just welcome seeing a few of my local groups have up to date websites. One of them was six years out of date until it was taken down. The list of events were from 2003, and some of the people mentioned had died. I offered numerous times to help them, it would have taken a half hour of work, and never got any reply. And we are worried about internet distribution of information in an industry and a hobby where so many outfits cannot effectively communicate their activities and their donation needs to general public?

The internet issues could actually be the subject of another entire discussion. The museums, the historical groups, and RYPN are all affected by the consequences.

PC

Tim, there's a lot of right ways and an equal number of wrong ways - and sometimes both are the same way. So much is dependent on the current circumstances and desired outcomes, and what is at hand.

The best people I have had the priviledge to work with and learn from were those with the broadest range of approaches to getting a job done, able to improvise from a string base of different experiences to achieve a credible outcome. The worst were the ones who insisted there was one right way and if it couldn't be done the project was dead.

Boomers supplied this in the historic days of railroading, since they worked everywhere and learned a bunch of ways to do things. Shortline and industrial operators found incredibly practical ways to make things happen with little to work with.

The value of a repository is gathering all this stuff so a wide range of views and experiences can be perused, and a workable and practical plan developed based on these different but workable solutions.

I got a couple nice PMs from my last posting, one pointed out what I had missed - the idea that everybody in our industry wanted to know more and do better. I had taken this as given without even considering it. I suppose I got so enthusiastic about the idea of the repository, I temporarily forgot my realistic (some may say cynical or jaundiced) view of a lot of people in our business - those who would rather do what is cheapest and dirtiest without perspective enough to make good choices for safety and reliability in order to protect either their little kingdoms or their ability to play trains on Saturday at somebody elses expense. I am guilty of this uncharacteristic oversight, and will try not to do it again. Still, there's no reason to let the worst of us prevent the rest of us from trying to do better for the benefit of all concerned.

dave

Love the Wikis, will participate in the history Wiki.

The Wiki does need management, and to really grow, someone has to be willing to let the community toss out those who doth not know pie hole from other holes. The best Wiki's have no problem with requiring reasonable registration requests and banning the obtuse. If that can pulled off on these Wiki's, you have a winner.

Rob

On the sharing posts... forget the professionals, there are tons of buffs and collectors notorious for hoarding information and not sharing. I think it is an ego thing, as no payday is coming for old train papers! And no, I am not naming names.

But let 'em rot, there are many more who do, and will, share.

Of course, time will tell.

Rob

I'm configuring the server now, and will install MediaWiki software yet this afternoon. I agree: no posting without registration, and I will need nominations for people to be given editor authority to delete and ban, and so forth.

At the IRM Pullman Library we have been looking at this issue realizing that to prevent outright theft of material or information, the data must be easily accessible at minimal cost. Our constraint as many may know, is that most of the material in the IRM Pullman Library archive must be made available to car restorers, historians and model makers under Bombardier license, who hold property rights though we are a permanent repository. This works both to our benefit and theirs. Special arrangements are made by license for any material to be used in a professional capacity, for example to quantify load carrying capacity of an existing car for a legal requirement. I think you get the point. For our benefit, posting in a public forum such as E-Bay or Internet reference is outside the scope of the Bombardier license and is forbidden by the necessary need to establish authorized use other than that listed for modelers historians and car restorers. On the other hand as an educational resource, by written permission material can be used in a printed publication. This also helps to protect us as a nonprofit who need the resource funds from supplying copied original material to continue our costs of operation, collation, restoration and incidentally to develop databases to do precisely what you are looking for. We are for a central database reference available to all. Note that this presently is being done for railroad photography. Be careful of one caveat. To keep the good will of the railroad industry, it is essential to protect the use of the material much as we are restricted to do. Some archival materials usable in a court of law, i.e. railroad property maps or documents marked "company confidential", "restricted" or "internal use only" should be specially handled under terms that would have to be worked out to avoid conflicts of interest. This is what we face, in addition have to decide in a professional, ethical manner for some of our other, more recent material marked for limited or forbidden distribution including internal design memorabilia. We at the Pullman Library are looking forward to participating in centralizing access to many resources, and certainly are not standing by waiting for one person to shoulder this - it's not possible. A lot of information is already available on ARM and museum websites. For my part, we are well along on several databases including my work on titles of thousands of wood car drawings in the Pullman Library including lot numbers and plan numbers, for those seeking to model or restore a particular car - circa 1880's to 1910. It has taken some years and is well along to completion with intent to appear on or referred by the IRM website. Copyright is essential to protect this type of enterprise, even if available for download, like that of Tom Madden's passenger car database gleaned from Newberry Library car cards. His (http://www.pullmanproject.com) is a working model for what can be done. Go Go Go!
Sincerely,
Ted Anderson