Recently I have been coming across photos in collections that are not identified. If they are local to my area I can often figure out the location but if they are taken further away I don't have much of a chance unless there is a sign in the photo. I thought maybe there would be a site where scans of the historic photos could be posted so that a wider audience of the internet would often recognize the location. I was doing a search on google and have come up with no such site. Suggestions? These are B&W and from the era of the 616 camera. Often there is quite a bit of surrounding scene making it more likely someone familiar with the area could ID it. The photos range from east coast to west coast.Rich

This site is devoted to traction only, but covers a multitude of locations with gobs of photos. Many have identification.

Unfortunately, I haven't yet found a nationwide clearinghouse for this kind of problem, and if you have a large number of unidentified photos, it becomes even more difficult. But if (a.) you can at least identify the specific railroad, and (b.) you only have a few shots from that railroad, you could try posting the photos on any one of several railfan discussion groups that include discussion sections for specific railroads. For example, both railfan.net (forums.railfan.net) and railroad.net include discussion groups for various "fallen flags" (e.g., B&O, NYC, PRR, AT&SF, etc. ad infinitum) plus catchall discussion sections for those not included. In muy experience, the participants are pretty savvy about their particular favorite lines and can be very helpful. Herb Harwood

Dave also posts many photos with the notation "caption data needed," and I believe his site even has a "mystery photo" section where totally unknown pictures are posted and the site's viewers are invited to identify the photos. Once they're identified, they're moved to the appropriate section of the site.

If you have any Huntingdon & Broad Top Mountain or Everett Railroad photos, I could help id them via my website (www.bbandbrr.com). Some friends and I have made quite a game of ID-ing photos of these lines. No promises, though. :) KB

I've used a web page as a tool to identify unknown photos from the TMNY collection. I post them at http://www.tmny.org/tmnyarch.html. I haven't updated the page recently, but two of the three unknowns currently shown have been identified.