Folks, While I was on vacation recently i had a chance to re-read some of my old L&RP magazines.

What is striking about the preservation scene from 10 or 12 years ago is that the rail musems that were good then like say the Colorado Railroad Museum, which was announcing plans for a new Library and Restoration Shop, actually built them bigger and better than planned. And they are still doing good things.

What still seems to be languishing are single item restoration projects. Every project can not be a large complex railroad museum.

If a single steam artifact is not enough; can't there be room for a small museum that caters to the railroad history of say a single town and the trains that ran there?

Another thing I miss from the magaines is the splendid photography that was carried in the magazine. Here on the Internet you do not the kind of photo essays that the magazines once had.

I am sure glad that I have those issues and still wish that they had lasted longer!

Ted Miles

So true. What a great magazine. I haven't seen anything like it since. It's a shame that paper is close to dead as a publishing medium. L&RP had a realness, a permanence about it that no electronic edition or internet site will ever have. Present site excepted, of course :)

But the new media isn't all bad. For one, it allows any one of us to publish - anyone who has managed to read these forums can do it. That means there are a lot more people available to create content, and we don't need to be a magazine-quality wordsmith. For another, you can operate in any of a wide variety of media, so you can operate in the medium that most suits you.

I'm not surprised that the museums with big plans have exceeded them. You know what the man said about little plans...

The "Make no little plans" quote is from Daniel Burnham. Burnham was a Chicago architect, and was partly responsible for City Beautiful movement in the United States. He was the lead architect for the 1892 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition which introduced the neo classical Beaux-Arts style to a wide following of Americans. He was also the designer of the Flatiron Building in New York City, and Washington D.C.'s Union Station

Just to show how much things can change in 50 years, "Less is more" is another famous quote from an a Chicago architect. Of course, he was promoting simplicity, not smallness. German immigrant Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a pioneer modernist who fled the artistically repressive Nazi regime to Chicago in the 1930s.

ok, crazy idea time...since the magazine is defunct, I wonder if it would be permissible (or legal) to scan and upload entire articles from the old magazines and have them available here? I know for certain I haven't seen them all...

I am thinking of donating mine, I think I have them all, to a museum library that would want them. I have found a home for my TRAINS collection. L&RP was on my SAVE list, but...

I am getting out of the hoarding mode, and into the sharing mode. These do no good sitting in my house when others can use them.

Rob

Rob Davis,

I couldn't agree more about leaving the "hoarding" mode. Instead of finding one home, I donated my magazine collection of Trains, Railroad, Model Railroad, Railroad Model Craftsman, Toy Trains, and whatever lesser known railroad oriented magazines, all dating from the 1940's onward, to my local tourist railroad. They sell old, back issues in their gift shop at a very reasonable price. The magazines get dispersed to a new group of interested people and the RR gets a little bit of revenue. The problem with older magazine collections is the storage, both at home and as inventory at a gift shop. L&RP is also in my "keep" section but they are moving toward finding a home.

Rob

Nope.

L&RP was bought by Pentrex. Pentrex ceased to publish the magazine, but they are well aware that they still own the brand, the back issues (which they sell on their Web site), and all associated copyrights and intellectual property.

When Hume Kading was publisher, he contacted Pentrex about the possibility of adding some articles from L&RP to RyPN. Hume was told politely but clearly that Pentrax was not interested and would not approve. It's their right.

Thanks, Erik.

That's a shame. I think they're missing a bet not doing something with the property.

I've also considered donating my magazines on occasion, but I'd like to find a good home for them. While I can understand the concept of selling back issues at 50 cents a pop to help finance the local tourist RR, but that's not what I have in mind.

I've got some fairly complete collections of several publications, and would like to see them go somewhere that would properly care for them while also making them available to researchers and the public etc.

The problem is that I'm not really aware of anywhere that fits that definition except for a couple of places and none anywhere near the Pacific Northwest.

Anyone have any good suggestions?

Bob,

I visited the railroad museum at Squamish, British Columbia a couple of years ago.

They have a name that does to come to mind right this minuite. But they have just built a two story replica station building which will hold their library.

They have been in operation for a good many years and might well appreciate having you periodical back issues.

As I have said in the past I work in the Library and Archives at the Western Railway Museum. We have bound a complete set of the R&LP magazines.

And the Cannon photocopy machine is ready to make copies for any of you that need them!

Just contact me off line if you need copies of a great publication!

Ted Miles