At RMEO we hope to institute a policy requiring proper photo documentation of new additions to the collection.

In this, I'm referring to large artifacts such as rolling stock, where the methods commonly used in general history or house museums on small artifacts would be impractical.

Would any of your museums have standards set up for fully recording recently acquired rolling stock, prior to any changes being made to its condition?

We are looking at using high resolution digital images... dimensions recorded in feet and inches as opposed to the metric system which is commonly used on small artifacts (conversion is easy, but these things were built in feet and inches!)... scale drawings would be generated and all images would be "mapped" to their location in the car or locomotive.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. This process will take more self- discipline than the average volunteer has, so I would like to get the procedure cast in stone! Winter is a great time to do these things- it's too cold to do much restoration, but documentation work is possible.

Thanks, all!

Steve Hunter
RMEO

http://www.rmeo.org
http://public.fotki.com/elliottd/sfrmeo/

California State Railroad Museum was compiling photo albums of cars on arrival in the 1980's. We were handed the SN 32 book when we restored the car in 1999. I scanned all the photos and made a CD for Bay Area Electric when they were given the car.

The album was not much more than a three ring binder with high grade commercial photo pages, with color prints... As I remember there were lots of photos, general shots, detail shots... If in doubt take a picture of it.

When these were done in the 1980's (maybe 1970's) they used 35mm color print film.

It was a very effective quick and dirty record of the object.

Randy