Dear Friends,

Sometime ago I mentioned on one of the posts my interest in creating a complete database of exisiting heavyweight passenger cars, so that we might identify preservation priorities before we lose the "last" of something without the knowledge that it was in fact "the last" until it's too late.

I still think that would be great, but perhaps of broader appeal might be a site with all kinds of RR-related preservation emergencies. We could identify the resource, the issue it faces, and invite opportunities to donate time or money. Perhaps even own the road we might sponsor a top-ten most endanged list such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation does.

I have the web design staff and am willing to put up the cost if there are some folks who will join me in content planning, layout, and management. I hope NRHS, TRAIN, and ARM folks read this post, as I think them natural partners in such an effort.

Sincerely,
Nathaniel C. Guest, Esq.
ncg1@cornell.edu
610-724-9611

Maybe something like the http://www.kiva.org/lend website that solicits small donations instead of micro-loans. Kiva has been super successful with it's micro load program.

A while back I thought about adopting Ushahidi as a platform to monitor Conrail artifact sightings, but realized that it was a lot of overhead for a program that wasn't going to be adequately staffed, so I never really went down the road.

http://www.ushahidi.com/

I do think that, in this instance, it might be worth looking into for this project.

I fully support this idea-but I would like to see it as a broader spectrum than just coaches. I have suggested in the past that something like this should be in place so if an item from, say, the Lehigh Valley was rotting away in an industrial sidig on the other side of the country, perhaps the people who really care may hear about it before it's too late.

Just to go a step further, perhaps the subject of fundraising and preferred recipients of that fundraising could be covered by this same thread.

I'll even go as far as saying "count me in"!

Wes

What I notice is we have all these:

* Electric Cars Roster http://www.bera.org/pnaerc.html

* http://www.steamlocomotive.com/

* The "Surviving World Steam" DB though I couldn't find a web portal for it, I only know it by reputation

A passenger car database seems like a natural next step. Perhaps it's time for a single database back-end which supports all these categories and categories not yet databased. Perhaps such a back-end would allow new databases to be created that are not yet so.

To this we can also add the database maintained by the RR Station Historical Society and many of its members (some state lists are separate websites):

http://www.rrshs.org/Struct.index/strucindex.htm

There are also compilation rosters of preserved diesels here and there online.

The data already exists out there. It simply needs to be consolidated in an editable, accessible format.

The biggest problems with any such databases or "emergency" list are twofold:
1) Everyone has their own micro-focused area of specialty, be it the roster of the railroad/museum for which they volunteer, or Santa Fe stations/structures, or everything in a 50-mile radius from his home, or Alco switchers, or London & North Western carriage door fittings.
2) The only way such an "emergency alert" system is going to work is if, by sheer force, economic power, signal-to-noise ratio, search-engine optimization, etc. one single database/site becomes the absolute default for any such search.

The latter is much harder than it sounds. Even if such a "default" database and alert system were created, we'd have to find a way to see that someone who finds four wooden cars in a warehouse can figure out that RyPN, the NRHS, ARM, etc. even exist. Right now, off the top of my head, such an inquiry would be "competing" against Railroad.net, TrainOrders.com, several rail photo archives/websites, Railserve, Railswap, hobby shops, Kalmbach, Carstens, Wikipedia, high-speed-rail lobbying sites, modeling forums, eBay, Amazon, and more.

Consider, just as an example, a small town that suddenly realizes it has a railroad station when it gets a letter from the railroad offering it to them before the RR demolishes it. Picture, for a moment, the characters of the NBC TV show "Parks and Recreation" trying to figure out what the station is, how to find funds to save it, etc. Because, like it or not, that's often what it comes down to, and that show has some scary bases on reality. How do we pair up the Pawnee City Council and Parks & Recs Department with the reigning expert on the former railroad line (who lives three hundred miles away) and/or the archive that has the blueprints and history of the building (two hundred miles the opposite way)?

Even the term "railroad preservation" is not necessarily an obvious one to Joe Q. Public.

Even classic auto folks--who have a lot more profit motive and self-interest involved--aren't as organized as this dream of a centralized database/site. But we rail guys certainly have room for improvement. The question is, how best to improve the current situation?

Regarding someone finding the database among the "noise" of railroad websites and forums; anyone in the situation you describe would probably turn to a search engine to find what they are looking for; so you give your database website a clear, logical name; and make sure it is being crawled by the various search engines. You then publicize your efforts on RYPN and the various forums; the hope is that if someone pops in asking about how they can save that station, Alco switchers, or door fittings someone will refer them to it. That is pretty much how it works now.

The issue of databases of railroad items/resources have been popping up here quite a bit lately; I think a more serious problem is that right now most of the ones in existance are the work of a single individual. As long as that individual is motivated to keep that database going (and it isn't alway easy, as Steaminfo's comments about the negative e-mails he gets implies), life is good. But, if they pass on, or just get tired of messing with it; the database either gets stale or disappears. And creating it as a web application doesn't guarantee that it can be easily moved to another server; as once again pointed out by Steaminfo.

Unless you have actually undertaken such an effort; there are some things you may not realize or understand:

1. The scene is constantly changing. Stuff gets rescued, demolished, discovered, and moved on a regular basis. Few things are too large to change locations -- Big Boy locomotives, massive stations and offices, massive stationary steam engines, and ships have all been moved from one location to another; or fell in or out of use without bothering to tell anyone. You cannot put it together once, then not pick it up again.

2. Frankly, everyone wants it; but they want it for free; as revealed by the "not inconsiderable price" comment made here regarding my own databases. There is a reason why J. David Conrad has never released an update to his Steam Locomotive Directory; it was released in 1988, but I found and bought a brand new set in a train store in the mid 1990s.

(Yet, I found that those who pay for the information have a greater appreciation for it. I have not had the problem with negative e-mails that Steaminfo has had; but the one negative e-mail I did recieve was from someone who bought a copy for next-to-nothing when I attempted to sell them on e-bay.)

3. Once the database begins to become stale; it's usefulness gradually diminishes. I had to chuckle when Carter Construction #31 turned up recently in New Jersey, and one person mentioned searched multiple old databases to determine if it was a new find; I knew from a brief look in my database that it had not been documented as a survivor for quite some time, and was a new find.

In case we all forgot; there was an attempt to document all of the database resources out there right here on RYPN; but even that effort went by the wayside.

I said years ago; and still believe now, that the only way we will have the lasting, easy-to-find and up-to-date databases that everyone wants is for an organization to decide to pay for such an effort; and to purchase the software and hardware and hire the staff needed to maintain it indefinitely. Until then, you are at the mercy of individuals who are crazy enough to undertake such an effort, for as long as they care to, using whatever software, hardware and business model they care to.

(My hat's off to steaminfo for keeping the steamlocomotive.com site going as well as steamlocomotive.info, once Wes Barris moved to Australia and was going to let it lapse.)

Hello again!

Mr. Mitchell is right on point when metioning the fragmented nature of information sources. While I do not conceive of a complete roster of anything at this point, just a listing of what is endangered and at risk will need to be marketed sufficiently to make it worthwhile. It's been done elsewhere with less technology than we have at our disposal, so I am confident it will be not only viable but useful if given the full measure of our effort. Are there those who might be willing to lead the effort to coordinate the various necessary and interested parties, including websites, the NRHS, TRAIN, and ARM? Mr. Mitchell?
Sincerely,
Nathaniel Guest

The blunt fact of the matter is that there's no way to "profit" from documenting what's what/where in rail preservation. If there were, the ARM, Kalmbach, Carstens, L&RP Magazine, or someone else with the resources to finance the start-up would have done so/be doing so, and J. David Conrad wouldn't need a day job. (I discussed this kind of project with Kalmbach way back in the 1980s. They concluded it was too specialized a project to make a return on investment--and that was before the Internet was everywhere.)

The absolute best we can hope for would be for a foundation of some sort--possibly administered by the likes of the NRHS, R&LHS, ARM/TRAIN, or the like--to step in and lay out the formula and requirements, and set up a protocol that would be acceptable to everyone from the PRRT&HS to the owner of B&LE 643, and integrate already-existing data and allow for "wiki-style" updates, photo additions, etc., with oversight occasionally by some staffer or intern.

Here's an example, which I've brought up before:

http://bridgehunter.com/

This site consolidates one person's efforts, that of over a hundred contributors and editors (some of whom have added thousands of bridges and photos), numerous websites, Wikipedia, the Historic American Engineering Records, and even Google Maps and Bing Maps. It's not perfect by a long shot, but it's ludicrously more useful and informative than my shelf full of specialized books on historic bridges.

In an ideal world, someone like the National Trust for Historic Preservation or the American Society of Civil Engineers could see to it that this site gets a good, permanent home. As it is now, it's just as vulnerable to "disappearing" as RyPN and Steam Locomotive.com/.info.

Anyone good at writing grant proposals? Because I've given up on the NRHS and R&LHS doing anything towards a noble mission like this.

Nathaniel- thanks for the interesting post. I for one would like to see a nationwide database of preserved rail equipment. As noted by other posters we already have steam locomotives and electric railway equipment covered thanks to individual efforts, passenger cars would be a great next step.

It would be most interesting to understand how much historic rail equipment is out there, and it would of course be of great value to groups restoring cars to be able to find examples of similar equipment to look at. I brought up my interest in the database idea with John Hankey at the last ARM conference during his "Trainworld" discussion. Hopefully people will see value in the larger database as a preservation and advocacy tool.

I also like the idea of a national "Ten Most Endangered" list for railway preservation, but I think there first needs to be a more cohesive national movement for that to mean anything. Personally I like the direction that ARM and TRAIN are headed (combining forces), that can only help.

Personally I'm less enthused about the need for an 'emergency database', because I see it as being further down on the list of priorities for a national railway preservation movement. I think that what's critical at this juncture is to focus on getting the existing organizations on a firm footing. I'd have to say that right now many of the things that might appear at the top of an "endangered" list are currently in the care of long-established railway museums or other groups.

Not that I don't appreciate the thrill of the hunt and the thought of saving all this neat stuff, but as someone who has spent twenty plus years dealing with trying to keep it preserved once it gets to the museum, I am perhaps a bit jaded on the subject. Somewhere there is a line between the value of acquiring things to save them and "preserve the option for future restoration" and taking on such a burden that the entire place starts to assume the appearance of a scrap metal yard. If you load up the museum with so many goodies sitting outside decaying that visitors and other potential supporters are alienated, you're on a dead end street in terms of keeping this stuff around for future generations. Some places manage the balance quite well, others not so much. We certainly struggle with it at our place.

In any case, these comments are not meant to dissuade anyone from creating an emergency database, but my two cents is: let's be realistic and think about how many pieces that are already "saved" may end up on that list in the future if we don't do a better job of making our collections relevant to a broader audience and developing a rail preservation movement that passes the torch on to the next generation.

A well-known publisher of train videos purchased one of my CDs for review; he came back with some positive feedback, but the exact same conclusion. So much for my dreams of selling it in a mass market like Walmart....



I don't think you could get everyone on this forum, much less the entire rail community, to agree on a protocal; but I agree that a foundation should just grab the bull by the horns and take on funding such a project.

I do believe that any such effort needs a staffer or intern to review new entries before entering them into the database; I have found one of the hardest parts about maintaining a database like this is weeding out all of the duplicates. If every item in the database had a serial or builder's number it would be pretty easy; but often you don't have that luxury. So an engine that was at location A under one name for a few years shows up at location B under different markings, and gets reported as two different engines. And not every report you recieve is true; as witnessed by my experience with a particular engine reported to be in South Korea several years ago....

"It only works in practice. In theory, it's a total disaster." - said of Wikipedia

Yeah, they're thinking in terms of the old, traditional publishing scheme, where you keep data secret, then charge people to peep at it. The revenue model is ham-handed (1% of users pay 100% of costs, 99% of users don't use at all) and requires ham-handed anti-copying schemes, supposedly to motivate the 1% (though it turns out that was never true). I don't know if you've talked to any authors lately... but the old "put sweat of brows on dead trees and sell for $34.95" publishing paradigm has about as much of a future as the Rock Island.

Not that I can say I was ever impressed with its past. Know any railroad authors rolling in the clover from books? What do you suppose they actually got paid in dollars per hour?

The new paradigm is voluntary socialism. You publish the content on the web for free, putting the content in front of 100 times more people, plus even more people found later. You don't have to push your way into publisher catalogs, you're in Google. You build it with free, prebuilt software which happens to be the best in the world (voluntary socialism again). You don't even write the content; you let others come and create content on your site. You nurture the community and cash the Adwords checks. Anyone with a database, or a mind for one, ought to be in that game.

There's a LOT more money there.

JSMatlar,
In reference to a Passenger car List i currently have a paper back book out that lists all passenger cars preserved in the US. If interested let me know if you are interested in this information.
Thanks
Richard Wiesen

I am! Can you tell me how to get this book please.

P.S. I live in Australia- so I am assuming it is not available locally.

Wes

jsmatlar,
The cost of the book is $25.00 plus postage. My name is Richard Wiesen,7600 Westchester Drive, Belleville, Il. 62223. I don't have any idea as to what postage would cost to send this to you. I also have out books on Preserved Diesel locomotives,Preserved RR Freight Cars & MOW Equipment, & Preserved rr Equipment in Canada.

Thanks
Rich