Guys, what I'm about to say is no personal attack on the above individuals, so don't take it as such.

Here you have the "horses' mouths," so to speak, who were actually there, who actually owned the stuff or made it happen, and even THEY can't remember for certain everything they've done with regards to certain activities.

As a photo researcher and archivist, I've run into this situation all the time. Someone says definitively that this is a photo of an excursion in "1968" and I pull up multiple documentations that the loco didn't get to the East until 1970 or whatever. Or we get a miscaptioned photo or slide. So who am I going to call a liar? The guy who supposedly was there? Trains Magazine's 1970 issues? The carefully researched list of excursions operated out of Gotham City over the years, citing multiple newsletters and flyers as sources? The processing date on the slide, and/or the guide sheet to Kodak mounts by date? Is the guy just mistaken, or is he a blowhard wannabe "historian"?

A couple of the "walking encyclopedias" in our library are starting to show the symptoms of advanced age. The honest ones won't say anything for sure without looking it up in their notebooks or roster books or whatever. The dishonest ones, whether they know they're dishonest or not, simply proclaim what they think is so, and expect everyone to believe them. I suspect a lot of the popular "urban legends" of railroading stem from such false information spread. Others spread from "historians" simply making stuff up, and get perpetuated by later historians citing them. (My reading of Christian Wolmar's The Great Railroad Revolution, possibly the only railroad history book most public libraries will get this decade, gets quite interesting as my skepticism meter keeps going off, with good reason or not.)

If I want to be nice about it, I'll say "trust but verify." If I want to be more critical, I'll repeat the old reporter's adage, "If your mother says she loves you, check for proof."

You could do what most reporters today do: simply say "Source said "insert quote here." This absolves them of having any responisbility to actually find out facts beyond who made a statement.

dave

Back to the topic at hand...


I have enough information now to confirm C&CV was Erie #4 and is now a childrens' art studio in NJ.

D&H #200 apparently became NdeM 3587 the Presidente Francisco Madero and survived until at least 2007 judging by pics online. If she is still with us, any part of her that's original turns 120 this year.

And we now know the "Trustees Car" was NYC #7/Brothers Two.

Still trying to confirm the #3985 picture is Cheyenne, but it is looking good. There are many references to the UP's historic collection being stored in the roundhouse, but the slides I have show them all (833, etc...) outside, except #8444.

Rob

HI Robert

The shot of GMR # 89 in Rutland, Vt , I do not have a date of that trip , But the advertising on her tender , was in 1966. How I found that out I was watching a video today , and there was a shot of her hauling a fan trip out of East Hartford,Ct to Springfield , Mass on the New Haven Railroad Amory branch , with F. Nelson Blount at the throttle , and she was carrying the same advertising in the tender, and the trip was in 1966 . Pat.

I assume that'd be 4023 back there, as both were stored in the roundhouse in Cheyenne. That said, I thought they were both inside until '73. Why are they outside in '68?