We have an extra roll of the Baldwin Locomotive Works' "Standard Practice" book (approx. 1,008 pgs.) on silver positive microfilm available for $70 plus s/h. Any interested parties, please PM me. First-come, first served.

I'd love to have it for my research collection. Please let me know what shipping would be to 16505, Erie PA. Also, if you have any other items available, I'd like to see a list.

Thank you for offering this.

Susan Yosten

This is exactly the kind of resource that would be invaluable if available for downloading........nudge nudge.

dave

Downloading????????

Scanning time per page @ 2400dpi 30 seconds X 1008 pages = 504 minutes = 8 hours 24 minutes.

Storage space for aforementioned pages @5+MB/page (.tif or .psd format - NOT .jpg) 6GB approx online for access.

Software for site access -???? Just put it on FLICKR?

Upload times????

Nice project. What is the payback - even at cost? How many downloads anticipated?

Multiply the number of hours by 10 (at least) at your hourly rate to get your total cost.

So, what is 1 copy worth to you?

$70 is a bargain for microfiche. It's the transfer to contemporary media is the problem.

And, if you want to recoup your costs - fuggettit.

Sorry this is a labour of love for somebody's want.

Hell, it's worth more than $70 for a 1-off copy. Look at what the mass-produced 128 page hardcover books are going for nowdays.

Sorry, but just belly up & buy the goddamned thing if you want it it.
Handouts can be affected at the Salvation Army - but you have to listen to the band play.

Well.....actually, I already have hardcopy, and somebody else has bought the fiche, but......

Many old books are "out there" in the land of digital archives readily available for anybody who wants to seek out information in them. It's not a new invention, and no new structure for marketing and payback needs to be created. There is a limited market and no need for payback like any other obsolete book in a technical digital publicly accessable digital library. Hell, for any obsolete hardcopy book still in the collection of your public library for that matter.

For all I know it is already out there but I don't know where. If it isn't, it should be. Scans don't need to be manually generated any more, and I suspect especially not from film based media.

dave

Don't worry its already been scanned and is in the circles of the guys that build replica parts.

On CD or on the net?

dave

Well, as a CD and again as a document file.

The US Gov paid for it to be scanned and added to an archived collections of steam locomotive data for the FRA, if I understand that history correctly.

Also the book scanning effort was duplicated by an overseas gent and was shared as a document file, maybe .pdf, a couple of years ago.

If you want a copy, post a reply here and I will contact the guys that can help.

What is needed by the steam locomotive community now are copies of the 30+ Baldwin micro films of the Baldwin drawings resources that are kept at the Penn State Archives. If anyone is having a hard time deciding how to spend their savings and help this community before they take the great train ride to the sky, just let me know and I'll tell you how for about $1000-$1500 you could help the community for decades, maybe the next 100 years and get your name on it permanently by paying for that project, and the labor (mine anyway) is basically free, so its a bargain.

As I said, I have hardcopy, so this isn't about me.....it's about making the most knowledge available so we can all be smarter. If we can find an entity capable of hosting an online digital railway preservation archive willing to take this already digitized information, what a valuable resource it would be.

dave