The Maryland Rail Heritage Library (a joint Baltimore Chapter NRHS and Baltimore Streetcar Museum archive) has recently unearthed, from an estate willed to the Baltimore Streetcar Museum a copy of the book "The Pennsylvania Railroad: Its Organization, Construction, and Management," by James Dredge, published 1879. It is primarily an engineering documentary, covering everything from track to bridges to locomotives and truck design to grain elevators. Even the design of the standard hexagonal switch tower is included. Eighty-two large plates.

In doing research into this utterly epic tome, I found that it has recently been digitized by the University of Pittsburgh and put online:

http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin ... c=pitttext

Sample images (note that there are a lot of blank pages in the Plates section):

Altoona's car shop details (and there are numerous Altoona buildings detailed in this tome!):

http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin ... ge&seq=371

Part One of the Canton, Md. dockside grain elevator:

http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin ... oot;size=s

Locomotives, Part One of many:

http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin ... oot;size=s

How to build a PRR whistle:

http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin ... oot;size=s

Now, it occurs to me that many, many other such valuable reference works have been, or are being, scanned and digitized in this fashion, by archives and libraries whose reason for existence is to preserve and make widely accessible, such information that would otherwise molder undiscovered on their shelves for decades.

Would it not be appropriate for societies such as the PRRT&HS, the B&O Historical Society, the ATSF Historical Society, etc. to a) seek out relevant books such as this on digital library archives such as this and other university/state archive websites; b) download and archive the work already done like this with public-domain books by public repositories like this simply as back-up, and c) set up a section of their website(s) to link to such online books and works such as these?

The work is already done, at someone else's expense (or our own, if tax dollars are involved). Works such as these are in the public domain. As historians, we owe it to those interested in such matters to facilitate access to such archives and materials in any way possible, lest no one in the future care about such things because they feel like the only way they'll ever see such stuff is to travel to Strasburg or Lewistown Junction, or pay $50-100 to someone who downloaded the PDF from this site or the Library of Congress onto a CD and sold it on eBay misrepresented as his own "hard work and investment".

Let me give kudos to the PRRT&HS. They seem to have a great assortment of material already scanned on available on their website. I have used their copies of the PRR Dining Car Dept. Recipe book/manual several times where the originals go for huge money when they turn up. Many of us just want the information, not the "prestige" of own old and rare printed material.

Would it not be appropriate for NRHS and R&LHS to promote such resources with links pages on their own websites? Their scope is national, and it is more effective to get the contact information to a larger audience through an organization with more members.

PC

Ever hear of a project called "Google Books" -- it's been around for several years and, for example, they scanned all four million volumes in the University of Michigan Library.

There are some copy write issues that come into play, but at a minimum it'll tell you that a book exists and where to find it.

Bob H

They don't do rare books though, since step one involves slicing off the spine.

Since many of the books we're most interested in are both rare and also a niche market, I don't know how many of those they have archived. Anyone know of railroad books on Google Books?

Google Books DOES do rare books. Their method DOES NOT involve slicing the spine.

There are thousands of rare volumes on Google Books, HathiTrust and Archive.org. Google's method, which has been patented involves automated page turning and overhead scanning does not damage the spine of the book. If it did, none of those university libraries would have signed off on the project.

As for the B&ORRHS, show us the money for the equipment/web server space we need and we'll talk.

-Nick Fry
Curator
Barriger Library

Former archivist B&ORRHS

One online archive that has already scanned numerous documents/photographs and continues to scan additional material is the Joint Archive of the Great Northern Railway Historical Society and the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association, located here: http://www.gn-npjointarchive.org/default.aspx

Most of the archival collection is physically located at Minnesota Transportation Museum's Jackson Street Roundhouse in St. Paul.

NPRHA: http://www.nprha.org/

GNRHS: http://www.gnrhs.org/

Some additional materials are housed at the Pacific Northwest Railroad Archive in Burien, WA, which is just to the south of Seattle: http://pnrarchive.org/default.aspx

Two online databases I reference frequently are:

Tom Madden's Pullman Project: http://pullmanproject.com/index.htm

Don Strack's Utah Rails: http://utahrails.net/index.php

While neither of these sites consist of actual archived materials, what they do consist of are the results of their respective efforts to collect the source materials and to present the information in an easily navigable and organized manner. The amount of data included on both sites is impressive.

First, it's "copyright."

Second, not always. There are quite a few books I've been handling here in this and a different estate that show up nowhere in Google Books.

Third, all it does is tell you, if you're unlucky, a title and author, maybe a date. Not whether it's any good. Not where the book might be located, either in physical presence or online. It occasionally takes the crafty use of several databases and online resources to identify and evaluate a book. (For example, the book in my original posts doesn't show up in Google Books except just as a title and author and date. You won't find it in Amazon, or AbeBooks, or Alibris. I had to dig in WorldCat to find that it was available online from the U. of Pittsburgh, and they've only uploaded it in the past few months. I went digging in another database, and found it also exists in a hard copy in a local university; you have to apply to have it brought up from Special Collections.)

Libraries and archives have different protocols for special collections. With some places, I've had to fill out a request strip for EACH INDIVIDUAL BOOK OR PHOTO just to see whether it was even the scope of what I might be looking for. I wasted more time waiting for them to return than I did driving there and back, and that was a long day. Other places put you through a screening process that makes the most Draconian airport security seem casual, but then essentially turn you loose in the photo folders or shelves.

I'm now conversing with a fellow RYPN-er that has now seen the book over our lunch and wants to do something to make it more widely available, in more detail, to those interested in such matters--"slobbering PRR foamers," live-steam modelers, model building scratchbuilders, Model Railroader, etc. Stay tuned.

Almost 2000 Minnesota streetcar photos and other items from the Minnesota Streetcar Museum collection are online at www.msmuseum.org, then click on Historic Photos.

Also, the Minnesota Historical Society has many excellent rail photos at www.mnhs.org

Aaron Isaacs, photo archivist
Minnesota Streetcar Museum

Though the Trolley Museum of New York's photo collection isn't large compared to some others, it is all listed on the web site with a bit over 10% scanned: http://www.tmny.org/main.php?p=tmnyarch

Cough, almost 30k photos of Conrail stuff, cough: http://thecrhs.org/ConrailPhotos