Some 1999 photos of the abandoned Rock Island backshop at El Reno, Oklahoma.

http://www.edisaurus.com/trains/crip/el_reno99.htm
ryarger@rypn.org

> Some 1999 photos of the abandoned Rock
> Island backshop at El Reno, Oklahoma.

What a great page of photo concerning railroading in the Oklahoma/Kanasas area in the twilight of the Rock.

Hopefully the Rock shops will stay up long enough someone could do something with them.

We talk alot about preserving steam-era shops here (a wrothy subject), but hardly any early diesel era shops have been preserved.

How about an interpetative museum concerning the effect on shops and shop worker on the Deisel/Steam change-over. Image all the subjects that could be covered:

-Dying out of trades.
-Birth of new trades.
-Change in motive power stratagy and allocation.
-Effect of standardiztion.
-Effect of technology in daily work.
-Effects of lay-off/dying of traditional steam trades on community.
-Display of first and early 2nd generation power.
Display of cut-trough Alco 244s, 251s, EMD 567s etc.

I know, it could be a pipe dream. But in 1950, the Colorado Rail Museum, Steamtown, National Trasportation Museum and California State RR Museum also seemed like pipe-dreams.

terry_dempsey@hotmail.com