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Monday, July 11, 2011

NMRA National Convention, Sacramento-3

In this brief post, I want to allude to a panel discussion held at the NMRA Convention, organized by Jack Burgess, which was conducted by Jack, Tony Koester, Kyle Wyatt of CSRM, Richard Hendrickson, and myself. The topic for the panel was how to do research on the prototype.
     We covered such subjects as photo collecting, the Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER), federal resources such as the ICC Valuation records, maps and aerial photos, railroad industry (trade) publications, railroad historical societies, original railroad documents and records, and more. Each of the panelists contributed a few Powerpoint slides to a combined presentation, which we all took turns using as we spoke in sequence. Tony Koester wrapped up our presentation by showing how he has used many of these same research approaches and techniques in creating and improving his own model railroad.
     Some of what we presented is doubtless known to many, but I am confident that some of the insights and recommendations will be new to a lot of people. It is always difficult to summarize such information in an abbreviated text, which naturally served originally as a set of reminders for an oral presenter, but it’s what we have tried to do.
     Jack turned our collective information into a handout-like document which is now available on line at the convention’s website, at: http://www.x2011west.org/handouts.html
You will need to scroll down the listing to find the one under Jack Burgess’s name. The one for our panel is a 6-page document summarizing the factual parts of what we presented. It includes an evidently complete list of railroad historical societies and their web addresses, compiled primarily by Richard Hendrickson.
     It’s worth mentioning that a number of the “handouts” on that web page are actually the Powerpoint presentations themselves (in PDF form), so you can view what the convention attendees viewed (though of course without the presenter’s narration). For example, the clinic presentation by Rich Malone about building working frog-eye markers for SP cabooses (a post-1961 topic) is very interesting and complete. But many presentations include material such as photographs or items of artwork which have copyright restrictions and, though permissible to use in an oral presentation, cannot be “published” on the Internet unless permission is obtained.
Tony Thompson

8 comments:

  1. I enjoyed your waybills clinic. You mentioned a book on layout planning that was quite a bit thicker that some of the Kalmbach offerings. Do you recall what book that was?

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  2. The "other" book was also published by Kalmbach. It is by Bruce Chubb, and is entitled "How to Operate Your Model Railroad." The newer (thinner) book from Kalmbach is by Tony Koester and is entitled "Realistic Model Railroad Operation." Both are readable and informative, but Chubb's book is roughly twice as big and contains considerable material not in Koester's book. Though out of print for some years, the Chubb book is readily available from used book dealers on the internet.
    Tony Thompson

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  3. Thanks for the info Tony. I somehow thought I would remember that from Sunday, but after about 15 clinics, some details were forgotten. I just found the book using addall.com (great site for searching books, old and new).

    I visited Tom Weissgerber's layout Friday, and he used the clear sleeve waybill system. It was great to see it in operation so soon after attending your clinic.

    BTW, I'm a bit of a font junkie, and I have a collection of 30+ (free) typewriter fonts. One of them may be more characteristic of an old typewriter than the mom's typewriter font. I can send them to you if you are interested.
    JT

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  4. Yes, I've operated at Weissgerber's layout, and enjoyed his waybills. The system differs slightly from mine and was set up by Jeff Aley. Tom's is a really fine layout overall, not just its waybills!

    Well, I'm a bit of a font geek myself, so yes, I'd like to see additional typewriter fonts. Sure wish there was a realistic Teletype digital font, with all the uneven letters, etc.
    Tony Thompson

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  5. I have edited the "Teletype 1945-1895" font so that the characters are offset. It may be close to what you are looking for. Shoot me an email and I can reply and attach the font.
    JT

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  6. JT, please send me an email (the blog info contains my email, but in case it's hard to find, use thompson@signaturepress.com). The blog comments do not include your email address.
    Tony Thompson

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  7. Other sources: For historic aerial photos, www.historicaerials.com and Google Earth both have data sets going back into the 1950's (at least for California).

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  8. Thanks, Robert. I've forwarded the info to Jack Burgess, who will add it to our web document from the convention seminar. That document location is cited in the main body above, but here it is again: http://www.x2011west.org/handouts.html

    Tony Thompson

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