From: roma@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Jon Roma)
Subject: Re: Conrail roads' archives - where?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 08:34:25 GMT

bobmacd@well.sf.ca.us (Robert MacDowell) writes:

>We did not save what I think was the most valuable:  literally tons of
>punch-cards with data from the late NYC and Penn Central years.  (Why
>more valuable?  try finding anything in two boxcars and a bull-quonset
>full of hand-written ledgers!  Whereas the punch cards can be scanned
>and discarded, then the information preserved, archived, compiled,
>*duplicated*, distributed across the Net, etc.  The data is
>propogated, at which point the punch cards themselves are worthless.
>Save a few for exhibit value and burn the rest.  Spare the museum the
>burden of archiving tons of smelly old paper.  But like I say, we
>didn't save them.  Would've been a huge project anyway.

I don't have any idea what was on the punch cards but I have a hunch
that this would have been the least valuable part of the collection.
The punch card data is quite likely payroll data or car accounting
data, both of which are next to useless for historical purposes.

IMHO, data associated with the ICC valuation survey is far more valuable than
any punch cards because the valuation data gives a detailed mile-by-mile
inventory (often with maps) of the physical property of the railroad, and
is frequently accompanied by photographs and detailed drawings of long-
forgotten buildings and other structures.  This data's value is increased
by the fortuitous coincidence that it was recorded roughly concurrent with
the peak of railroad mileage in the United States (i. e., 1915-1925).

Engineering files are also worth saving.  In addition to the detailed maps
that usually accompany them, the correspondence associated with the
planning and implementation of a project is often priceless.  The files
associated with projects never completed is often equally interesting.

If you have a selection of dispatcher train sheets, timetables, morning
reports, locomotive assignment sheets, or carloading data, you can start to
form a picture on the types of traffic and train movement patterns in effect,
say, fifty years ago.  This type of data tends to explain why things existed
where they don't exist any more.  And any good collection includes a
smattering of trivia just to give a small glimpse at railroad life in days
gone by.

The above is not an exhaustive list but it sums up the data I would view
as a priority for preservation.  I certainly don't enjoy having to make
the decision about which data is preserved and which data is consigned to
eternity.  Nevertheless, one one can seldom save everything and all one can
do is to do his best to save the data that will be the most useful.

Even after you've saved the collection from the wrecking ball, dumpster
or whatever, chances are that the constraints of space will require that
you throw some stuff out.

>Speaking of huge projects, this is the problem I *personally* have
>with this person saving all the old records.  The collection is simply
>too big to store properly (climate controlled stacks) let alone
>CATALOG!  It would be easy to loosely organize some of the
>"collection"; the valuation section books and maps could be separated
>by line and date, so you could at least *find* the book that showed
>maintenance expenses for the section house at Bronson, Mich.

>But then what?  The collection has to be in some sort of usable,
>researchable form before it's useful to anybody.

Yup, this is probably the biggest problem with archival of railroad
historical records.  Few railroads maintain historical archives.  And those
that do are generally limited in scope.  Your mission is to find a suitable
home for the data.  Stashing it in someone's garage or basement is not the
best approach because

(1)	Many collections have been lovingly preserved for years only to be
	destroyed following the collector's death by family members because
	they were uninterested in the data and unaware of its value.

(2)	The collection should be accessable to persons wishing to research
	it.  If the data isn't available to historians, its existance
	isn't really serving a useful purpose to anyone.

This sort of data is most appropriately kept in a library.  If there is
a railroad historical society with the desire and ability to preserve the
data, fine.  However, this is a daunting (and expensive!) task that many
volunteer organizations are not able to undertake successfully.  The next
alternative is to determine whether a private or public library (such as a
university or regional historical society is interested in preserving the
records as part of their collections.  A library is still going to be
limited by space, manpower, and funding (especially these days).  But
adding your data to an established collection is usually better than trying
and failing to preserve it on your own without the means to do.
-- 
Jon Roma
Computing and Communications Services Office,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Internet:  roma@uiuc.edu      	UUCP:      uunet!uiucuxc!uiuc.edu!roma
Newsgroups: rec.railroad