From: bobmacd@well.sf.ca.us (Robert MacDowell)
Subject: Re: Conrail roads' archives - where?
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 03:29:12 GMT


In message <92341.130832GRW104@psuvm.psu.edu>,
GRW104@psuvm.psu.edu  (G. Weaver) queries:
>
> Does anyone know where the company papers and records of
> the Conrail predecessor railroads ended up (PRR/NYC/PC,
> EL/Erie/DL&W, CNJ, RDG, L&HR, LV, etc.)?  The Hagley Museum
> in Delaware has, I believe, some Reading material; Penn State
> Univ. has PRR middle division papers,  but where is all
> the rest?  Museums?  Libraries?  Trashed?  Still at Conrail,
> or with the non-rail successors to the bankrupt companies (e.g.,
> the new Penn Central (real estate)?

When Conrail moved out of Michigan Central Depot in Detroit, many of
the records for the Michigan Central and New York Central in the
reigon went in the dumpster.

But many did not.  Paul Maximuke, a member of the Southern Michigan
Railroad Society, was able to save a small amount of the material;
only two boxcars and a bull-Quonset hut full :-) of valuation section
books, maps, old tickets, et.al.  The SMRS helped him move it, but
I am unclear as to whether it is *our* collection, or *his*.

I will say the materials are stored under cover.  However, they are
stacked in boxes in damp, unheated quarters, and they are not
cataloged or organized.  I can put you in touch with the fellow who
has all this stuff, and might even know where to find something you're
after.  <maybe>.  You might wind up spending a weekend or three in
Clinton, Michigan, though.  (I highly recommend the Clinton Inn.)

<editorial-on>

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.

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. We've looked through
some of it, and by accident, we trip across tidbits of information.
So, on October 7, 1930, they spent $9.14 replacing planks on the motor
car setoff.

Yes, but what did they spend division-wide on motor car facility
maintenance in general?  How many board-feet of lumber did the
Michigan Central use in 1930?  How did World War II impact the MC's
consumption of lumber, coal, lamp oil, signal bulbs, tires, etc.?
Where did the MC buy the ballast they used on (your museum's) branch
line in the years 1930-present?  And what did they pay for it?

The information's *there*, but not in usable form.  It would take
hundreds of man-years to compile the statistics, which is exactly what
it took the Michigan Central when they made all this paper, and
*somewhere* the information is already written down, but *where?* is
it in our collection?  Did Conrail keep it?  Or was it in the stuff we
missed, that went to the dumpster?

You really need a resident librarian who really knows his collection,
in order to make it useful to a researcher. ~$40,000/year. Ka-CHING!

And the possibility of converting it to machine readable form...  ha!
It would take tens of thousands of man-hours just to set the pages on
the scanner, and what of handwriting recognition and/or image storage?
All I can see to do with this collection is hope that the interest and
computer technology comes available to virtualize it before it turns
to dust.

Sorry for the flame. I really *am* in favor of archives of this sort.
But decent, well-funded, research-library-type *useable* archives, not
a Large Number Of Cubic Feet Of Boxes Of Books like we have now.

"Save everything forever" is a sweet notion.  It's an attempt to
achieve immortality, at least for the things we care about, the things
that define us.  But too many (young) (rail) museums have created
collections so large that they can't even maintain them let alone
restore them, and the artifacts are slowly disintegrating.
The "everything" costs them the "forever".

We've got "everything".

But hurry.

We've traded away the "forever".

<editorial-off>

If you want to see the collection of MC and NYC records, drop me a
line and I'll give you Paul Maximuke's address.  (I don't know how
he'd feel about me broadcasting his address on the Net.)

-- Bob MacDowell
236 West Portal Ave #224, San Francisco, CA, 94127, 415-512-5930
Southern Michigan Railroad Society, PO Box K, Clinton, MI 49236 - 517-456-SMRS
The SMRS is an operating railroad museum in southeast Michigan, and
I speak for myself, (obviously :-) not it.