During my research to create a CB&Q Freight Car Roster, a large number of very
generous people provided me with the CB&Q pages from ORER's, and I ended up
with at least one issue for almost every year from 1885 to 1970. Now that the
Roster is finished (to be published by the BRHS in due course), I thought of
putting the ORER pages onto discs for sale by the Society.
It is still early days but I envision perhaps two discs - 1885 to 1935 and
1925-1970 - with an overlap to cover the middle years. The discs would include
the subsidiaries until they disappeared during 1904-9, together with the
various C&S, FW&D, BREX, BTL, etc. pages that I collected. The early years also
included passenger equipment details.
The big problem is quality. The pages were variously photocopied, scanned and
photographed, using different resolutions and standards, with varying results.
The books themselves were not designed to be scanned or photocopied (and become
fragile with age) and getting a good copy without removing the pages was almost
impossible. Some of the copies I received were exhibition quality, others were
barely readable. I've started cleaning and repairing the pages but some will
always be blurred or very dark. The number of cars in a number group (being
listed at the edge of the page) often requires replacement and in some cases,
it has been necessary to totally reconstruct the page using the next or
previous issues. This is an extremely slow process (two evenings work for a
single page reconstruction) and some pages will never be great although they
are more than adequate for research purposes.
Am I wasting my time? Given that the quality will never be perfect, will there
be a demand for the end product? Would you buy the disc if it was available?
Rupert Gamlen
Auckland NZ
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