RPM addendum

I enjoyed another RPM Chicagoland meet recently. A number of Pre-Depression Era modelers (the Pirates) attended, as seen in the lead image. That’s me, down in front. Two Pirates were missing at the time of the photo shoot. It was great to catch up with this group in face-to-face conversations and enjoy meals and drinks together. It’s been nine years since a couple of us began corresponding about railroads and industries of the 1900-1930 decades. We’ve learned a great deal from our collective and advanced our individual modeling skills.

The network of friends and prototype modeler meets are two parts of this hobby that bring me great joy. The information we share and the encouragement to push projects forward are fundamental to personal hobby satisfaction. Spending moments of time together at a prototype modeling event is icing on the cake.

I posted an RPM Chicagoland event summary on the Resin Car Works blog.

My 1900-1930 Pre-Depression Era Railroading presentation was well received at RPM Chicagoland. The point of the presentation was to discuss challenges and opportunities in modeling an earlier era than many consider. It’s mind-boggling to think these decades are now nearly one-hundred years past.

Several websites were referenced in the presentation and I didn’t have links to share. Who wants to type in a 34 character web address? I figured it would be easier to present these resource links in the blog post for everyone to access the information. Many of these were noted in the clinic and I added a few additional resources while compiling the links.

Sources for 1900-1930 Pre-Depression Era images and data

• Erie-Lackawanna Photo Archive
• Earl Tuson’s Freight Car finder site offers links to images of specific freight cars.
• Another of Earl’s resource pages includes links to Car Builder Dictionaries.
• The Library of Congress site is the mother lode of historic images.
• The Historic Pittsburgh site features thousands of historic images from several collections.
• This Pittsburgh interactive map site can keep you enthralled for days. Check out the different layers to view.
• Cleveland Memory offers a look at a huge number of historic images.
• The Cleveland interactive map site is similar to the Pittsburgh map site.
• City of Toronto photo archive
• The Toronto interactive map site is similar to the Pittsburgh map site.
• The University of Wisconsin – LaCrosse Historic Steamboat photos contain background details that feature railroads and industries along the rivers.
• The Denver Public Library photo archive is focused on Western history and images but there are photos of eastern railroads among the collection.
• The John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library Flickr site is a place you can disappear into for weeks.
• Rails and Trails offers a wealth of prototype data centered on Ohio.
• The B&O Historical Society company store is one of many historical societies offering reprints of company books, manuals, and other materials.
• The Steam Era Freight Cars website has modeling and prototype information. Most of it focuses on post-1940 prototypes but there are some earlier nuggets among the details.

That makes for a good start on prototype resources.

Lastly, here’s a gallery of images I took at the RPM. I snap shots of things that catch my eye. It’s impossible to capture everything on display.

I probably violated a blog rule by posting way too much text here. so I’ll end with a photo.

I tend to forget about snapping photos of my own model display at RPM meets. Many thanks to Jeremy Dummler for snapping this image and allowing me to use it here. Jeremy has posted an extensive gallery of RPM Chicagoland images.

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