Pssst! Wanna know a secret? Are you interested in finding out more about your favorite railroad or chosen era? Would you like to know what the railroads do? What they haul and where they hauled it? How about their operating procedures, or even just to sit and have some fun watching your favorite classic trains roll by in their actual, authentic, true-to-life prototype settings? Well, if that’s what you want, you’re in luck! I happen to know the magic secret that’ll open up the door to a wonderful, online resource chock full of railroading history for your perusing pleasure… Ready? All you gotta do is pull up your favorite search engine and type “Railroad Industry Historic Films” into the search box and hit “Go”, it’s that easy.
The online site I use the most is this forum. Not only do our fellow community members share their “Pearls of Wisdom” but quite often they post links to other helpful sites.
Bing Maps “Birdseye view” I use to get a different perspective of industries, buildings, and the general lay of the land, is just one of those posted links.
I also must admit that I never seem to be able to come up with the “correct” phraseology when it comes to using search engines, end up getting frustrated, hate computers and "their time wasting", and so am grateful to those that can and share that Information, like yourself tonight with the “Railroad Industry Historic Films” though that information in itself can be a two edged sword in that I have just spent 45 minutes looking at 50s Railroad movies that I hadn’t intended too!! Curses!! [:D]
The online site I use the most is http://www.onrgallery.com/ The owner, Mike Robin has a very nice collection of Ontario Northland pictures and some video.
Library of Congress website/ www.loc.gov , then “American Memory”
§ Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record
§ Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920
America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945. I recognize that’s where the yard scene on jwhitten’s original post came from.
