Well, alot of historical MKT documents were destroyed in a fire this evening. A neighbor of mine who lived behind me was a retired Katy Engineer.
His home was gutted by a fire earlier this evening.
Alot of Paper items and and several builders plates from F-units were DESTROYED!
Got to go
It’s always sad when this sort of thing happens. I once had a friend who was a collector of railroad memorabilia. He collected paper goods related to the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Milwaukee Road and a few other roads. He went through a divorce, and his ex-wife managed to get her hands on a lot of old black and white photos that he had and she burned them!
Ray Loftesness II
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
Gee Jim,
Sorry to hear about your neighbors house…
That’s very sad[:(].
Jim, so very sorry to hear about your neighbor losing his house.
Jim,
That is very sad to hear about;losing a home and things that had
been collected over the years;I’m hoping that there were no injuries,
or worse to report from this.
This happens. The car that carried Lincoln’s body was carefully preserved for years but then lost in a tragic fire I think in the early 1900s. Of course the Baltimore RR Museum lost some marvelous stuff just a couple of years ago. Things are saved that ordinarily would be thrown away … and then things happen.
A well known Milwaukee railfan had something like 100,000 classic color slides some from the 1930s. His wife got angry and took an ice pick to a good many of them…
Dave Nelson
just an idea. some of those paper documents should be put in a fireproof safe box. I’ve got many train documents, although not too old, (some C&O, and Chessie system) i would hate if anything where to happen to them!
HEar Hear.
sorry to hear that
At least we have a Katy SD70ACe now…who saw that coming? Sorry about your neighbor’s house, I need a safe…no…a shipping container for all my Mo-Pac/Frisco/UP stuff!
There is something to be said for microfilm and digital scanning of old documents, especially those that are simply not available anywhere else, such as hand-written stuff.
And “off-site” storage isn’t a half bad idea, either - especially in the case of that jealous spouse with an ice pick…
I hope all women aren’t like that…I want to get married (when I’m much older), but if they’re all like that…I may have to rethink that decision.