Where does a person find pictures of Steam era freight cars that can be purchased including the rights to reuse and redistribute? Any ideas? i know zip on how this process works. Thanks, Scott
Scott:
First, I recommend you join this group for starters. This is the steam era freight car modelers group at yahoo and they know the sources for photos.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/?yguid=188066312
There are a number of sources that sell steam era freight car photos and the list is too long to list here. Many of these folks show up at the larger train meets and proto modeler conventions. Some do mail order, some do not. Some have catalogs.
Generally, in this hobby, the person or organization that owns the original negative or slide owns the copyright to the photo. If he or she owns the original negative or slide but was not the photographer, the photo should be credited upon publication as taken by so and so (photographer if known but optional) and collection of so and so (owner). Most folks in this hobby that own photo rights are OK with publication as long as you ask permission first and they get a copy of the publication. A very few also want the photo rate if it is published in a magazine or perhaps even an additional fee. Historical societies and other archives may have very high publications fees, say as much as $25 to $50 per photo (in addition to the cost of the photo), but they often have to pay someone’s salary to handle and archive the material, overhead to keep the negatives in a secure, temperature controlled environment and also disuade folks from buying up their photos and distributing them or reselling copy photos. The money can also be used to purchase additional material and support other activities. It’s for a good cause. In my experience, a very few organizations don’t have the manpower or funding to offer photos to the public so there you go… Warning! Don’t donate your photos and memorbilia to such a
grizlump
Great site, thanks for posting it.
glad you liked it. i wish it had more stuff on it. guess the problem is back in those days nobody was running around with a hundred dollar digital camera so we are lucky to get what there is.
another thing that bothers me is how hard it is to find pics of both ends of the same car.
just a guess but i bet it would be easier to kit bash or scratch build some of that older equipment than the modern stuff out there today.
if you go back to that site, check out the CGW bulkhead flat car. i am going to do that one for sure from a few athearn flats i have sitting around.
grizlump
Thanks for the information. I am now a member of that news group 
I am looking to start my own “collection” I guess but would like to be able to post the pictures with out fear of getting in trouble.
Check out The Fallen Flag websites. Type into search ,Fallen Flag Railroads. Yours, The Ferrequinologist