What will happen to historical/prototypical accuracy once everyone who lived in that era is gone?

[Allegheny1600]

Regarding memories there is a well known phenonemon whereby people use knowledge to build a memory into something it isn't (subconsciously, it's not deliberate) so for example someone may remember seeing steam locos passing their house as a child and years later they discover that 8F 48151 worked to their area, their brain ties the two together and they have a generated memory of 48151 passing their house.

There is also the problem of, as my Grandfather used to say "Those who think they know everything, annoying those of us that do"!

By which, I mean that some people are very keen to show how much they know, when in reality, they don't know that much at all. This kind of thing can get into print/on the internet all too easily.

Another of Grandfathers sayings "Believe half of what you see, a quarter of what you read and nowt you hear".

[Nearholmer]

"Will all of them be digitised in the future, and available online?"

 

Going by the rate of progress by major libraries, and by publishers, I would expect the answer, eventually, to be 'yes'.

 

But:

 

- accessing material that the author still has rights over might involve payment (pay per view ought to be cheaper than buying the book/magazinehough); and,

 

- search and find still won't be 'effort free'; and,

 

- obscure railway-enthusiast literature is likely to be low on the priority- list for digitisation. How many people in the world really want to view a copy of "Diesels on the Skeggy Line (1967-74)"?

[Hroth]

... obscure railway-enthusiast literature is likely to be low on the priority- list for digitisation. How many people in the world really want to view a copy of "Diesels on the Skeggy Line (1967-74)"?

 

About as many as went out and photographed them in the first place!

 

Mind you, dirty blue diesels are quite popular nowadays.....

[jonny777]

There is also the problem of, as my Grandfather used to say "Those who think they know everything, annoying those of us that do"!

By which, I mean that some people are very keen to show how much they know, when in reality, they don't know that much at all. This kind of thing can get into print/on the internet all too easily.

Another of Grandfathers sayings "Believe half of what you see, a quarter of what you read and nowt you hear".

 

 

 

Yes, this could be a real problem. 

 

I remember a discussion about the chances of a class 44 reaching Boston in the 1960s; and it was declared very possible on the basis that Toton drivers signed 44s, and Toton had a regular goods turn to Boston. 

 

Now I lived by that line in the 1960s and never saw anything other than 20s or 25s on that train. Mind you, I was not viewing the activity 24/7 throughout the decade and so I couldn't prove that one never appeared; but I would think it to be highly unlikely. 

 

On another occasion a person told me in all seriousness and very forcefully, that there was no carriage livery of plum and spilt milk, it was just another name for crimson and cream. 

[ejstubbs]

A running gag on archaeological excavations is that any unidentifiable metal object is routinely (if tentatively) described as a piece of "horse harness" since that's impossible to argue with. Other unidentifiable objects are frequently described as being likely to have a religious significance of some sort

 

Looking at it the other way round, when I was doing Computer Science at Uni, the lecturer whose job it was to teach us the rudiments of COBOL opened his first lecture with the following story:

 

Hundreds of years in the future, the buried remains of this computer laboratory may be discovered and excavated by archaeologists.  They will carefully conserve and document their finds, and put some of them on display in a museum.  A fragment of FORTRAN might be labelled "Apparently used primarily for programming scientific and mathematical functions".  A scrap of BASIC might be identified as "a simple programming language designed for end users with limited technical knowledge".  A deck of 80 column cards containing an entire COBOL program would likely be categorised as "probably used for religious or ceremonial purposes".

 

(Note: this joke usually only works with computer scientists of a certain age.)

[Mike Storey]

Personal memory is about as inaccurate a source as you will probably find. I am trying to design and then build a layout based specifically on a certain place and certain period, where I worked for two years or so in the early '80's (that's 1980's for pre-groupers....). Just for starters, I had the dates I worked there wrong from the off - I was a year out when I eventually tracked down my service history! Then as people on here ask things about the area, the operations and the infrastructure, I find myself getting vaguer and vaguer, despite having amassed quite a lot of contemporary pics, documents and diagrams, as I realise I had forgotten much and mixed up other stuff with other locations.

 

So my layout will only be a representation of what I think it was, abetted by some true stuff, and a host of comments from other people's versions!

[Poggy1165]

Personal memory is a very frail and unreliable thing. As I have grown older, I have discovered (in myself) the phenomenon of "false memory". That is to say, my memory tells me that such-and-such a thing is true, but when I research it I find that I am mistaken. This happens particularly with dates and, for example, when such a type of train replaced another. I wish I had a £ for every time someone has told me a fact that I know, and can prove, is just plain wrong.

 

Frankly, I question whether anyone can produce a 100% accurate model of anything that existed before yesterday. We have neither sufficient data nor sufficient photographs. A particular problem for those modelling more recent times is that colour photography can give a false impression of real colour, and another is that digitalised photographs can vanish like ghosts at cock-crow. All it takes is for the internet site they are on to go out of business. Indeed, many recent photos only exist on someone's computer or memory card.

[Talltim]

I’ve asked a question before, only to find through further research that I’ve previously answered my own question in the past.

[Nearholmer]

In our house, this is known as ‘alteration shop syndrome’, after a case where I sent SWMBO miles out of her way to a dry-cleaning shop that did clothing alterations, fixing-up hems, that sort of thing, that was opposite a particular tube station. Except, of course, that it wasn’t, and never had been!

 

The really weird part about it is that I still have a photographic memory of this non-existent shop, on the corner of two streets, a step across from the station, with a woman working away at a sewing machine, altering a pink dress, in the window.

 

Goodness knows where this false memory came from, but it’s made me suspicious of my recollections ever since, and Confirmed SWMBOs worst fears about my mental state.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...A deck of 80 column cards containing an entire COBOL program would likely be categorised as "probably used for religious or ceremonial purposes"...

 It is a real problem that there is typically insufficient technical knowledge among those recording or attemping investigation of history. Splendid examples in the bible of inappropriate materials for weapons. Here's some ivory tower scribe making a muck of what the soldiers were having problems with: it is just so unlikely that an 'iron chariot' was the problem, but iron tipped weapons that the technically capable hostiles in their chariots had: now that is far more probable. Likewise Herodotus who at least wrote down the sailor's account of having rounded the Cape of Good Hope with the key element of evidence that supports the story, even though he didn't credit it as true. Had he had the geometric insight of his mathematically inclined peers...

 

Then the archaelogists are almost always fascinated with the artwork. You need a stack of tech before there's enough free time to make pretty stuff, go dig the slag heaps and grungy 'industrial' areas if you want real information about how a past society worked. Thankfully this aspect is getting some real attention now.

[Reorte]

I'm OK with dealing with memories of dates - I can never remember them anyway, so there's little point in trying. The closest I get is "when I lived in such-and-such a place", and that's usually only for memories that happened there. If I hadn't started my current job in 2000 (at least that's an easy one to remember) I'd have to look it up to know.

[Coryton]

 We have neither sufficient data nor sufficient photographs. A particular problem for those modelling more recent times is that colour photography can give a false impression of real colour, and another is that digitalised photographs can vanish like ghosts at cock-crow. All it takes is for the internet site they are on to go out of business. Indeed, many recent photos only exist on someone's computer or memory card.

 

But aren't the here today, gone tomorrow, photographs on the internet ones that thirty years or so ago would only be seen by a few people anyway? Then, most recent photographs only existed as a single print in someone's house, not put on the internet for other people to see (and download).

 

So far as I can see, the existence of lots of photos on-line hasn't reduced the quantity of those available in books and magazines, so I really don't think that things are getting any worse.

[The Stationmaster]

False memory can be a problem (hence I try to check things as often as I can against usually reliable primary sources and my own photos, bt there does seem to have been another kind of false memory developing in the model railway world.

 

The problem is that modellers often seem to imagine and then model something as it was on the basis of how it is now, and vice versa.  Thus the generally tidy and well kept linesides and yards that were the most common sights until the late 1960s and even into the early 1970s are represented by the weed strewn ground and the overgrown sidings and embankments etc more redolent of today.  Somehow a false 'modellers' memory' has been created and has taken root as the norm.  Equally methods of train working seem very often to reflect a similar sort of false idea where research of even the most basic kind hasn't taken place.

 

My own concern is that in some cases what has been created as the false memory will become the real memory because of the way models portray things.

[Andy Hayter]

And because of that the advice that used to be very common.  Never base your model on a model only on the prototype.

[APOLLO]

Not many tidy yards round Wigan Mike !!! This is just how I remember Ince Moss junction.

 

 

But I agree not everywhere was grotty. 

 

As to historical accuracy, the above photo is a case in point. I just Google imaged "Ince Sidings" and this photo came up. Undated but the arms are off the junction signals  for the former 4 track line to Bryn, so sometime in the 60's.

 

The internet has helped tremendously over the last few years as a source of information, especially photographic - it's not perfect - but it's a great help (to me anyway !!).

 

And yes I have the occasional revelation when I find evidence (usually on the net and once or twice here on rmweb) that my long held beliefs were quite wrong. Doesn't really bother me - just accept it & move on along !!

 

Brit15

Edited January 24, 2018 by APOLLO

[Coryton]

I'm OK with dealing with memories of dates - I can never remember them anyway, so there's little point in trying. The closest I get is "when I lived in such-and-such a place", and that's usually only for memories that happened there. If I hadn't started my current job in 2000 (at least that's an easy one to remember) I'd have to look it up to know.

 

That's one advantage of moving round a lot - you can remember roughly when something happened because of where you lived at the time.

 

I don't recommend it though.

[jjb1970]

I had an example of the fallibility of memory today. I was discussing one of my former ships with a colleague and he pulled her up on a database we subscribe to plus the Equasis database and just about every "fact" I remembered was wrong. And that is something I remembered from less than 20 years ago.

[Coryton]

I had an example of the fallibility of memory today. I was discussing one of my former ships with a colleague and he pulled her up on a database we subscribe to plus the Equasis database and just about every "fact" I remembered was wrong. And that is something I remembered from less than 20 years ago.

 

My theory is that we keep moving into parallel universes without realising it.

 

Of course that doesn't explain memories I have that contradict each other...

[TheSignalEngineer]

I'm OK with dealing with memories of dates - I can never remember them anyway, so there's little point in trying. The closest I get is "when I lived in such-and-such a place", and that's usually only for memories that happened there. If I hadn't started my current job in 2000 (at least that's an easy one to remember) I'd have to look it up to know.

I was trying to date some old photos of spotting trips for which the notebooks have long since vanished. I was convinced that they dated from 1962 but I recently found, being used as a bookmark, a compartment reservation label for the journey home dated 1961. Edited January 24, 2018 by TheSignalEngineer

[pH]

How much of what's currently available on the internet will continue to be so? To take a very small example, I have pictures up on Flickr. I pay an annual fee for that, paid automatically by credit card. When I shuffle off this mortal coil, those payments will stop as the credit card is cancelled, and those pictures will no longer be available. I'm sure there are many others in the same situation.

Edited January 24, 2018 by pH

[TheSignalEngineer]

I noticed that happening a while ago to sites I had visited and bookmarked in the dim past. Since then I have taken to saving copies of any photos and text that I want to have for future project reference. No doubt the file will be consumed in the flames shortly after me. 

[OnTheBranchline]

False memory can be a problem (hence I try to check things as often as I can against usually reliable primary sources and my own photos, bt there does seem to have been another kind of false memory developing in the model railway world.

 

The problem is that modellers often seem to imagine and then model something as it was on the basis of how it is now, and vice versa.  Thus the generally tidy and well kept linesides and yards that were the most common sights until the late 1960s and even into the early 1970s are represented by the weed strewn ground and the overgrown sidings and embankments etc more redolent of today.  Somehow a false 'modellers' memory' has been created and has taken root as the norm.  Equally methods of train working seem very often to reflect a similar sort of false idea where research of even the most basic kind hasn't taken place.

 

My own concern is that in some cases what has been created as the false memory will become the real memory because of the way models portray things.

What is an example of your version of a false memory becoming a real memory?

[JCL]

On digitizing photo collections, I'm a member of the Great Northern Railway Society and two of us are involved in a project to digitizing the GNRS's collection of photos to make them available to our members in searchable galleries. The photos are jpgs and have been scanned full size and with no compression (i.e. largest file size). By doing this, we will have six copies of the photos:

• the originals
• a set of files on the digitizer's computer
• a set on my computer (and my computer's backup drive)
• on the internet
• on the hosting company's backup tapes (or whatever they use).

That's a lot of copies. I am hoping that we can also have a commenting system with the photos at some point so that people can not only easily see the photos, but provide new information about them if possible. With regards to accuracy, this is no different to accuracy anywhere else. 

 

Until recently, there was only one copy, the one on photographic paper, so if there had been a flood or fire where the photos were stored, then the photos would have probably been lost. Indeed this did happen a few decades ago when a lot of GNR documents were lost to fire. Also, as far as I know, the GNR also trashed loads of documents.

 

With regards to collection, the GNRS pays for the hosting for the website through member subscriptions, and as long as there are enough people interested in and care about the GNR then that will continue. The jpg format is very long in the tooth now and a number of attempts to replace it have failed. I don't doubt that one day it will be superseded, but given its current popularity I don't think software and browsers will end support anytime soon.

 

I'm very confident that, with regards to technology, things are generally better now than they ever have been - if you're careful. The caveat is that I would never trust my photos to the likes of Flickr, Photobucket, Instagram, 500px, etc. While I have some photos on Flickr, my originals are at home. Many people have uploaded photos to online storage services land deleted their originals only to find that the service goes under, or in the case of Photobucket, stops allowing the ability to link to those photos on 3rd party sites. 

 

pH, as far as I'm aware, after you stop paying, your account currently reverts back to a free account but your photos will be available unless you have used more storage space than the free account allows. My concern wouldn't be this, but Flickr being pulled by its new owners if they can't make a profit from it.

 

If anyone is worried about their collection after they've gone and nobody to give them to, they could consider donating them to a historical society or some other institution.

Edited January 25, 2018 by JCL

[Bernard Lamb]

How much of what's currently available on the internet will continue to be so? To take a very small example, I have pictures up on Flickr. I pay an annual fee for that, paid automatically by credit card. When I shuffle off this mortal coil, those payments will stop as the credit card is cancelled, and those pictures will no longer be available. I'm sure there are many others in the same situation.

 

Which is why you need to have them preserved in at least two locations. If they are of real value. The local museum or special interest society and a national dedicated archive should be the minimum. Only the other day I was looking for details of the local Mayor from a date a couple of hundred years or so ago. No luck on the internet but an email to the local historian produced a list going back to 1539. To get political for a moment, government cut backs make the keeping of such records by local authority bodies much more uncertain. In ten or twenty years time the information available is going to vary depending on the location and degree of interest as to the importance of recording the past.

Bernard

[Coryton]

I noticed that happening a while ago to sites I had visited and bookmarked in the dim past. Since then I have taken to saving copies of any photos and text that I want to have for future project reference. No doubt the file will be consumed in the flames shortly after me. 

 

Quite. And I'm sure you're not the only one.

 

And it only takes one of those copies to survive, as opposed to a single print in someone's album that gets chucked in a skip if  they die and have the misfortune to fail to leave any relatives with appropriate interests behind.