Afternoon from sunny Manchester,
I don't know wether this is a case of Granny and sucking eggs, but I felt I had to post this.
One of the purposes of this superb beast which we all are part of is the free exchange of information. However, there is a fount of information available at most preserved railways. It lives in sheds, dark rooms, coaches and vans. I am referring to the collections of old magazines which are for sale.
I was first turned on to this library by my mate Mike, 'Coachbogie'. In the days before copying tech was freely available, it was necessary to have to cut up drawings to carry on a build.
OK, OK I appreciate that just might be our weird way of doing stuff!
We happened to be on the Bluebell and Mike went ferreting around in the vans at Sheffield Park that held the old mags.
When I asked why, he said he was after a duplicate set of Freezer drawings to attack for a straight framed Big Prairie he wanted to do. It will get done to his satisfaction this year , he assures me!!!
I dived into the mags with him and the bug bit!!
The stuff out there is huge!!!
I've got ring files full of stuff pillaged from, in some cases, very old 'Modellers, 'Constructors, Model Railway Newses and the, in my case, much missed, Model Railways.
Oh and don't forget Backtrack, both Modellers and the 12 inches to the foot version, as well as Bylines.
Model Railways was a magazine with high printing quality. It had full profiles of , both steam and diesel locomotives in it's pages.
I appreciate that there are a finite number of these old magazines out there. I also appreciate that the preserved railways move on and may well have binned stuff when they need space, but I am sure the gems are still out there.
Because of copyright, a database of this stuff would be very difficult to create on this website, but it might be interesting to see if the mediators can find out if it is feasable.
I also appreciate that I have probably dropped a large bomb by saying that but, hey!, if you don't ask you won't get told!!!
Chris.