Illinois Railway Museum Blog

I recently asked for volunteer help to document cars in our collection where the lettering and other important information is succumbing to the weather.  I had two replies from folks that had some interest in helping but no results, and winter is coming on.

This week I had a very pleasant surprise from long time member Kevin Brown.  THANK YOU KEVIN!!!  Kevin took it upon himself to photograph and improve our records for the MILWAUKEE ROAD 970954 covered hopper.

The Whole Picture

Here is the north side of the car (the best side), and you can only see the shadow or hint of where much of the lettering once was.  Kevin trooped out to Yard 14, took several images, and sent me very good prints.  WOW!

Details

In this view of one area, even a good photo will not allow us to reproduce the entire text and data.  Look above the white dot symbol and tell me what is there.  What was put in the area of the consolidated inspection blocks?  Kevin was unable to get a good spot to record the ends of the car with photos.  So the work is not done.

As good as these photos are, there is a process to reproducing any of the lettering on a repainted car.  We need good measurements for placement of the blocks of lettering.  In the case of the above image, I would take a heavy black Sharpee marker and ruler and carefully trace the shadows remaining so they are legible.  Then I would recommend taking a sheet of mylar, again with ruler, and trace over the Sharpee letters with pencil to have a full size hard copy of what remains.  Include the size or height of each letter line, the spacing between lines, and measurements to reference points on the car for placement.

With this info, I can redraw and clean up the tracing, and cut it out.  This should be done for each block or large character on the car.  We can work to some degree with these very good photos but it is inexact due to the angle of the pics not being 100% dead on straight.  Not a criticism of Kevin, but without some help or a ladder to use, it can be difficult.  Anyone out there in webland with PHOTOSHOP and the software skills could help here by 'correcting' for parallax and shoot angle.  And when taking the pics it would help a lot for corrections if two yardsticks, ruler, or homemade story boards were placed at right angles, sort of framing the lettering block.  The real goal is for a record as exact and accurate as possible. 

And Kevin put his money where his mouth is by including a substantial donation to fund R97054.  The other part of the equation is that I have been assured that we have money on hand to place this car inside the next Barn.  But as previously mentioned, it has not yet cleared all acquisition charges and track space, so it is not 'eligible' to go inside in a  technical sense.  Several donations have been received into this car fund since my first request for help to clear the red ink and we are on the way.  Please do not let this car be left out in the cold.

And of course this is not the only piece of equipment where DISAPPEARING DATA continues.  We cannot as a Museum let this happen to other pieces, yet I have limited time and ability.  It is not challenging, hard, physical labor and if you contact me in advance, I will furnish material and instruction on exactly what is needed.