Re: Histoerical Purity - Hear Whee Go Again!! ...

mikerowe Wrote:
===================================
> Sometimes methinks the slavish adherence
> to "The way things were Back in the Day"
> approaches the point of absurdity.

Right on, Mike!   Who was authorized to remove that dog poo that I accidentally stepped in
near the coaling tower back in '66?   - or was it '64??

> Notice that the endless debate over tender
> lettering [and boiler jacket color] is back with
> us.  I think that particular argument will still
> be going on -- without resolution -- long after
> I have departed the face of this earth.  Sigh!

Dang curmudeonly DünkelOlivGrünDampfKesselMantelFanatikers!! - Clearly, it's all THEIR fault!

> There are no absolutes in rail preservation. At-
> tempting to maintain a semblance of histörical
> authenticity is always in tension with the need
> to meet contemporary operating realities. Brake-
> men running back and forth on car roofs,
> clubbing down mechanical brakes?

Please forgive me - This 1968 photo - titled "Slippery Footing" for obvious reasons - has been posted before (as have the two below):


> Just exactly what IS histörical purity?

IMHO, 'Historical' should ALWAYS be spelled with an umlaut 'oh' - 'ö' - to encourage proper pronunciation ("histoerical") and keep things in perspective ...    


[And] Tom Gildersleeve Wrote Replied:
===================================
> ... If you want to get into authenticity issues, the
> [ugly] passenger cars would top the list for [many]
> obvious reasons, but they are a necessary evil if
> the railroad is to fulfill its mission and survive as
> an operating museum.  Back in the nineties I rode
> a couple of photo freights where every attempt was
> made to restore it to a 1960's appearance, and the
> two obvious problems were the spark arresters on
> the engines and the fact that they ran with head-
> lights on during the day.  In both cases I believe
> it reflected changing rules that were in place by the
> 1990s and not in place in the 1960s.

... Except for the following two exceptions which, SFAIK, the Grande made ONLY on 08/28 and 08/29, 1968:



(#498's headlight was NOT on when she left Cumbres Pass and rounded Tanglefoot curve, but WAS on later in the afternoon of 08/29/68.)

> As far as I am concerned, the engines would have
> been outfitted exactly the same if the Rio Grande
> was still operating the railroad with those engines.
> ... It is well to not lose sight of the fact that evolving
> conditions and regulations will change things no
> matter what.
>
> The pictures that Kevin shot are generally quite
> superior to what was shot on that railroad during
> the Rio Grande era, especially that glint shot
> taken just before sunset of the train going away.

Not to detract in any way from Kevin's beautiful photos, or others from last month that have been posted, but IMHO your own photos from the 1960's, JBWX's, and several others I've seen, are every bit as good and - being on film, probably a bit sharper - than even the finest digital images.

> That shot, in particular, was absolutely wonder-
> ful and really unique. It would have been a near
> impossibility for anything like that to have been
> shot during the Rio Grande era given the inac-
> cessibility of most of the line, the light traffic,
> the limitations of camera and film at that time,
> and even the fact that most photographers were
> not even shooting in color.

"Color?  COLOR??  Who needs stinkin' COLOR???"  For a STUNNING black & white image, taken at the same location, see page 48 of Dick Steinheimer's "BACKWOODS RAILROADS OF THE WEST".  (The same image was used on the dust jacket of said book.)
Here's the best I was able to capture that evening using my humble $500 Panasonic FZ-100:


... and the same image converted to grayscale:

(John Cole would probably shoot me if I "Photoshopped" the telegraphone pole just behind the first locomotive.)

> The one thing the old stuff had, however, was
> the histörical authenticity of depicting a railroad
> going about its daily business of doing what it
> was built to do.   Anything shot today can be
> nothing more than an attempt to duplicate that,
> and will never have the same histörical value.
> Today you can get high quality pictures of a
> histörical replication.  Back in the day you
> got low quality pictures of the real deal.
> It's a tradeoff.

Are you kidding us, Tom?   As noted above - and proven by the images published in your own book, 'NARROW GAUGE - then and now' (and lent to us for the "Help Restore #483" screen savers), many of those 35mm Kodachrome photos from the early and mid nineteen-sixties will, IMHO, never be excelled - or even equaled.  And that's not even counting the superb portraits of the D&RG(W) taken on glass plate, and later large- and medium-format film cameras.

> Anyhow, getting back to signals and CTC, I would
> be delighted if the C&TS was doing the kind of bus-
> iness that made such improvements a necessity.

And I would NOT - as that much traffic would undoubtedly result in both diseaselization and even tighter security.  (Not that the latter would necessarily be needed, as diseaselization would greatly decrease the incentive to trespass ... )

- El Abuelo Histœrico, Greengo y Curmudgeoño de los Locomoturas Viejos y Verdes,
aka Der Grossväterlich DünkelOlivGrünDampfKesselMantelLiebHabender



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2012 04:21PM by Russo Loco.