Background – The NYCSHS has made a dedicated effort over the past almost 50 years to preserve the amount of archival material from the NYC railroad. This preservation effort has consisted of collecting material, storing that material in climate-controlled environments, and digitizing all hard copy material. Today we have more material than we can easily store in the existing space, so a new storage system is needed.
Previous Funding Sources – Over the years much of the funding for this activity has come from gifts and grants from members and grant funding sources. Much funding has come from the Society’s operating budget funded by membership and sales. We have had two previous fund-raising campaigns for the Headquarters and archive. The first of these was the Flight of the Century fund that raised $65,000 to fund the equipment and furnishings for the NYCSHS Headquarters in Middleburg Heights, OH. The second was the Empire State Express fund that raised funds for the continuing of the preservation of archive material, expanding the library, obtaining new NYCS material, and expanding the IT network. It added additional NYCS material in the Collinwood Shop, added scanners and computers to the network, provided cloud backup, and added online digital material for view and sale in the Collinwood & Digital Shops.
Current Situation – All of the funding from the two fund raising programs, and gifts and grants have been spent on preserving and digitizing the archive material. New grants are being talked about, but many of the granting organizations favor projects that preserve hardware over paper and photo preservation. Therefore, we are launching this Southwestern Limited program to raise the additional funds to add an archive shelving system and other upgrades to continue to expand our NYCSHS archives.
We need to utilize the space we have today more efficiently. Therefore, we have opted to bring in an expandable high-density filing system. When not in use, the mobile shelves slide together to compact the storage area. When access is needed, a three spoke handle is used to roll the units apart. Some of the Board members saw this type of unit in use at the Albany Museum of History and Art.
Once the shelving is installed, it will just about double the storage space that we now have at the archive. That will be achieved by eliminating empty aisle space and rolling the shelves together on rails. We expect to have these installed in the spring, so they can be seen when the Cleveland convention is local to the archive.
We are working with a local company, Patterson Pope, that has been in business for 50 years. They have been providing the sales and design assistance and will be providing installation services. The shelving units we are acquiring are from Spacesaver, a Wisconsin based company. The high-density system is just one of the solutions that Spacesaver provides. The high-density systems are used at universities, museums, law libraries and other locations, such as the local Cleveland NFL team.
Our specific tasks include:
- Continue scanning photos, drawings, booklets, publications, etc.
- Obtaining new material
- Maintaining the IT network
- Expanding library
- Expanding help to members
- Offering additional material for sale in store
- Adding drawings and maps to our digital website and store
- Installing new SpaceSaver high-density storage system
- Purchase an aperture card reader
- Working with members, researchers, and authors
- Working with other Societies archives to expand NYCS knowledge and resources
SpaceSaver High Density Mobile Storage System
Spacesaver does exactly what our name implies — we save space. Lots of it. Our High-Density Mobile Storage Systems can deliver up to three times the storage capacity of conventional filing and shelving in the same amount of floor space — and at half the cost. By mounting storage cabinets or shelving on wheeled carriages that travel on rails, wasted space created by fixed aisles can be eliminated, freeing up valuable floor space for other, more productive uses — including additional storage.
Aperture Card Reader
Aperture Card
An aperture card is a type of punched card with a cut-out window into which a chip of microfilm is mounted. Such a card is used for archiving or for making multiple inexpensive copies of a document for ease of distribution. The card is typically punched with machine-readable metadata associated with the microfilm image, and printed across the top of the card for visual identification; it may also be punched by hand in the form of an edge-notched card. The microfilm chip is most commonly 35mm in height, and contains an optically reduced image, usually of some type of reference document, such as an engineering drawing, that is the focus of the archiving process. Machinery exists to automatically store, retrieve, sort, duplicate, create, and digitize cards with a high level of automation.
We received somewhere around 10,000 aperture cards from the Rochester NRHS with structure drawings on them, and then another 10,000 from Tennessee Valley RR Museum with NYC rolling stock that made it to Conrail. They are difficult to look at without a reader. We currently use a microfilm reader to see them, but it’s cumbersome and they can’t be scanned that way. We plan to purchase a aperture card reader to automate and speed up the process of scanning these cards.
To accomplish these goals, we are planning to raise $40,000. Like the past campaigns we have set levels of giving for your contributions and are hoping the Society can reach the goal with your generous help.
The graphic at the top of the page includes a map of the route of the Southwestern Limited from St. Louis, MO, to Cleveland, OH, where our NYCSHS Headquarters archive resides. The map will be used to chart the progress of the campaign over the next few weeks as a visual representation of the Society’s progress toward the $40,000 goal. Weekly updates will appear on our website and our MailChimp emails so you can track our progress. This was proven effective in previous fund-raising campaigns. As in past campaigns, a plaque with the names of all of the sponsors will be displayed in the NYCSHS Headquarters at the end of the campaign.
Levels of giving:
$2,500 and up ALCo PA/PB
$1,000 to $2,499 Baldwin RF-16A/B
$500 to $999 EMD E8A
$250 to $499 ALCo RS3
$100 to $249 EMD GP7
$50 to $99 EMD F3A/B
$25 to $49 ALCo FA/FB
$25 EMD SW1
Basic Gift is $25.00 but you can select any of the amounts above in the levels of giving.
To give online go to the Collinwood Shop at: https://www.nycshs.net/Contributions_c_185.html
To download a form to mail in your donation with a check to: https://nycshs.files.wordpress.com/2023/01/sourthwesternlimitedfundorderform.1.pdf
Thanks for your support to this very important upgrade to the NYCSHS archive program.
David Mackay
NYCSHS, President and the NYCSHS Board of Directors
The Friends of the National New York Central Railroad Museum (a 501(C)3 organization) is reaching out in order to secure funding. The Friends are planning to contribute a portion of the funding, as well as applying for several grants. We are looking for additional sponsors to provide the remaining portion of the cost. Would you consider a sponsorship at one of the levels below?
Photos from Alan Gruber, NYCSHS
The cover photo for this quarter’s edition is from 
NYCSHS 