Beyer Peacock Archive Online...

[W.P. Rayner]

The Manchester Museum of Science and Industry - MOSI - has published the Beyer Peacock archive online, along with what appears to be several hundred other manufacturers and collections. Not everything has been digitized of course and it's a little difficult to explore unless you really know what you're looking for but there is still plenty to see... Some of the drawings are truly beautiful. The easiest way to find a selection of images is to put a year in the "Date of Association" box, i.e. 1885, 1886 and so on or the manufacture date of a particular locomotive you're researching.







Paul

[jacq01]

  Paul,

  thanks,  great. Only negative aspect is less modeling. 

   Jacq

[james_coldicott]

Paul,

thanks for the link- like Jacq I can imagine many happy hours being squandered looking through the drawings

James

[78ths]

To be honest they make it way too hard to find or browse for drawings and the resolution they make available is absolutely useless. The drawings they have for the most part should be public domain and like 99% of the museums its all about ownership and money. They recently redid their site and it is now really hard to get the high res scans. I managed to download all the full size scans of the K-1 garratt and can only find the low res now. They are the same group that stopped the south african fellow from selling high res CD's of all the two foot loco works drawings, claiming they own them, ownership of drawings done over 120 years ago does not mean you own the copyright, they fall into public domain. Museums in my opinion need to do a much better job of moving from me to we.
Sorry just a pet peeve I have and am ranting. I like high res files and have spent my life in the image making business only to learn ownership is an illusion. We are here to learn, teach and share.

[W.P. Rayner]

That is true Ferd, it would be much better if higher res images were made available, but at least they are providing something. It wasn't that long ago that the only ways to get any information was to either be there in person and deal with obstreperous old archivists and librarians such as myself, know a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy or wait months for snail mail to go back and forth, never really knowing what you were going to get until it arrived. So this is definitely a step in the right direction. Museum's do still have a "velvet rope" me/we attitude for the most part though digital technology and the demanding pressure of the internet culture is forcing them to change their way of thinking, much to everyone's benefit. I was one of the first three digital cataloguers at the International Museum of Photography back when their digitizing program began with great foresight in 1974.

Paul