September 2011 Article

This Month's Article - September 2011

Pot Luck!

Website: Over the last few months, the Nelson & Albemarle Railway Historical Society website has received on average, between 9 and 21 'hits'. For a historical society, this is a considerably smaller amount of views by either single visits or multiple visits by the same people than we'd like to see. While the website excludes the visits of the editor, web developer, and site manager, even adding our limited access shows that the goals of NEARHS are not being met after 2 years as a "Google" Site. With that in mind, plans are now underway to migrate the entire site onto it's own domain and complete other plans started 18 months ago to link this site with the C&O Historical Society website based out of Clifton Forge, Virginia. This linkage would provide us with access to a large base of fans not only of the C&O Railway, but also of nearby railroads and include fans of other feeder lines similar to our own N&A. The hope is that securing that larger audience will create a resurgence of interest in the N&A while also highlighting the excellent work accomplished by many researchers such as Garth G. Groff of Charlottesville.

Artifacts: In the last 3 months, we had opportunity to purchase several railroad artifacts that made little sense to have stored in Illinois where the website is currently managed, articles are written (when not traveling), and new data is added to the listings of "Where to Find N&A" on the sidebar selections. We'd like these larger items to be collected in the C&O HS facility in Clifton Forge with the ability for the local N&A fans to visit/view/appreciate the artifacts. Otherwise the 'bell' from locomotive #9 might have crossed the country to be sequestered in my foyer for all visitors to see, but not as many to appreciate! We will work to align this goal with the C&O Historical Society by our Virginia representative who is based in Waynesboro. Smaller artifacts (such as salesman's samples of Alberene Stone) will still be collected and photographed for use with the website data here in Illinois.

Photographs: Our plans for the new URL will include starting a new series of articles. The first article plan is to share our MS-Access database report from the photographers of the Nelson & Albemarle Railway and while we do not have publication rights to all of the photographs in our collection of prints/negatives, we will use thumbnail size images with copyright protected notices for those that are not in our rights. We have several new prints and are always looking for previously unknown photographs and photographers that can be included in the article. Some of those recently acquired photographs are not identified as to the photographer and any help identifying that photographer (likely from Maryland) would be appreciated. If not for the likes of diligent railfans such as H. Reid, August Thieme, or Charles Wales, we might not have some of the best views recorded of the daily operations on the N&A.

New Publications: Check out our sidebar "Publications About the N&A" for a recently identified article in The Short Line (TSL) The Journal of Shortline & Industrial Railroads magazine (1978). We're looking for a copy of this magazine and will have commentary noted in the listing for the entry when it is found.

Upcoming Articles may be postponed until the new website is available but work on them will continue as we set a schedule to make the move to new quarters. This Google Site will remain open with a cross link to guide viewers to the new URL.

Send email to NelsonAlbemarle@comcast.net if you have any comments or questions or wish to contribute to future articles.