Records destroyed by the LPTB

[railtechnician]

The latest old editions of The Engineer online reveal that in 1942 LPTB turned out its records and those of its predecessors dating back to 1866 in order to get them pulped to help the war effort. When reported, more than 200 tons of ledgers, old files, records and office 'waste paper' were already cleared from the Board's vaults and the final total was expected to reach 300 tons. One cannot help but wonder what gems were sacrificed and what history was lost forever to future generations!

One 'gem' in the 1942 volume is a picture of LPTB's diesel/electric tube locomotive (60 tons looking much like a ballast loco and fitted with a Brush diesel generator to power the loco when the traction was off or for running on unelectrified track). I've never come across it anywhere before.

[Nortube]

It is always a tragedy when history is lost, whether it is paperwork, buildings, or whatever. Such a lot has been destroyed over the years. There are many reasons such as people not realising the value, couldn't care less attitudes, greed, etc. The Victorians were no better when they went on their building sprees, clearing large swathes of areas for railways, roads, etc. often with no thought for the people that were being displaced.

Another problem, of course, is storage space. Years ago, before computers became the norm, everything was paper based. From the hand-written ledgers and notes of the Victorians, to the later typed and bound output, it was all paper. If it was necessary to keep it, it was archived. No doubt stored away somewhere until the space was full up, then destroyed to make room for the next lot.

The invention of the microfiche helped, especially for archiving such things as newspapers etc. as this meant that material could be preserved in a lot less space and accessed quicker, albeit at only a few locations.
At least these days, with computer archiving, it is easy to store information, using virtually no space at all. I applaud those people / companies that are making the effort to archive what is out there and, more importantly, making it accessible to the general public (especially when access is free!). The Engineer is just one example of this and allows everyone to have access to the fascinating information that the editions contain. Previously, the only way to read it would have been a personal visit to one of the very few places that held bound copies, such as the Imperial College Library.

[railtechnician]

Oct 10, 2013 11:31:30 GMT Nortube said:

It is always a tragedy when history is lost, whether it is paperwork, buildings, or whatever. Such a lot has been destroyed over the years. There are many reasons such as people not realising the value, couldn't care less attitudes, greed, etc. The Victorians were no better when they went on their building sprees, clearing large swathes of areas for railways, roads, etc. often with no thought for the people that were being displaced.

Another problem, of course, is storage space. Years ago, before computers became the norm, everything was paper based. From the hand-written ledgers and notes of the Victorians, to the later typed and bound output, it was all paper. If it was necessary to keep it, it was archived. No doubt stored away somewhere until the space was full up, then destroyed to make room for the next lot.

The invention of the microfiche helped, especially for archiving such things as newspapers etc. as this meant that material could be preserved in a lot less space and accessed quicker, albeit at only a few locations.
At least these days, with computer archiving, it is easy to store information, using virtually no space at all. I applaud those people / companies that are making the effort to archive what is out there and, more importantly, making it accessible to the general public (especially when access is free!). The Engineer is just one example of this and allows everyone to have access to the fascinating information that the editions contain. Previously, the only way to read it would have been a personal visit to one of the very few places that held bound copies, such as the Imperial College Library.

Microfiche was a mixed blessing IMHO, especially at LT/LU which went overboard for it in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I saw lots of comms engineering drawings being dumped after transfer to microfiche. Microfiche prints were never as good as the original destroyed prints and to add insult to injury the drawing numbering systems changed at least twice in my years in the job making it almost impossible to find rarely used drawings particularly after fellow humans with long memories in the drawing office retired. Of course proper drawing control management in comms was only really implemented in the 1990s when most of the work was outsourced to external contractors.

As for The Engineer, it is such a wealth of engineering history and I wish I had known of its existence 50 years ago. I have been an avid reader of the old editions since I discovered them about two years ago. I'm hoping that its contemporary related magazines (e.g. The Electrician and some railway publications) will also be found online one day too. Another great historical read from my point of view (comms engineering) is the US Bell System Technical Journal which I downloaded in its entirety (about 75 years of magazines) about three years ago.  

[Nortube]

I've not used microfiche all that much - a visit to the records office at Colindale some years ago and a few visits to Battersea Library this year, going through newspapers. However I ended up with a headache at each visit. I assume this was due to the continuous scrolling and text flashing past on the screen. I didn't find it very user friendly. Scanned to PDF files are much better as they are normally in the original "book" format, making it simple to scroll through pages. The only downside is where the pages are just scanned in as jpg's rather than OCR'd into text that can be searched. (I know OCR is a longer process and one which depends on the quality of the original copy for accuracy).