About the website

Welcome. This website has two main parts:

• Data

  Assembled from the research conducted 1973 through 1990. Much material not colated. Used initially for support information for vehicles photographed. As it was quicker to collect info on all rolling stock than 'hunt and peck' the data covers rolling stock from 1886 onwards. New construction is complete from 1886 to the 1980's. Scrap and disposal data is complete to 1927, spotty to the 1980s. Conversion data is complete 1886 to the 1980s. Given the workload of the task and the uncolated material backlog, the pupurpose of the CD and the website was to provide a fairly complete history up to the 1990s. From the 1980s to today, I have left the work for others.

   

  Note: The histories at the site are "provisional" and subject to change as more data as collected. A healthy scepticism ensures that all information is tested and if unable to be corroborated, is presented "as is" until further enlightenment. At no time would I ever say 'I know it all'.

• Photographs

  My main interest is photography. Along the way I embarked on many interstate and overseas trips and photographs of them. As well I generally record the work environment. The main focus is on VR rolling stock but I don't like being fenced in so have made the site non specific allowing me to add all the other photos I'd like. As I've rolled along I have collected photos and images and have included them in this project. For several years the images were being collected at a rate of about a thousand a month. This effort has resulted in more photos from others that I have been able to scan and present from my own work.

Finding photos is a pain and I detest the repeated searches for stuff. I embarked on an open ended indexing project with a specially written program (FTS) which would allow me to bulk index/store/move files of any type. This was successful but the amount of files being dealt with simply chokes file managers and thumbnail programs. As the static HTML page system didn't work very well as the database grew, I finally "cracked" the use of PHP and mySQL which are in use for the searchable database.

Peter J. Vincent -- May 2007