About the archive
The Center cares for more than 600,000 photographs in our Railroad Heritage Visual Archive under the leadership of Adrienne Evans, director of archives and collections. Our goal is to build a representative archive encompassing the many styles and subjects of railroad photography and art—from their beginnings in the early decades of the nineteenth century to the present, and from throughout the United States and the globe. Our mission is to preserve these images and make them accessible.
Collection processing status
| Collection | Status |
|---|---|
| Keith Bryant | In progress: initial inventory |
| Tom Gildersleeve | Estimated start: 2026 |
| Gordon Glattenberg | Estimated start: 2026 |
| John Gruber | Negatives complete; slides to commence in 2026 |
| Stan Kistler | Slides complete; 10% of negatives complete |
| Henry Posner III | Digital collections posting in progress |
| Jim Shaughnessy | Negatives complete; 42% of slides complete |
| Richard Steinheimer & Shirley Burman | In progress: 65% of slides complete |
| Karl Zimmermann | In progress: 99% of images onsite complete |
Last updated: February 2026
Collection updates
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Zoom member-exclusive: Inside the Jim Shaughnessy Collection
The Center capped 2023 with a long-awaited dive into the Jim Shaughnessy collection. Acquired in late 2019, the Center, led by processing archivist Natalie Krecek, has been diligently digitizing the 90,000-image collection. We’ll sit down with Natalie and CRP&A board members Jeff Brouws and Kevin Keefe to discuss themes from Jim’s collection and the larger…
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Zoom member-exclusive: Inside the David Mainey Collection
Step into the world of David Mainey as we take you on a journey through his life and work in this members-only program. Join Erin Rose, reference and digital projects archivist, as she sits down with David for an insightful interview, giving you a glimpse into the person behind the art. Explore decades of creativity, from his very first photograph…
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Zoom program: Q&A for the Center’s new collections management system ‘Odyssey’
Launched in June of 2023, Odyssey houses tens of thousands of digitized images from the Center’s various collections. Odyssey allows users to explore the Center’s collections in a dynamic and user-friendly format. Join our director of archives and collections, Adrienne Evans, and our reference and digital projects archivist, Erin Rose, in a tutorial of the…
Collection processing procedures
The Center’s Railroad Heritage Visual Archive is a professional archive repository whose personnel follow established archival principles while caring for our collections. Our archivist supervises work performed by other archives staff members, contract archivists, graduate interns, and volunteers to ensure the materials in our possession receive proper care.
A newly-acquired collection goes through several phases, collectively known as processing:
Phase 1: Arrangement and Description
This is the initial planning phase for any collection where we get familiar with its materials. In this phase we will begin to organize the collection and create an inventory along with any information that can be used in a finding aid.
Phase 2: Processing
This phase involves long, tedious legwork but is essential in the general preservation and accessibility of the collection. Once the collection is organized we can apply labels to binders and pages while correctly matching up the physical materials with a digital inventory that will include metadata.
Phase 3: Metadata and Finding Aid
Metadata, or data about data, are necessary to fully understand the materials in our collections. At the Center we record detailed metadata and embed that raw data into any digitized materials. Once we have finished processing a collection we can create a detailed and cohesive finding aid. This is the best way for our users to understand the scope and content of a collection.
Phase 4: Accessibility
In the final phase, we strive to make our collections available to the public and searchable online via finding aids. Throughout the previous phases the Center will attempt to provide previews of collections online as they are processed.
We’re able to do this work thanks to the generosity of our community.
- Multi-year support from the Elizabeth Morse Genius Charitable Trust has helped us build up every aspect of our collections work, from expanding our space, to adding more staff, to implementing our collections management system.
- Heritage grants from the National Railway Historical Society help fund our work on the John E. Gruber Collection and the Richard Steinheimer and Shirley Burman Steinheimer Collection.
- Thanks to the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society’s William D. Middleton Research Fellowship, we’ve been able to fill in more metadata for many of our collections.
- Our more than 1,000 members empower all of our programs through annual memberships and additional gifts. If you’re already a member, thank you. If you’re not, join now and begin receiving quarterly issues of our beautiful journal, Railroad Heritage.
