Pictures from the Online Archive (OTA)

Presenter: Charles Roberts

Virtual Meeting via Zoom

We enjoyed a very informative presentation. Charles introduced the session with a history of the organisation and an explanation of its function, which is a charity preserving for posterity photographs and other images of transport. He has been involved in the OTA since its inception just over 20 years ago (28 February 1999). Ian Allan gave great support in the early stages, providing accommodation among other things. OTA is now based in its own premises in Shrewsbury.

The drive to set this up was the realisation that irreplaceable historical material on transport matters, in many formats was being dumped. Often this occurred after the generator and collector of the images had died and their relatives did not appreciate their value, or perhaps didn’t care. The Railway Magazine highlighted this kind of thing in May 2005 “Don’t let your slides end in a bin”.

The project to preserve a vast number of images has been, and continues to be, a great challenge; however, the volunteers who carry out this work beaver away with great fortitude. Some collections are not received in the best condition, so work has to be carried out to enhance the image quality – Photoshopping, etc. Collections are not always well catalogued.  Frequently research is necessary to identify or confirm dates and places. OTA sets great store on accurately crediting photographers.

Examples of what has been saved were showcased during the evening. We saw three collections, those of: – John McCann, featuring Rugby testing plant; Phil Tattt, green diesels and Harry Luff, LT steam.

Those who wish to learn more may find the following links useful:

OTA website:
www.onlinetransportarchive.org

OTA Facebook:
www.facebook.com/OnlineTransportArchive/

OTA image/DVD sales:
www.transporttreasury.co.uk
www.unseensteam.co.uk

It costs a lot of money to keep this essential activity going. Personal donations are always welcome:
paypal.me/otadonations