Q: What is the Conrail Cyclopedia?
The Conrail Cyclopedia, often abbreviated as the CRCyc, is a website dedicated to archiving and cataloging photos of equipment and everything else from the Consolidated Rail Corporation (a Class 1 railroad) that operated on the railroad between 1 April 1976 and 31 May 1999. It also features photos of equipment from all of Conrail's predecessor railroads (Penn Central, Reading Company, Lehigh Valley, ect) and photos of equipment from its predecessors' predecessors (Pennsylvania Railroad, New York Central, ect) as long as that equipment ran across or sat on Conrail property from 1 April 1976 to 31 May 1999.Q: Who owns and runs the CRCyc?
The CRCyc has an enormous staff of one--me! I (Robert S. Waller, the guy in the photo to the right from 2017 when I was 25+ pounds heavier) own and run the website, which graciously has been hosted on Railfan.net since day one. But the website has always been community driven. I've always encouraged visitors to contribute photos and information to make the site richer and more informative. I’ve always seen the CRCyc as a free resource for railfans, modelers, historians, and everyone else interested in Conrail, its operations, and its heritage. In fact, most of the photos on the website are from enthusiasts just like you!Q: Can I have a bit more history of the CRCyc?
Sure! The idea for the website began in 1996 as a website for Conrail rolling stock photos. That website, called the Conrail Rolling Stock Pages, came online in early 1997. It was a joint project of Robert Waller (me) and Tom Wolfgang (my buddy), and was an adjunct of sorts to Tom's Conrail Caboose website at Railfan.net. But we always talked about creating a large Conrail website covering everything Conrail. In 1998, a year after I moved from PA to FL, Tom officially rolled out the Conrail Cyclopedia. (I wanted to call it The Conrail Superpages, but thankfully Tom had better sense.) The website became an instant success, much to our surprise!Tom soon left the CRCyc to focus on his caboose website and family, mainly the latter. A couple decades later, having gone through many peaks and valleys, the CRCyc is still here. In 2015, I began a major effort to restore and reinvigorate the CRCyc, revising much of the site's ancient HTML code and getting new photos online. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far with that project. The Epson photo scanner I bought malfunctioned within months of buying it, but Epson Customer Support wanted me to open and fix it, refusing to fix it themselves. That scanner went into the trash, along with my entusiasm.
In my mid-50s, I tried learning HTML5 and CSS3 in order to totally revise the website's rickety code. It was frustrating, so I gave up. Then I had a breakthrough in late September 2018! The code finally clicked in my brain, and so began a total overhaul of the CRCyc one page at a time. And that is where we stand today. Finally, the website is back on track.
I'm now in my early 60's, and still plugging away with a new scanner and computer. Plus, I have the help of awesome contributors.