Over 100,000 railroad related items have been donated to the NMRA over the last 60 years. The NMRA Board of Directors, as steward of these collections, has looked for ways to make the archive more accessible. In the summer of 2010, the Diamond Club was established by the Board to provide funding needed to scan the NMRA's photographic and drawing collection and to create a website to display the scanned documents.
The images on this website are organized by type of original media and then by equipment or structure type. The images have metadata included, so the web archive is searchable. There is a list available on the website of the keywords used to classify and organize the images. There is also a list of railroad reporting marks provided on each page of thumbnails to help further refine searches.
Clicking on an individual image presents a more detailed view with additional metadata shown, when available. Placing your cursor over the detailed view will produce a magnifying glass effect, with even greater detail displayed. Full resolution image files, up to 5100 pixels wide at 300 dpi, can be purchased on line via PayPal. Once a purchase is completed, a link will be emailed with the instructions for download.