Archives New Zealand's new charges in relation to aerial photos

On the 1st July 2015 Archives New Zealand introduced a new scale of charges for remote research services. The key points of these charges as they relate to aerial photographs include:

• The base fee of $25 per half-hour has increased to $50
• The scan resolution that is defined as "low resolution" has been decreased from 600 dpi to 300 dpi.

Since I have determined that 600 dpi is the minimum resolution suitable for the aerial photos I am using (around 1:10000 scale), I am now faced with either paying a lot more money to Archives, or making do with the lower resolution. The indication from resampling the images I already have at 300 dpi is that I will struggle to pick out some of the detail that is visible at 600. It indicates that 600-1200 dpi is the optimum resolution for these around 1:10000 aerials but it also depends on the print size. It is pleasing to know that the option for scanning these contact prints has worked out from a technical point of view, compared to scanning from the original film, which Opus charges an enormous scale of fees for.

The fees for high resolution copying start at $30 although there is a volume copying rate of $10 that may apply to subsequent scans. The $50 fee is also payable as a minimum charge. When this fee is applied to low resolution scans it includes 20 "free". I am currently seeking clarification from Archives as to the application of the scale of charges for high resolution scanning since I may inevitably resign myself to obtaining a limited number of high res scans at the higher pricing. If the charging scale works out that there is significant advantage in getting a number done together then they will be batched. The use of the high resolution scans is going to be limited to Volume 17 otherwise it just ends up costing too much. So everywhere else will be low res except where there is free or cheaper high res coverage available.

The chainage chart referred to in a previous post turns out to have 24 pages, therefore it would only cost about $50 to have it scanned. I am planning to set up the request for this next week. Meanwhile tidying up the traces from the previously obtained aerial photography continues.

Aerial Photo Order 3 (Otago Central Railway) - Cromwell to Alexandra

I am currently setting up an order for 21 more aerial photos as follows:

• Survey 1452 of 1962

• Run S. Photo 7 - this should give me the very end of the line at Cromwell which so far has eluded me.

  
  

  Run W, Photos 19-20 and  Run X, Photos 1-2: Alexandra

  
  
  
• Survey 5073 of 1977
• Run D, Photo 15; Run G, Photo 7; Run H, Photo 15 cover the 1907 Clyde station and just to its south and should therefore show the NZED siding that was in use until 1978.

• Survey 5880 of 1981
• Run A, Photo 1 should show the new Clyde station yard just opened (hopefully - this is a single photo in this series as no others exist in the lists). It would be interesting to speculate if this was a special one taken by NZR to base an aerial map of the Clyde yard, as they did use aerial photographs to make diagrams for staff use.

• Survey 11936 of 1992. This is a big survey that must have been taken quite soon before the first filling of the Clyde Dam started. I am using this series to get a look at selected stations along the route rather than the whole route.

• Run L, Photo 2; Run M, Photo 3; Run I, Photo 1/3; Run Q, Photo 2/3; Run R. Photo 2/3; Run U, Photo 1/2; Run V, Photo 4.

•  Survey 5361 of 1979. This is to be scanned at high resolution because it is 1:25000 instead of the considerably larger scales of the other prints. Because of this it will end up being at a cost of $30 for the single image. I can't afford to have too many high res scans along the way because of the cost (I also have to pay the $50 base fee so I may as well get my money's worth and put in another 20 images at 600 dpi which can be included in the $50).

So that is 21 images for $80 - just under $4. And we are finally moving down to Alexandra. As I expect 4 images should give enough detail of Alexandra yard and from here we will go fairly quickly down the line to Wingatui. I am estimating another 6 batches of photos will be needed to finish all the remaining yards down to Middlemarch. It is possible I could continue looking at aerials for the Taieri Gorge section as well as there are many stations which have disappeared since that time.

So there is some scope to look again at the publication timeline. I also intend to obtain the chainage chart for the line and I don't know how many pages it is. Hopefully 20 pages will cover the Cromwell Gorge because the bridges and features in that section are not documented elsewhere whereas all the bridges and other things on the Rail Trail section have been documented by DOC in their Conservation and Scientific Notes publications. Once all of that is put together the publication date ends up getting pushed out a bit. The earliest as far as I can see will be the middle of next year.

Once Volume 17 is finished the aim will be to push ahead with first editions of every other volume (2nds of North Auckland and Napier-Gisborne) and this might go on concurrently with the Volume 17 work if I end up waiting for further photo orders to come in. There won't be any other volume as detailed as Volume 17 in the near future, All those other volumes will have to wait for 2nd (or 3rd in the case of NA/NGL) editions to get any aerial sourced data into them (except for the Christchurch area and a few other cases where free aerial footage has been used).

NZ Rail Maps: Otago Central Railway

Well this blog has now been launched as being separate from NZ Rail Maps and I have copied across all of the content from Enzed Transport that is maps related. The final layout of this blog and various other settings have yet to be completed and may well change over the next few days.

What is now relevant is that this blog will be the public face of the project. The actual development work is carried out in a private Facebook group with restricted membership. Since the posts in that group are not visible to non-members, the blog will be published and will also send a post feed to the Enzed Transport & NZ Rail Maps Facebook page.

As some previous posts have described, the Otago Central Railway is the current focus of the Maps project, specifically in relation to Volume 17, 2nd edition which is being put together. The first part of the route to be looked at has been the Cromwell Gorge. By using old aerial photography the route of the former railway has been traced in relation to present day features such as Lake Dunstan and the current highway. This includes the sites of the Cromwell, Waenga and Doigs stations.

The main focus of this has now reached Clyde and at present a request for further aerial photographs from Archives New Zealand is being put together to get some pictures of the Clyde and Alexandra areas. And so it will continue down the line towards Wingatui. Archives New Zealand recently doubled their charges, so that for 20 images it now costs $50 instead of $25. This means I will be limiting my purchases to 20 per month or $50 in general, except where extra scans are needed, but that will not really be an issue because it's hard work to get through them very quickly anyway. Bearing in mind that it can take Archives up to two weeks to process a request then one batch per month seems entirely reasonable. I actually received the last batch about three weeks ago so it does seem reasonable to assume that one batch a month is in keeping with my productive output during term time, rather than the school holidays.