About the REA

What is the REA? | The Standard Disclaimer How to use the pix | Home

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What is the REA?

The Railway Excess Agency is an annotated personal archive of railroad photographs, mostly shot in the USA and Europe, and dating from 1973 to the present. The site owner has no particular objective other than the enjoyment of the Internet railfan community. The REA has been in continuous operation since
March 1997.

Your host, The Station Agent, updates this site with new photo sets more or less monthly, so be sure to check back here periodically. Some older photos may be rotated out periodically to make space for others.


The Standard Disclaimer:

All photographs and original text in this collection are the property of the creator of this site; the owner reserves all copyright. You are welcome to download the photos published here for your personal, non-commercial use, or for non-commercial display at another site, as long as you retain the credit line imprinted on each picture. All photos have been recorded on Kodak Photo CD and higher-resolution versions are available; E-mail the REA Station Agent to discuss your requirements.


How to use the pix

Most of the pictures displayed on this site are slightly cropped from 35mm originals and exist in two versions : a 4x6cm 'thumbnail' and an approx. 800x600 pixel full-screen version. The larger version fills the full screen when the display is set to 800x600 or 'Super VGA' resolution. If your screen is set to 640 x 480 or 'VGA' resolution, some cropping will occur when displaying the pictures.

By far the most common usage of our pix is as background 'wallpaper' for the computer display. Instructions on how to convert the photos to wallpaper are listed below.

Windows 95/NT:

'Set Picture as Wallpaper' command :

Results: simple and fast, but compromises color gradations.

1) Click on the thumbnail image or file name to load the full-sized image.

2) Right-click on the full-sized image, then select 'Set As Wallpaper" from the pop-up menu. This instantly makes the image your wallpaper, until you do the process again with another image.

Alternate Method:

Results: Yields best results for color gradations.

1) Click on the thumbnail image or file name to load the full-sized image.

2) Right-click on the full-sized image and select 'Save Image As...' from the pop-up menu and save it to the 'Windows' Directory on your hard drive.

3) Use a graphics program (such as Adobe Photodeluxe)to convert the *.JPG image to a *.BMP image.

4) From the 'Start' menu, select 'Control Panel'.

5) Click twice on the 'Display' icon

6) Select the 'Background' tab, then in the 'Wallpaper' window select the new *.BMP image under the saved name and click 'OK.' You now have your wallpaper.

MAC OS 8:

1) Click on on the thumbnail image or file name to load the full-sized image.

2) Click and hold on the image, then save it to your drive.

3) In the Desktop Pictures control panel, choose 'Select Picture' (If you already have an image, choose 'Remove Picture' first, then choose 'Select Picture.'), then choose the image.

4) Click on 'Set Desktop,' then close the control panel.