Hello to all this morning:
There is a lot of planning needed to execute a full backup and move forward with a sustainable maintenance plan of this collection. This is a big deal and I am on the side of taking it slowly and with as few missteps as possible.

I would like to get a plan together that covers all of the details I can think of and share it with everyone to add or modify it as needed. It would be a "who, What and When" plan. Right now I am very busy with the Spring Meeting activities, so this will need to wait for that smoke to clear. This could be three to four weeks away before completion.

I do need to add some information that will help remove some issues I am reading about. Databases products/reports/lists etc. get their order (sort) in the gathering or 'fetching' of the records. They do not preserve the order of the records as they are added or captured. They store the records in such a way as to maximize the space utilization on the storage media. This is true of Flickr and all other true database systems. The order you direct images in albums in Flickr are captured by the 'Organizer' interface and stored in the database. They are not physically stored in that order.

So what does this mean to us? It means that how an album with over 500 images is sliced up into sub-albums for downloading and backup is not meaningful. It does not matter.

For example the Depots and Station Line East with 2,100 images could be copied into five temporary albums. The original Depots and Station Line East album is not altered. Images in these temp albums are download by me on to one of my external USB 1T hard drives. Once that is accomplished all of the images in the five temporary albums/folder can be deleted and made ready for another 500+ album. The five or more temporary albums are reused for each 500+ album to facilitate downloading.

How will the BRHS system present the Flickr images? The BRHS system offers the user multiple ways, based upon the available fields in the database. The most common or default is by the title. Most images of engines, steam and diesel, have titles that begin with the road marks follow by the unit number. Therefore a selection by the user for sorting of these images by the title will generate a list in the road marks=>unit number order. Titles for depots and stations generally begin with the station name and state. Therefore a selection by the user for sorting of these images by the title will generate a list in the order of station name. Records of engines and stations that do not follow this pattern would need to be modified as discovered.

Another thing to ignore is eliminating duplicates. A simple program in the BRHS system can quickly locate duplicates, and then they can be deleted.

One more thing that I have mentioned in the past is that I need to put together a demo set of Flickr images for everyone to review. This will give a very clear picture (no pun intended) of how this collection will function on the BRHS system. I am sure it will generate many questions and that is good. So lets wait for this and a draft migration plan to be done. Then perhaps a conference call with everyone (?) to discuss these plans.

Thanks everyone for your ideas and help in keeping the Flickr collection a lasting resource for years to come.