The NWAHC wants to be a living institution, interacting with anyone in the community who wants to learn more, and earning interest from the generations beyond those who actually worked for Northwest, Republic, or any of their predecessor airlines and feeders. Yet the archives can’t be thrown open willy-nilly because we have an obligation to those who’ve donated materials and funding to preserve and catalog the collection, and because we are still quite busy professionally logging and tagging those materials.
But it makes sense, over the long run, to scan and post a great many documents and data files to help those wanting to conduct research, read casually, or relive memories. My personal area of expertise is in timetables, and between my own collection and that of REFLECTIONS correspondent and good friend Arthur Na, we felt we could jump-start the Center’s expansion onto the Internet.
To that end, for much of Summer-Fall 2018 we’ve been collecting files we’ve already scanned for our own research, and staying up late to scan issues from our own file cabinets and storage tubs.
While Arthur is chugging away on his set of 1950s – 1960s Northwest and North Central issues, I’ve been tackling my Air West and Hughes Airwest stacks. And that brings me to today’s unusual specimen. Most airlines around the world followed the lead of the railroads in choice of timetable paper size and binding method: sheets of around 9″ tall by 16″ wide, stapled down the middle (“saddle-stitched” in printing jargon), and folded along the staple line and then folded again for a 9″x4″ booklet that fit neatly in a sport coat inside pocket. You’ll notice most timetables (and magazines, catalogs, and newspapers) have page counts in multiples of 8, and that’s because the dimensions of printing presses and the large sheets of paper that get fed through them make 8s an efficient use of paper and machine time.
Pacific, Air West, and Hughes Airwest used this method for most of their issues, but their printer for the October 30, 1977 edition must have forgotten what end the press plates went in, because it was printed upside down – it opens toward the left instead of the right! The folding job was all messed up, too, because the right margin on the cover is about 1/4 inch too wide compared to the left margin.
The wacky print job made this issue a real joy to scan, with every page needing serious alignment correction.
Here’s the scanned-in file for your viewing pleasure: RW schedule 1977 10 30
Unlikely this was a one-off misprint, because in that case the interior pages would have been oriented in the correct direction. Today’s industrial digital presses are capable of running micro-batches, but the press used in the 1970s would have done 10,000 or 20,000 copies straight through. I’ll have to find something else to sell and retire off of…
More behind-the-scenes stories to come! –Scott Norris
