Digital Keystone Collection

The first edition of The Keystone, which was published in April, 1968, by what was then known as the Pennsylvania Research & Information Association, consisted of 12 typewritten pages - little more than a newsletter, but they did manage to get a nice line drawing of an M1 locomotive on one of the pages. Over the 57 years since then, they faithfully printed a quarterly publication that grew in size, content and quality to become one of the most highly regarded periodicals in the railroad historical community. Many people lovingly maintain boxes full of the 228 issues that have been published through the end of 2024. The thought of collecting them together and storing the collection on digital media became reality back in 2002, when what had by that time become the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society (PRRT&HS) produced a set of 35 volumes on CDs that were very popular and sold out quickly. In the years since, the thought of making another collection to bring things up to date would come up every now and then, but it was not until 2024 that serious action was taken to make another collection.

PRRT&HS is proud to announce its new digital collection of all 228 issues of our flagship periodical The Keystone, covering its first 57 years of publication, available now on USB stick drive in our online store.

Introductory Video Tutorial

A video tutorial is now available to help introduce you to the Digital Keystone Collection. In it, you will learn its features and how to use them to find information quickly. Click on the button below to view it.

Quantities in the first run are limited, so in order to give our members first opportunity to obtain one for themselves, we are offering sales to only PRRT&HS members for the time being.

Non-members can join PRRT&HS by first clicking on the MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION button below. Then click on the STORE button to buy the collection.

System Requirements

The Digital Keystone Collection (DKC) consists mostly of PDF files, which means that they can be read reliably on a wide variety of platforms with a good quality PDF file reading application, such as Adobe's Acrobat series.

With the power and feature sets of today's software and considering today's need for heightened security, there are some limitations and requirements that you need to be aware of:

• The DKC will run only on Windows 10 or later and macOS computers.
• The DKC will not run on any portable devices, including cellular phones, pads or tablets, regardless of OS.
• The computer on which the DKC is to be accessed must have a PDF reader application installed.
• Use of any PDF reader other than either Adobe Acrobat Reader or Adobe Acrobat Pro, will significantly reduce the performance and capability of the DKC in the following ways:
• The unified word search will not function.
• Magazine-to-magazine navigation may not work.
• The navigator may not function, and if it does, it may act in unexpected ways.
• The DKC will perform fully on version 7 or later of either Acrobat Reader or Acrobat Pro.
• If you do not already have a compatible version of Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer, you can download and install a free version of Acrobat Reader at https://get.adobe.com/reader/ .

Please be aware that PRRT&HS will not be able to provide support if you are operating outside of these requirements.

Frequently Asked Questions

We present here some answers to common questions that will likely help you over some hurdles as you get more familiar with the DKC. Click on the red box containing a question to expand it and reveal the answer.

Note: This list will grow as users, such as yourself, ask questions.