Anybody know what happened the the "US DOT Special Collections" website (source of ICC accident reports etc.)? When I click on the link, I see see a cryptic message about funding availability.

"This site at this address must temporarily be taken off-line until funding becomes available." I'd hardly call that cryptic. They ran out of money to pay the bills, so the site is inaccessible until they receive the funds to do so.

When I checked this site today I see a message "This Site Is Under Construction".

Maybe it will be back Online soon?

Michael

Remember the current administration is probably not big on funding, or even allowing these kinds of information sources to continue. There is probably no incentive to fix this.

The "Under Construction" page included a link (OSTLibrary@dot.gov) to send an e-mail asking notification when the site would be up again. A few days ago, I got a message with a link to a supposedly new link to the DOT Special Collections: http://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net.atmrc.net

I clicked on it, and was sent to a login page (with the USDOT banner at the top) that required registration for new users. I clicked on THAT link and it took me to an unsecure registration page (padlock with slash across): http://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net.atmrc.net/Login

Does anybody know whether this is a legit federal site, or is possibly some ID theft magnet?

Bob Thatcher

I clicked on it, registered, and got in.

In MS Windows one way you can see were a link is going to take you is to put your cursor over the hot-link and do a right button click. Select save link. Then paste the saved link into a text file like word or notepad and read what gets pasted. I do this whenever I suspect a phishing email, etc. The address does not look right, don't go there.

Way out of the content guidelines but.... Expect this to be a problem with federal websites since they are very slow to adopt any tech changes or upgrades such as SSL (the encrypted connection showing https and a green lock in the address bar) which has been around for quite a long time. Some current browsers will now give you a warning when you log into a site like RyPN without SSL. So it is prudent to be aware when you are not on a secured connection to any website. Even a federal one.

Thus concludes your web surfing tech tip of the day.

I keep running in a loop here. I registered, they sent me an email with a link to click on to verify my email address. It took me to a page that says it no longer exists. Wonder if the gov't is still running Windows 3.1 or WTH?

Cynic that I can be, I believe the special collections has gone away and ain't coming back.
I can't imagine the general public was falling all over itself for access to the data. It could be that it was transferred to another department and we haven't found it yet.

If you're looking for accident reports, you can get those online via the FRA. https://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/default.aspx. I don't know how far back the database goes - probably only as far back as online reporting goes.

I just registered and got the verifying email and the link in the mail took me to the USDOT page for "Online Digital Special Collections" at http://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net.atmrc.net/Home

It is very much the same as what we had before. Covers 1911-1993. Both a content list is available and a search function. Previously both PDFs of the scanned carbon copies of the reports and computer text recognition transcriptions were both available. Now only the the transcriptions created by computer recognition software -- with all the problems there of:
I wish the PDFs were available.

Cool. Glad the cynic in me was wrong. They certainly have it hidden well. I can find no links anywhere on the DOT or Transportation Library site. The domain is currently hosted on an Amazon cloud server, not a gov't server, so I'd guess it's temporary and it'll move again in the future. I could be wrong again, though....