About 25 years ago I was going to meetings of the Society of California Archivists. One of the professional archivists said that dumpster diving was an acceptable preservation method.[/quote]

Within my institution is nearly 6000 documents dating back to 1780 which are communications between the head of our local government and Spain and later, Mexico City. Written in Castillan Spanish, these are some of the earliest written documents in California.

About 1950, someone decided to persevere these documents through microfilm. Once the microfilming was completed, the original documents were simply trashed. Our museum's founder heard of the act and proceeded to retrieve most from the trash. Ironically, the microfilming was done poorly with portions of individual pages missing and with no sense of any order.

The contents of these documents are our most requested research item. The originals have since been carefully scanned.

If not for the dumpster diving, part of our historical record would have been lost, perhaps forever.

And my technically hip friends wonder why I hang onto my Kodachrome slides...

These cars might be of use to the Golden Gate Railroad Museum (GGRM), which is in the process of moving from its co-location with the Niles Canyon Railway Museum to a site in Schellville, California - which is about 45 road miles from Callistoga, CA.

At the moment, their equipment is stored in a well-fenced yard that appears secure. Chris Guenzler has a photo at: http://www.trainweb.org/chris/20smart.html about half-way down. The 4 cars from Callistoga would make for a nice place to house interpretive exhibits, a gift shop, and perhaps other faculties that non-railfan visitors would expect to find at a museum and that would make life comfortable for voulnteers.

I found a Yelp site for one of the businesses that has a number of good photos: https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/calisto ... -calistoga

Overall, the bodies seem to be in excellent shape (the dry California climate helps) and have additional doors added only to one side.

Reaching out to the developer might yield a surprising result. Donating the cars and their movement would be cheaper than scrapping and provide a good news story.