Even though I've had more than just a passing interest in trains nearly all my life, only since the very late 1990s have I become a "hard-core" rail enthusiast, or railfan. This interest spawned during the last months of my service at Travis AFB, where on the way to and from work I would cross the busy Union Pacific (former Southern Pacific) "Cal-P" line twice a day. I started hanging out "trackside" after work and on weekends to photograph passing trains, much the same way I'd spend time at airports watching and photographing airliners. As I learned more about the railroads, the more I began to appreciate the fascinating history of railroading in the United States and abroad.
Interestingly, this was not my first occasion to document trains. While stationed in England from 1985 to 1988, I made many journeys on British Rail and the London Underground. For the most part, these were trips of necessity to travel to/from London's Heathrow Airport where I would spend the day photographing airliners. Thankfully, during those three years I took a modest few train photos so I at least have a small collection of British rolling stock from that period. Unfortunately, I didn't keep very good travel records of all the trips I made on the rails. Once I finally returned to the states in 1989, nearly all interest in railroads fell by the wayside until the late 1990s.
After the tragic events of September 11, 2001 airports no longer became a "fun" place to hang out...at least not for me. I preferred to spend my time "chasing" trains around the midwest since that is where I lived from 2000 to 2004. I even managed to squeak in a few trips on Amtrak and I made quite a few trips on the Metrolink light rail system around the greater St. Louis area. Since moving to Arizona in 2004 I've managed to travel on some trains in other parts of the country as well as a few trips on the "new" Phoenix Light Rail. I've also maintained my passion for freight railroading by photographing the BNSF in my own neighborhood.
So that brings me to this webpage. In late September 2010, a British railfan paid a visit to Phoenix and our discussions prompted me to create a webpage documenting the British trains I'd seen in the mid-80s. While working on that page the idea for this page was born. So what follows is my humble attempt to document the rail journeys of my life. I'm having a great time sorting out the photographs and myriad details as I go...unfortunately I don't have as complete a picture as I'd like.
October 1967
This is a photo of my sister, my brother, and I looking out a window of a Southern Pacific coach at a station somewhere on “the peninsula” in the San Francisco Bay Area in October 1967. The second photo is my mom holding me and is captioned on the back "San Francisco" so the most likely location is the current CalTrain terminus in China Basin.
