Since you came to this page from my steam locomotive web site, you must be wondering who I am, what I do, and why I have such a cool web site about steam locomotives. Actually, railroading is not my "number one" activity. I enjoy it but I also spend a great deal of time doing fun things like dancing, playing volleyball, collecting rare and obscure new wave music of the 80s, computer programming, or just spending time with my kids. These totally unrelated activities take up almost all of my free time.

So, between all of these activities and keeping all of my web sites updated, I am left with little time to answer bazillions of email messages (from people who think I am some sort of LARGE COMPANY with a department full of customer support staff, to whom I must often reply: "I'm sorry, I don't have a brochure to send to you and no I don't have visiting hours because I do not have a museum you can visit, I'm just a guy with a web site!" ;-)).

In June of 2001 I relocated from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Brisbane, Australia. I had the opportunity to move and I took it. While in "Oz" (as they call it), I did much the same things as I did in the USA. In 2011 another opportunity presented itself and we relocated back to the USA to Northwest Arkansas.

I don't consider myself a "railfan". I don't even care for that term. However, I do have an interest in railroads -- especially old steam locomotives (diesels are ok too, I suppose). I have traveled quite a bit, and have seen and photographed hundreds of steam locomotives throughout the United States and Australia. Some of these photographs are shown on these web pages.

How did I become interested in trains? My parents bought an HO train set for me when I was very young. I enjoyed it and added to it until I was about 16 at which time I sold most of it and packed the rest away. Around 1988 I unpacked the box of remaining trains and started to restore them.

Ever since that first HO train set I've been interested in trains. I grew up near the American Crystal Sugar Company (where my dad worked) in Chaska, MN. There was a lot of train activity at the factory. Every fall, during the campaign, the Milwaukee Road would bring sugar beet trains from the dakotas. Cranes were used to create huge mountains of sugar beets in fields near the factory. The sugar factory had a couple of steam powered cranes which they used to shuffle the sugar beet cars around. The steam cranes are long gone, but I will never forget the sweet smell of coal smoke.

In 1990 I bought tickets for an excursion train to be pulled by SLSF 1522 from Minneapolis to Winona and back. 1522 never made it (friction bearing problems enroute from St. Louis) so the train was pulled by diesels (a disappointment). While on that train I spoke with someone (a car attendant) from the Minnesota Transportation Museum. Weeks later I showed up at the Jackson Street Roundhouse (part of the Minnesota Transportation Museum), talked to some people, and joined the museum.

As a member of the Minnesota Transportation Museum and an active crew member on the Osceola & St. Croix Valley Railway, I worked my up from student brakeman to brakeman to conductor to student engineer to diesel engineer to student fireman to fireman to student steam locomotive engineer to steam locomotive engineer. My ultimate goal of being a qualified steam locomotive engineer was achieved on Saturday, August 28th, 1999.

Since the MTM operates on Wisconsin Central trackage, all of the crew must be code-qualified (FRA rules). We have to go through training and take the same tests (every two years) that the paid WC crew members do. Over the years, the WC has come to trust us enough so that they even let us haul their freight! The WC will leave a train somewhere for us and FAX the train orders to our trainmaster. We (the MTM) will send a crew out to the train, perform the necessary tests, and proceed to haul their freight (drop off loads, pick up empties, etc.). What an experience it is to be the engineer on a real freight train! It is also a big responsibility.

Doing this type of work gave me an opportunity to see what real railroading is like. It provided me with experiences that were otherwise difficult to achieve.

I became interested in ballroom dancing from watching the ballroom dance competitions on television. After attending a local competition as a spectator, I decided that I would like to try ballroom dancing out for myself. As with most subjects, I found that the more I learned about dancing, the more I realized there is to know. A great deal of effort (and money) can be spent on learning how to ballroom dance. More recently, I had been doing a lot of swing dancing with the friendly people of Swing Dance Brisbane. From around 2005 I have been teaching swing classes in Brisbane.

I have been playing volleyball for years. My favorite game used to be doubles. Later it had changed to grass court sixes (or fours). I have collected enough league volleyball t-shirts so that I could wear a different one every day of the month. While living in Australia, in addition to playing volleyball, I also tried out netball. For those of you who have never heard of netball, think of it as something like non-contact, non-dribbling basketball -- it is a game of passing the ball.

The progressive music scene in Minneapolis in the 80s was strong. There was First Avenue, an old Grayhound bus depot converted into a danceteria. There also was a dance club called Graffitti's. Graffitti's was my favourite dance place. They played an impressive mix of 80s music. Between 1984 and 1986 a Sunday night program called Radio One aired on KBEM radio station (85.5) in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The DJ for Radio One was Mike McClellan. Some of the most interesting, innovative, and progressive dance and new wave music ever heard on a Twin Cities radio station was aired on Radio One. The only other radio program that came close was Beat Radio in 1998.

Over the years I have amassed an impressive collection of rare and otherwise hard-to-find 80s new wave music. I just wish I had more time to listen to it all.