Founder and current President of the Niagara Railway Museum. Have secured most of the equipment the Museum has in it's collection, including the last remaining steam engine from the Queenston-Chippawa Project in Niagara Falls.
Also a carded engineer, and certified track inspector. Have been involved with various groups through the years including Elgin County Railway Museum, Halton County Radial Rail and South Simcoe.

Piedmont Carolinas Chapter NRHS member 1974-1986

Volunteer at the Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern Railroad 1979-1981.

Full time Engineer/Conductor for the Reading & Northern Railroad, May 1986 to the present. Also Engineer/Fireman for our steam program since 1986 as well.

Part time Engineer for the New Hope & Ivyland Railroad since 1994, including that all too brief 3 seasons with ex-C&O 614 on NJTransit.

Volunteer, time permitting, for the Reading Company Technical & Historical Society.

Chris Bost
Hamburg, PA.

Volunteer with WW&F Railway Museum since 1994. I'm the treasurer, a director, steam & diesel engineer, section foreman, webmaster, training officer, long range plan chair, rules committee chair, conductor, volunteer hours recorder, and IT guru. I'm also qualified in the gift shop.

I'm a member of Friends of EBT and a follower of Friends of C&TS, the other Maine two footers, and the Welsh Highland and Ffestiniog railways in Wales.

That, plus my wife and my job make up most of my life. Not much room for anything else, although there's rumors that my town's ex-Maine Central train station might be restored and if so I'd find a way to help out at least one day a month.

Firstly a model railroader and railfan for life since a kid, like father, well.. and family, Great Grandfather worked on LE&FW and later Nickel Plate.

Done some of the obvious railfaning and watching trains like at Waterloo IN an action hotspot for trains on the old NYC main.

Helped with the 765 Restoration and filmed on 8mm every bit of it I could, inside the boiler/firebox you name it, its there. 12 reels of 400 foot 8mm is 6 hours full watching.

Found the Lost Engines website and saw there were 3 N&W 4-8-0's and one 2-8-0 hidden away in a scrapyard, I kept watch with this, got involved long distance with the Western Virginia Railroad Preservation Society and did what I could to support ideas and bring attention to them getting the engines moved to safety away from potential scrapping. You don't know the relief I feel that they are now moved.

The TWVRPS keeps working at its "Niche" for a solid museum spot in the meantime keeps an eye open for lost engines and artifacts.

The B&LE 2-10-4 in Pittsburgh is looking like a lost engine to me.

My father is a member of the Chicago group Central Electric Railfan Association and served on the Board.

For now working on a model railroad with a multi-railroad design, N&W part of its theme with Virginian, CSS&SB, CNS&M and more.

I started out with the Heber Valley Railroad as a fireman back in the 1990s. Moved to class 1 railroading in '98 as a conductor, and I'm now an engineer for Canadian Pacific (working the former Soo Line properties out of St. Paul, MN). Volunteer/newsletter editor/fireman at the Ironhorse Central, Chisago City, MN. Preservation columnist, Railfan & Railroad Magazine.

I started at Williams Grove about 35 years ago. Can it really be that long? As my career moved me around the country and I went south to escape the cold and snow I moved on to places like TVRM and Spencer. After many years of eldercare I have started to get back into the game a little by lending a hand to Mike and Will at New Hope Valley. I spent part of yesterday in the firebox removing firebrick. That was my first real experience in the firebox of an oil burner. You never stop learning.

My career has been shortline railroading since the late seventies. Stops have included starting a couple of new shortlines and closing doing the famous Graham County Railroad for the last time. For the last 18 years I have been an employee of the Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad in eastern North Carolina. I currently have a little over 27 years in Railroad Retirement.

My wife and I are both life members of TVRM. I am also a member of the Western Maryland Railway Historical Society and the Hagerstown Roundhouse museum. I am to far away to really help any of these places so I occasionally send them a little money.

John Bohon

I live in Petaluma, California, so I joined Petaluma Trolley. Its goal is to bring back to life a portion of the Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railroad, including installation of catenary, from the downtown area to the Outlet Mall. To avoid going to the gym I shoveled several hundred wheel barrow loads of dirt off of the pavement and track along a portion of the P&SR main line and a siding. That allowed our recently acquired and restored GE 25-ton diesel to move around a bit at the DeCarli Trolley Museum, and made for a cleaner environment.

Also belong to the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Historical Society, and serve on its Board of Directors. We are in the fifth and hopefully final season of restoring Petaluma & Santa Rosa Caboose #1, which was built in 1899 as SP 272. Last October the caboose body was hoisted onto the pair of wooden beam trucks that we also rebuilt (the video is on Youtube - search for "Petaluma" and "caboose"). Yesterday we hung a rebuilt K brake cylinder and reservoir in position.

In April and May we will be moving to the Museum a coach we believe to be Central Pacific Railroad 29/NWP 123. It has survived decades of use as housing along the NWP main line near Ukiah, but will be restored to operating condition.

Some time this spring we expect to receive a wooden baggage car body from a donor. This car, too, has been used as a house. Also, we will be bringing in Northwestern Pacific 611 (Mail & Express) from Railtown 1897 in Jamestown. It was used in the Errol Flynn movie Dodge City. Charred boards from the "hero and heroine are trapped in a burning car" scene are visble in the car's ceiling.

The Society's goal is to restore each of these cars to operating condition.

I foresee a lot of documentation and paint scraping in my future.


Mike Manson

NWPRRHS.org
PetalumaTrolley.org

I am a volunteer at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum on my 2nd stint; I was a docent from 2002-2005, and returned last March. I'm two shifts away from my revenue operator status, and if I'm still right about this, I'm also the youngest qualified motorman at the museum (My 19th birthday was about a month ago).

I am also a member of the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society and hoping to become a member of the NKP 765 crew in the future. And if things go the way they do, I'd also like to volunteer with the Age of Steam Roundhouse out of Sugarcreek, OH.

None.

I am on the outside, looking in. I joined this forum to see if the railroad preservation movement is for me, and to see how it compares with other groups I volunteer for.

--
Will

Hey Will - find out what is in your neighborhood & start a forum for those places that interest you. "Hello - what's happening at ===== & what's the poop there" or something like that. You should get a number of opinions which can offer you direction. Some places are really good, some are just beating their gums and some places are clubs with cliques, politics & make you jump through hoops.

Your choice as to what floats your boat, er, stokes your firebox, keeps your trolley pole up, keeps you in run 8, etc...

We are less a movement than a diversity of projects and groups pursuing individual agendas. Occasionally, faced with a threat, we can sort of pull kind of together in a general idea of a direction..........greatest example of that working at its best just ended very recently when the last trolley was shipped out of Ohio.

Chances are, if the subject interests you at all, you can find a few places that will work for you, and a bunch of places that won't. Remember, once entrenched, you can change things from the inside rather than curse them from the outside.

dave

I grew up about 400 feet from (Gary-Montpelier) Wabash line near Magee. Every day I could remember at least 2 freight trains a day, one east and one west. Everyother day was the local with a combine on the rear. Never did I know that passengers could
ride the train. Spent a lot of time watching trains. In the fall, passenger trains from
Chicago would go east to Pine and go up to Notre Dame for football games. Train would return after dark, but always lighted up, especially the dome cars.
Got my amateur radio license at age 13, still active and still have same callsign
WA9NGO.
During my teenage years, spent considerable time at Wellsboro IN with my long time
friend "Bishop" the operator on the B&O C&O GTW crossing. Spent many hours sitting
and just talking and watching trains.
Joine the Navy in 1969, San Diego got involved in PSRM in 1977 till 1988 restoring
railway equipment at La Mesa, Miramar NAS, Campo CA. Norm Hill was my mentor,
a truely remarkable person and friend. Brenda Bailey was an expert HO model
painter who painted a set of F-7's in the Wabash scheme and Wabash cabooses.
Retired from Navy in 1991, drive school bus for La Porte IN for 15 years. Active
at HVRM North Judson IN in restoration. Les Beckman a good friend for years has
done much of the acquistion of equipment for the museum, including getting an
Alco S1 donated to HVRM.
Photography is a major portion of my life too. Both me and my wife are both cancer
surviors, colon rectal/breast, want to live a long happy life.
Member of WW&F, April 2007 did track work for 3 days.
Tom Travis La Porte IN

I started volunteering with the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum in San Diego in 1969. I've been involved, on and off, since that time.

Started volunteering with the Leatherstocking Chapter, NRHS of Oneonta, NY Fall of 1997 doing trackwork, restoration, office work, and train crew, excepting engineer. Volunteered just about every Saturday during four years of college and two additional years during grad school. Get back when I can to help out. Former collections intern and roundhouse volunteer at Steamtown during the Summer of 2002.

Have volunteered since I was 13 in non-profits. Employed by a non-profit in Southeastern PA.

Joshua

Ray Grabowski, Jr.
President, Lake Shore Railway Historical Society

Lake Shore Railway Historical Museum
North East, Pennsylvania
(10 miles east of Erie, PA General Electric Locomotive Assembly Plant)
At CSX CP 73 :: ex-NYC Water Level Route

I am involved in all aspects of preservation, some more than others depending on which way the wind is blowing... sometimes painting railcars or buildings, other times mowing the lawn, sometimes playing diesel mechanic for an old Plymouth or GE industrial loco, sometimes making the newsletter, sometimes writing grants, sometimes giving tours and/or running the giftshop, sometimes doing other things, and all times being busy. Not enough time to read all the RYPN posts....

Museum opens for the 2010 season on Saturday, April 3, so all volunteers are busy trying to shake-off the effects of a northwestern PA lake-enhanced winter!

Stop by if you are in the neighborhood!

rayg