SPOKANE PORTLAND & SEATTLE

THE OREGON TRUNK

The 5th Subdivision in Free-Mo 1960-1969

About me...

Life Life:

My Family is very important to me, I have a wife and a son living here in Kansas with me. The rest of our family all lives back in Oregon where we are originally from, but we keep in contact regullary and usually make a couple trips "home" a year. It is true about ow you can never "go home" once you start your own family, but it is nice to spend time back in Oregon.

Railroad Life:

I really am not sure where my love of trains orignates from but I am fully immersed in both the railroad industry and the hobby. I do not have a single family member who worked for the railroad or anyone who even really has an interest in trains.

After spending sometime in college I decided that all I really wanted to do was work for the railroad. I attended a railroad school and was hired out to work for the Carrizo Gorge Railway.(CZRY) As interesting as Southern California is I really had no ties there and wanted to get back to Oregon.

I left the CZRY to work for the Central Oregon & Pacific(CORP). I had made some friends there and enjoed working with people I knew. After a couple years with the company they were going through some cahnges and I went to look for work elsewhere. After bouncing around looking for the right fit I decided  to get back into railroading and was offered a job in Kansas.

While working for CORP I had gotten married and she had never lived more then a few miles from home. It was a big change for bohof us to move to Kansas but we have been here going on three years. I was hired to work as an Engineer for a shortline and have since promoted to Trainmaster. The job carries a lot of responsibilty but I love every minute of it, yes even the calls at 0330 when crews have questions.

Hobby Life:

As far as modeling goes I have always dabbled including the obligator 4x8 layout growing up. I became a "serious" model railroad sometime in 2000 when I began to spend a bunch of time at the local hobbyshop. I realized I had spent to much time at the hobbyshop when they offered me a parttime job which I held off and on three years.

As explained on my homepage about what I model the way I model is pretty easy to explain, RIVET COUNTER. I enjoy the term rivet counter, as it really does describe the way I am, yes I have not purcahsed and item due to the rivets not being correct. This is not  a mechanism to a be snoot or upity, but altimatley a device to save me money. Kind of strange to see it that way, but let me explain. Instead of purchasing something that is not correct, or not even close versus saving up and buying something that is, means I am going to most likely keep the item. Instead of buying a bunch of athearn blue box stuff I would save and buy some Intermountain kits, after the time spent on the intermountain kits guess which ones I still have. That is the other thing I love about the hobby is building kits and/or super-detailing , freight cars, passenger cars or locomotives. I also enjoy building structures via kitbashing or scratchbuilding. I find it very rewarding to have something that you have made be able to be admird by others. To wrap it up, I have always had the opinion that I would rather have a small collection of very nice stuff then a huge collection of junk.