Welcome to the

Station Master's Office

Update: October 16, 2007

Okay, so this page hasn't been much of a blog. In my defense, I had good intentions—and as another correspondent reminded me recently, we all know what is paved with that. I will in future try to update this page at least once a month or so.

Track 8 is coming along nicely and should be ready for publication around the end of the month. Some of the timetables you can look forward to seeing are the California Limited, the original Chief, the Colorado Eagle, the Overland Limited, the Rocky Mountain Rocket, and the San Francisco Chief.

One change that I want to explain in advance: I am going to experiment with advertising on the site. I do not have any intentions of making this page into a commercial business, but I would like to help cover my expenses. So far I have paid for everything out of pocket, and while it hasn't been a great burden my current budget doesn't permit for much in the way of expansion. Eventually I would like to expand my coverage to include the pre-streamliner and Amtrak eras, and I would also like to be able to add extra features such as a discussion forum.

As always, I welcome feedback. If you believe that the advertising layouts I choose distract from or clash with the primary purpose of the site, please let me know. If you think that they fit in nicely, let me know that as well. This may be my site, but it is the visitors who make my work worthwhile. I look forward to hearing from you.

Update: May 17, 2007

Some of the visitors to this site may wonder why there have been no updates for the previous month and a half. Well, there have been two reasons: Lawyers and real life. Lawyers, because I have been in contact with a couple of the major railroad companies as well as the current publisher of the Official Guides [Commonwealth Business Media] to obtain formal permission to make use of their trademarks and copyrighted material on this web site. While nobody has flatly said, "No," my applications for licenses and/or permission have been mouldering in legal limbo for up to the past three months. While it might still pass the "fair use" test if challenged in court, it might be considered impolite to add new content to the site while I am still awaiting formal permission for the old. Real life has also intruded; my boss has asked me to take the licensing exam for first grade stationary engineer and so I spent a good bit of the past few months studying. There are a few minor diversions as well, including my father's 75th birthday next week and an attempt to put together a web site for my church. But I do hope to get back to transcribing timetables in the near future.