I'm BAAAK.

I have been a member since 2005, but I haven't been active. I have thought that this is a model group, and I haven't been doing model since 1976. I started doing model railroading in 1940 and then I started taking pichers in 1946. I went to work for the Milwaukee Road as a clerk in 1949 and switched to C&NW as a telegrapher-towerman-station agent in 1951. In 1952 I was drafted and went to Fort Eustis. I became a train dispatcher and transferrred to Korea in January 1953. After several months they had too many dispatchers and few who knew steam. I became a roundhouse honcho until I went home in April 1954. I came back to C&NW until 1957 when I went to traffic management. In January 1960 I went to REA as a sales rep at Peoria and promoted to Dallas. In 1969 I could see the ending of REA and I got into air freight. I had my own company later until 1986 when I couldn't compete with UPS and Fedex. I worked for a church for a year and then to Sears selling cameras. They got me into computers. Later I went to Office Depot and finally I went GTE Internet when I was 65. Ten years ago, at 70, I decided to spend all of my hobby time instead working for some one else. In 1976 I put my hobby away when I did a grad program and came back in 1979. My models were smashed by a son who used drugs. I decided to stick to pichers, but 616 black & white was gone. So it became slides. In 1998 I got a scanner and went to set up a web site. Dons Depot now has 3300 pages with around 12,000 images. www.donrossgroup.net
Don

 

Glad to finally 'meet' you Don.

That sounds like quite an eventful life, and looking at the photos on your website, you've experienced some amazing railfanning!

I host a bi-weekly Railfan photo challenge here on TrainBoard that I think you would enjoy. It's more about being a fun way to share photos than a competition, though on some occasions we have been given the opportunity to award winners with a special magazine issue or Railroad DVD.

I generally encourage new photos to be entered, but lately have been accepting all photos of the given topic. This opens up the playing field to encourage more participation, plus I think it gives those with the competitive edge something extra to try for, even though the only prize is bragging rights.


We also have a lot of Milwaukee Road fans here as well. Hopefully they wont bother you for stories and knowledge too much.

 

I've never bothered to read the TrainBoard member list and didn't know you were here. I also didn't see you on any of the other forums I frequent(ed), and I never thought of looking. Maybe it's because I consider your site one of the most important railway photo sites...
http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr077.htm I also never bothered to read your story.
Your site is often the only (or at least the best) one I know for many long-gone railways. I recently discovered http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/indexknr.htm - a good cross-section of working steam in South Korea.
It's good to see you around at last.