I have been in love with trains since the age of five when my mother used to take me, with a picnic lunch, to the Southern Pacific yard in Fresno, CA, to watch the steam era switchers do their work. One day, the engineer of a switcher stopped his engine, climbed down out of the cab and came over to my mother. He said, I see you and your sone here frequently. Be here tomorrow at noon and I will take you for a ride. We did and I was hooked! I had a tinplate model railroad in my room as a small boy and in the mid-1970s got into HO. Over the years, I progressed through the various scales until settling on G gauge (1:29 and 1:20.3 scales). In 2002, my wife and I rode the Durango and Silverton RR and the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic RR while on vacation. We learned of the Friends of the CandTS RR and became volunteers. My wife and her children from a previous marriage came with me each year to spend a week working on CandTS projects. I spent three years helping to build caboose #05635 and what I learned was put to good use as the team leader for restoring the San Joaquin and Eastern RR caboose #50 for the Central Sierra Historical Society at Shaver Lake, CA, in the Central Sierra Nevada. The caboose has been completely taken apart and is now historically being rebuilt. Please see www.sierrahistorical.org for updates and information. I presently am at work building a garden railroad and continue my volunteer work on the CandTS RR as a worker bee and docent. Life is good!