Retired mechanical and structural engineer with much hands on experience in design and construction of real undertrack and trackside structures related to the cement, brick, aggregate, and mining industries. Took early retirement in 1990 from a Fortune 500 company to build and start up the Fort Worth and Western shortline railroad. Designed, surveyed, and supervised installation of trackage, four span plate girder bridge, and turntable serving the Fort Worth Historical Stockyards District. Also rehabbed old trackage and timber trestles. When road crew on the GP-7 ran out of time, switched local trackside industries as part of three man road crew made up of management. Began as VP Engineering and left as interim President of FWWR. While at FWWR, supervised restoration of ex-S.P. #2248, a Rogers 10 wheeler of 1896 vintage, and the original four passenger coaches obtained from the Strasburg RR. This passenger lashup is currently operated by the City of Grapevine, Texas as The Tarantula Train and hauls tourists between Grapevine and the Fort Worth Stockyards Historical District. Perhaps my most interesting RR experience was unloading ex-SP #1744, an oil fired 2-6-0 obtained from the Heber Creeper RR, from a steel decked flatcar in our Ft Worth yard. We saw cut the rails behind the flat, and cribbed it up with ties and timbers to deck height of the car. Allowing a flat cribbed section just longer than the loco, we completed the transition to yard track elevation with a 4% grade. Two heavy duty oil field winch trucks, one at the blind end of the flat and the other backed up against the side of the flat with its cable turned 90 degrees by a snatch block, were used to restrain #1744 as it rolled down the 4% ramp. Only two pinch bars were required to start her rolling. Although we ran her at reduced boiler pressure in the yard for evaluation, #1744 was never restored for revenue service by FWWR. She was sold to a shortline in