User:Donstrack
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Who am I
[edit]I live near Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, where I have lived since 1958.
I have been a railroad modeler since 1965, a railfan since 1966 and railroad historian since 1977. As a young teen, I belonged to a local model railroad club, and rode my bicycle to the local rail yards to watch trains. As soon as I turned 18 years of age, I got a job for Union Pacific Railroad as a mechanic's helper, then as a Journeyman Boilermaker, working with metal-working tools and equipment to perform such duties as wreck damage repair. This was in their Salt Lake City diesel locomotive shops and the job lasted 10 years, until I took a job as a brakeman on another railroad. Unfortunately, that job lasted only until the 1979 recession, after which I sought more stable employment. Recently retired after 25+ years shuffling papers as a government bureaucrat, while memories and visions of steel wheels on steel rails flow through my head.
I have a large collection of railroad reference books, along with a large collection of primary source materials. I was an active railroad modeler until just recently, when I realized I was enjoying the history aspects of railroading much more than modeling. My main focus is on the railroads of Utah, then on diesel locomotives and other rolling equipment of Union Pacific and other railroads. I'm interested in any railroad that operated in Utah, along with its equipment and its history. Because railroads can't operate without customers and traffic, I have been active in the history of rail-related industries in Utah, namely copper mining and coal mining, along with the agricultural and manufacturing industries that produce rail traffic.
I maintain a large web site that covers my Utah interests, and all the other things I research and write about. Included there is a list of my publications. As of late 2010 I have authored ten books, and contributed to an additional five books, all about Utah railroads and Union Pacific. I have also authored twenty-nine magazine articles and coauthored an additional four articles.
Wikipedia
[edit]I discovered Wikipedia after a random Google search turned up my web site as a source used in an article.