How Did This Web Site Get Started?

Back in the late 1980s, in their quarterly news magazine: the Minnigazette, the Minnesota Transportation Museum published a list of surviving steam locomotives that had at one time operated in or near the state of Minnesota. I was fascinated by this list and couldn't help but to wonder: "Where are _ALL_ of the surviving steam locomotives?". Using the information in this list and in a booklet published by the Camerail Club, I began to compile my own list. The list was very short. I added the locomotives that I had seen in museums and parks. After a while, I began periodically posting my list in the rec.railroad USENET newsgroup. People began to e-mail additions to me. By the early 1990s I felt the list was substantial enough to be placed on this new thing called the "Web".

I created a web site that contained two things: 1) my list of surviving steam locomotives, and 2) a few pages containing photographs of steam locomotives at several museums that I had recently visited. To the best of my knowledge, my web site contained the first ever Virtual Tours (as they were called back then) of steam locomotives.

What Has Motivated Me To Keep This Web Site Going?

For each surviving steam locomotive there exists a unique story about it. It can be interesting to track the history of a steam locomotive from the time it was retired to where it is today. I find it interesting to hear how they were saved from the scrap yard, or how they were once used in excursion service but then later removed from service and placed in a park. Because it is difficult to remember the complete history of each locomotive, I need to write what I know about each locomotive in this web site. This way, others can read about them and then e-mail their comments or additional history to me (which, of course, gets added to the site).

Steam Locomotive dot Com Today

Over the years, this web site has has gone through a number of face-lifts. I try to make the site professional looking and easy to navigate. It's almost funny how I get more and more e-mail from people who think that Steam Locomotive dot Com is some sort of company. I guess I'll take that as a complement.

The care and maintenance of this site is one of my hobbies. I have collected a lot of information and placed it in this site. Two people have helped me immensely in this task. Those two people are Richard Duley and Steve Llanso. They both have provided a wealth of information on the details of many locomotives. You will find much of the information they have provided under the "Wheel Arrangements" menu.