First off I'm not your typical railfan. Like the screen name implies I prefer the real thing, not scale models. Part of my interest came from always liking large machinery, be it bulldozers, tractors or graders. After moving to New Jersey in grade school I was then in much closer proximity to Central NJ Railroad and Lehigh Valley Railroad on a regular basis. Fast forward to after college. I discovered the internet. No, not my idea but others built it and I came. With it I encountered others interested in trains as well. After having a few bad experiences with amateur theatre groups I hesitated getting involved with any fallen flag or historical groups. Several railfans I encountered trackside actually scared and/or repulsed me in their extremely coarse and/or anti-social behaviour. A few when conversation was attempted muttered something incomprehendable and then drifted or, in one case ran off! So I observed my railfan interest alone and mostly in silence.
Then in 2002 I became involved with the Volunteer Railroaders Association aka the VRA. my involvement with them started out as being part of a few volunteer help crews on various brush cutting projects. there was no pressure to join the VRA group and they were happy to have another set of hands helping. Over time I met them at various events and projects and became aquatinted with more of the membership. Sane and very normal guys close to my age and older. Much different than my past railfaning experiences!
In 2004 came an event where I could really help - the existing VRA website ( http://community.nj.com/cc/railroaders ) was lost due to their web host ( nj.com ) exiting the shared hosting market. It took a few weeks but I resurrected 95% of the site from searching the WayBack Machine internet archives. At first it was placed on http://www.geocities.com/volunteerrailroaders/ After a domain and server was lined up we launched the new site http://www.vratrips.org/ on Saturday April 10, 2004.
In the fall of 2008 I did some intense research in web marketing to enhance the web presence the VRA had. I created a VRA blog and a website for the Hawthorne New Jersey NYS&W Railroad Station. I also created a Wiki page for the Hawthorne NYSW station .
Web marketing soon came of age and I was asked to create a Santa Claus Train Ride page and a Easter Bunny Train Ride page. The Easter Bunny Train Ride page was later made into a Easter Bunny Train Ride website separate from vratrips.org to allow it to remain up all year round. Next in early 2010 I did the same for the Santa rides and created the Santa Train Rides in NJ website.
In September 2010 I was asked to take over the hosting and updating of the single page Santa Train Rides in New Jersey used by several URHS of NJ members as their primary entry point ('santatrain.net' on posters & banners) for their Santa Train Ride in NJ ticket sales.
After spending a lot of time in 2011 trying to find a single source of links to Santa Train Rides I created one Santa Train Rides in the USA - a free listing site. Those that existed were either partially created and then abandoned or were a paid listing site created to sell $$-$$$-$$$$ links.
Below are links to a new website about the proposed Liberty Historic Railway at Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ