Railways in the Niagara Region
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A brief history of Railways in the Niagara Region


One of my earliest train photos Railways in the Niagara Region was founded in the summer of 1998, and specifically, beginning operation on July 1st. What started out as a simple distraction with a new toy (the Internet) fast became one of the larger and more popular rail sites around.

I've always been interested in railways, trains, and everything about them. I came from a railroad family, so exposure was to be expected. A strong sense of admiration and respect for my family members that put food on the table by way of the rails quickly led to a fascination for what, where, and how they performed their work. On top of this, trains cater to the male attraction towards power, brute force, and magnitude, and I was never an exception to that.

Better quality photo (and a personal favourite)In high school, I began to take photographs using a very old 35mm that my parents donated to my efforts. For the first few years, I shot exclusively trains, until I realized there's more to life and a camera lens than trains can offer (no offense to railways there). Eventually, I began to appreciate photography and trains in equal fashion, and the results prove this. By the time I finished college, I earned the title of “free-lance” photographer, having over 800 photographs (many non-rail shots included) published by various media.

My very first computer was an old Macintosh SE, which was a fine machine for it's time. Using the classic program MacPaint, I drew a lot of small graphics of locomotives, railcars, and railroad structures, mostly to use on “Property of…” stickers that I stuck to anything that was mine. A few years after first getting the Internet, I discovered Train Gifs Station, a now-defunct site that displayed hundreds of train clipart images, all drawn to a common scale. With the webmasters assistance, I turned my talents to a common scale not only used by him, but several others as well. My first gif graphics were somewhat crude (I still wasn’t used to a colour palette), but extensive practice produced better results over time.

New Canadian Pacific AC locomotive As the site grew, so did my HTML knowledge. Eventually I dropped all design programs (such as MS FrontPage) in favour of the more tedious, yet rewarding, hand-coding. In recent years, I've been introduced to JavaScript. Although I still continue to learn the intricacies of scripts, I’m getting better over time. The site has gone through several layout templates over the years, and while I cannot say the current one will last forever, it suits me fine for now.

Since its inception many years ago, Railways in the Niagara Region has grown to include over 800 photos, thousands of train gifs, dozens of useful reference materials, and much more. It has an impressive past record, and, hopefully, the future will hold many more impressive feats yet to come.