A friend, BNSF engineer R.J. McKay, snapped this shot of me pulling the Hill Country Flyer up a 2 percent grade headed back to Cedar Park. I stopped at Bertram to drop off some passengers, and he was on the platform. I waved him up to the engine, and as soon as he climbed aboard I took off. He rode with me to Cedar Park, and then I drove him back to his truck at Bertram. I thought he understood that I was offering him a cab ride, but he was really surprised when I left the platform with him aboard.

Here my wife Ruth relaxes in a director's chair with an adult beverage on the rear platform of our Southern business car, the Boonesborough, after a catered meal on an evening employee's special run from Cedar Park to Burnet and return.

Here I am ready to depart the civic center in downtown Austin after loading up passengers on a July 2005 Sunday. We will go a mile to another platform and pick up some more passengers, then give them a 2-hour ride through the city.