For original article of this news item search for "TrainWeb" in the archive section of OC Register Website.
The
Orange County Register
Story appeared in
COMMUNITY section
on
page 1
ID: 1059718
Illustration:
Edition: FULLERTON
Correction: | KEEPING
AN EYE ON YOU
// Fullerton depot website sends data on trains and tourists around
the world
December
10, 1998
Byline: BARBARA GIASONE
Fullerton News Tribune
An
Englishman traveling aboard the American Orient Express pressed his nose
against the window to get a closer look at the Fullerton train
depot.
Hours later, while browsing through cyberspace on his laptop,
the tourist stumbled on www.trainweb.com . . . and spotted his face
in stark black and white. A Webcam in a depot window had chronicled his
visit.
A Indonesian rail worker, desperate for a General Electric
locomotive part, clicked on the virtual express for help.
Officials in a small East Coast town, marooned by recent flooding,
e-mailed the website to find a flatcar to replace a broken bridge.
Train trekkies around the world are tapping into Fullerton for rail
technology.
TrainWeb, the brainchild of Steve Grande and Ray Burns, has
surpassed its 1-million-user threshold in two years. Lodged in a
1,000-square-foot office on the second floor of the depot, the armchair
express utilizes six cameras to record rail activity at the Fullerton
station.
The photos, updated every 10 seconds, are fed into computers where
they are put on the website. Virtually all of the 45 passenger and 50
freight trains that roll through Fullerton daily are beamed into
cyberspace.
"Folks in New York who put their family on the train for a
Christmas holiday in California can literally watch the arrival," said
Burns, 56, who plans to update the operation with audio and video links.
But it's Grande, a lifetime train buff, who spearheaded the rolling
travelogue.
Burns worked for Grande and his wife, who owns a large Internet
service provider. When he learned Grande had built a "humongous" data base
on trains in 1996, Burns said, "If you like trains that much, what are we
doing here?"
"There was this love, this passion and all we needed was some of
the ISP outdated equipment to get started," Burns said.
The pair scouted a location convenient to their Anaheim Hills and
Fullerton homes. And they wanted a city rich in rail history.
"Here, we found a town named for a rail agent, a busy station and
plans for a railway museum and rail-car dining. What better mecca for
people who like trains," Burns said.
And, there's an added bonus. If the business partners want to lunch
in, say, Santa Barbara, they tote their laptops aboard Amtrak, click along
the coast, hop off for State Street dining, then head back to Fullerton.
Grande has logged more than 100,000 Amtrak miles, visiting
everywhere imaginable except the route between Schenectady, N.Y. and
Montreal - and the short routes out of Chicago.
His photologue - more than 9,000 strong - is on the
TrainWeb, plus rail schedules, ticket information, history, facts
on model railroading and additional links to locomotive lore.
"We're like Disneyland; you can't see it all in one day," Burns
said. Indeed, with advertising banners on the site selling for $500 to
$700 per year, freightloads of information target most interest groups.
Raised in Ottawa, Canada, Burns remembers at age 6 playing along
the tracks, jumping onto freights and hanging on for 50 meters. "It was a
picturesque fantasy, like you would design for a toy train layout."
Grande, a native of Boston, spent his teen years exploring the
city's subways and streetcars.
The pair acknowledged that train popularity lost a little steam in
recent years, spurred by the closing of the Desert Wind route.
The real turnaround, they added, was the shutdown of the Texas
Eagle.
"When that stopped, there was so much political opportunity, the
route was restored in two weeks," Burns said.
Grande had credentials to travel aboard the Eagle's inaugural run.
Chronicling the on-board adventures for TrainWeb, he had his story
on the Internet long before reporters waiting in the next town.
"We're quickly moving toward our goal," Burns said. "We want to be
the netscape of the rail industry - grounded in Fullerton."
CHART: Tracking trains on www.trainweb.com
To spend a day aboard the TrainWeb, click on
www.trainweb.com
Click on one of three locomotive photos for a larger image and the
history of train travel.
Browse four major sections: rail travel, rail industry, rail fan
and model railroading.
Check out the page for "What's New" and "First-time Visitor."
Search the site for Steve's Travelogue.
Monitor Steve Grande's Amtrak travels. As of Dec. 9, 1998 at 10:16
a.m., the train techie had covered 119,116 miles of tracks.
CHART: TrainWeb Conductors
Who: Ray Burns, 56, and Steve Grande, 47.
Born: Burns in Ottawa, Canada; Grande in Boston.
Residence: Burns, Fullerton; Grande, Anaheim Hills.
Careers: Burns, U.S. Marine Corps, served in Vietnam before joining
MidCom Internet service provider in Anaheim Hills. Grande, a lifelong
train aficionado, opened MidCom with his wife.
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