I did some basic enhancement to Kelly's wonderful pics:
As to why I am here:
I need 26 months of railroad retirement months to get my 30 years in.
There are 24,000 LESS railroad jobs in this country than one year ago, so work is not easy to find.
As far as I can tell, there are no western steam roads left that pay into Railroad Retirement.
I've known the Strasburg gang for a long time, so we cooked up a deal to work an extended season (April-Nov) to get my months in and I still get to go home to AZ and sit by the pool all winter.