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May 25, 2006

We’re happy to report that Trackside is now being aired in Sauk Centre, MN and Fargo, North Dakota on their respective local public access channels.  A special thanks to Jeanne Wilber and Heather Mitzel for their help and support.

Program host Dave Reed travels to Russia in June and series producer Ken Brown will be in San Francisco, CA and Portland, OR in July.

April 25, 2006

We’ve updated the “Contact Us” page with our email address.  Also, access stations in Fargo, ND and Sauk Centre, MN hope to have the Trackside series airing soon.

March 5, 2006

Updated home page.

February 25, 2006

Hello friends and thanks for checking in with our website.  Like we said on the front page, we’re back to work putting the finishing touches on a new set of programs.   As of this writing we have the raw footage for 5 new programs on the editor and ready to go.  We’ve also mastered a significant number of programs to DVD for distribution to those stations that can use them.

So much for the technical stuff, you want to know about new train programs.  Over the past year, we’ve been busy in that department.  In the next day or so we’ll be updating the Programs page complete with video frames from all our new programs including steam locomotives Pere Marquette 1225, Canadian Pacific 2816, Soo Line 1003 and Nickel Plate Road 765.  More trains from Russia, Norway, and Hungary are also on the way.  On the transit side you’ll see cable cars from San Francisco, California and PCC cars from Kenosha, Wisconsin.  There’s a Christmas special in the works to for airing not to surprisingly at Christmas time.

This summer we plan on making a trip to Portland, Oregon and take in as much railroading as we can over the course of several days.  More details will forthcoming at a later date.

Please stay tuned and feel free to drop us an email.

August 14, 2005

We’re not making the jump to high definition television just yet, but over the summer we’ve been upgrading our studio so we’re ready.  Many of our older programs have also now been digitally archived so they can be duplicated and sent out to stations more quickly and inexpensively.

This summer we followed Pere Marquette 1225 across Michigan (we even found sister locomotive 1223 in Grand Haven), checked out Wisconsin & Southern’s 25 anniversary party in Janesville, Wisconsin, returned to the Agawa Canyon, and even sent Dave back to Russia.  Look for these stories and more this fall and winter on your local access station.

April 10, 2005

Several things to report this month, so here goes.

1). Trackside will soon be airing on Chisholm, Minnesota on public access channels 7 and 13.  The Chisholm station is on the Mediacom system and can be seen in the cities of Chisholm, Buhl, Kinney, Mt. Iron, Virginia, Eveleth, Gilbert, Biwabik, Aurora, and Hoyt Lakes.  It can also be seen in White and Fayal Township.  Many thanks to Lyndon Hepokoski for his help and patience.

2). Host Dave Reed is scheduled to be in Owosso, Michigan for the Steam Railroading Institute’s Pere Marquette 1225 excursion from Owosso to Cadillac, MI.  Many thanks to the SRI’s Dennis Baird for making this one happen.  Be sure to check out the Steam Railroading Institute’s website at http://www.mstrp.com for more information.

3). Dave just returned from a photo shoot this afternoon.  These photos will be used for various publicity pieces and press releases.

4). Be sure to check out Rich Einhorn’s “The Train Show” airing on RFD-TV.  Rich’s program is based in New York and features trains, big and small.  Lots of modeling stuff.

March 17, 2005

Trackside has completed its current nationwide run on RFD-TV with the exception of one program.  Many thanks to Patrick Gottsch, Al Stein, and the staff at RFD for all they have done for us.  And a special thanks to the staff at our home station, Aurora Community Television for all their help with the video transfers.  When we get more programs produced, RFD has express an interest in airing them too along with Program 135, Agawa Canyon Odyssey/Nickel Plate Road 597, which has not aired yet.

No, you weren’t having a problem with your web browser the last couple of weeks.  In fact our main page on our Trainweb.org site was down.  Trainweb has fixed the problem (couldn’t upload files) and we are now back in business.  Of course the site going down coincided with our conclusion on RFD, so the timing was perfect.

February 1, 2005

Trackside returns to Community Access Television in Bismarck, North Dakota beginning February 3rd.  The show first aired on CATV in 1999.  However this will mark the first time (to our knowledge) a station has aired the series using a DVD playback system.  To do this, we’ve sent a set of digital masters to the station where they are creating a set of DVD’s for their library.

We can see the time down the road when we can just email a station our latest program, they load it onto a server, play it back over the air at the appropriate time.

Almost all the newsletters have been mailed.  If you didn’t get yours, please let us know.

January 1, 2005

Might as well start of the New Year with a new video frame on the home page.  So we grabbed this distinguishing shot of Canadian Pacific’s restored 4-6-4 steam locomotive as it waited at Bensenville, IL to head for Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The engine serves a public relations function much like the railroad’s Holiday Train.

New newsletters go out this week.  If you’d like to be on the list, shoot us an email at Trackside.Online@worldnet.att.net

December 24, 2004

A Merry Christmas and joyous New Year to all our friends and viewers out there.  We’re a little late, but put the Christmas cards in the mail yesterday, so if you’re on the list, you should get them soon. Also, the latest edition of our newsletter is finally ready and be mailed out in the next week or so.

We are also getting ready to begin distributing Trackside to stations via DVD.  It will take a little experimentation to see what works for them and what doesn’t, but it looks like Bismarck, North Dakota will be the first recipient, followed by Duluth, MN.

November 8, 2004

The page for Program 137 has FINALLY been fixed.  All of the appropriate images should now be displayed.

The digital re-mastering project remains underway and the series continues to air via Dish Network and Direct TV on RFD-TV.

June 24, 2004

We are in the process of digitally re-mastering our entire program series.  These will have the newer Operation Lifesaver public service announcements and revising the end credits to our latest format.  Along the way, some of our older programs are being rebuilt shot by shot with new footage being added along the way.

Look for these to air on Wheaton and Aurora access channels over the next few months.

May 4, 2004

The page for program 136 has been updated with more technical info regarding the locomotives in the photos.

April 27, 2004

Our program, “Agawa Canyon Odyssey / Nickel Plate Road 587” is now complete and has been airing on Aurora Community Television.  Our next new program will feature railways in Russia, Finland, and Hungary.  San Francisco’s cable cars will conclude the program.

We are tentatively scheduled to be in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Saturday, May 8th where we’ll be taping a new segment featuring PCC streetcars.  Then on Friday, May 14th, show host Dave Reed and series producer Ken Brown are scheduled to give a presentation at the monthly meeting of the Chicago Chapter, NRHS in Downers Grove.  All are welcome to attend.  Go to www.chicagonrhs.com for more information.

March 23, 2004

As program 135 continues through the post-production process, we’ve updated the photo on the home page.  We are about a month behind where we wanted to be on this program due to some bugs that popped up during a software upgrade.  Technology is wonderful.

Also fixed some typos on the Programs main page.

We’re happy to announce that Trackside will soon be coming to public access television in Warrenville, Illinois.  Special thanks to Scott Cluchey, Warrenville’s Cable Commissioner.

New newsletter coming soon.

February 23, 2004

Fixed link for Suburban Community TV (White Bear Lake) on the Minnesota page in the Stations section of the website.

February 19, 2004

Revisions have been made to program pages 135 and 136.

February 11, 2004

Program pages 132, 135, and 136 have been updated and enhanced.

February 4, 2004

All Program pages are now online.

February 2, 2004

We have used up all of our allocated disk space at trainweb.org with programs 104 through 108 yet to be uploaded. More disk space has been requested. All other pages and links are now online.

January 22, 2004

Program pages 110 through 136 are now online. Program 135, "Agawa Canyon Odyssey / Nickel Plate 587" is in the scripting phase of the production process.

January 12, 2004

We will be removing all video image captures from our Geocities sites as soon as we get our Trainweb site fully assembled. This is due to a Geocities policy of limiting the bandwidth available for transmission of data. The end result for the user is not being able to access more than three or four program pages before being frozen out of the site.

January 8, 2004

We are working as fast as possible to bring the Programs pages online. These are the largest and most involved on our site, thereby taking the most time to modify. As of today, Programs 100 through 102 are accessible. More to follow very soon.

January 2, 2004

Happy New Year!

We would like to welcome all of you now coming to our site via Trainweb.com. We are very happy to be on Trainweb and hope you will come back and visit our site often.

If you have seen our site before on Geocities, you may have noticed it hadn't been updated for a while. This was due to some computer problems that prevented us from opening any of our pages to make any changes. We now have that problem solved and will once again be updating our site on a regular basis.

While moving our site we also took the opportunity to update most of the pages on it. If you find anything not working or not making sense (a distinct possibility) please let us know so we'll get fix it.

We are diligently working on an exciting new group of programs we hope our viewers will enjoy. Feature stories will include the last excursion of Frisco 1522, camping out in the Agawa River Canyon in Canada, and traveling around Russia by rail. There should also be a new issue of the Trackside newsletter coming out by the end of the month.

July 11, 2002

This past weekend we had the good fortune to catch Soo Line 1003 head up Circus World's Great Circus Train on a deadhead move from Hartford to Horicon, Wisconsin. A special Trackside thanks to Ann VanCamp of Circus World for getting Trackside host Dave Reed aboard. This additional footage will be added to our program 131 "On The Road With Soo Line 1003", which is currently in production.

Program 131 will also represent our first digitally edited and mastered episode. It will also be the first program to digitally incorporate computer graphics.

Also, program 102, "Alcos On The Belt Railway Of Chicago" has been re-edited once again. This was done to incorporate more information about the BRC mainline itself as it traverses through Chicagoland.

June 29, 2002

Just a reminder, Trackside returns to Batavia Access Television on Friday, July 5th. Also, Dave and Ken will be walking with the Wheaton Community TV group again this year in the 4th of July parade. If you happen to be there, be sure to say high.

June 26, 2002

We are glad to announce that soon you'll be able to get your own copy of some the segments you've seen on our shows. Click here and send us an email if you'd like to find out more.

Special versions of a couple of our programs are also available through a partnership with Machines Of Iron. Check out the links displayed on the right hand side of the screen.

June 25, 2002

This past weekend we were fortunate enough to be part of two very successful excursion trips powered by Milwaukee Road steam locomotive 261. As in previous years, these trips were sponsored by the Chicago Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. Saturday's trip was from Chicago Union Station to Galesburg, Illinois for that city's annual Railroad Days celebration. On Sunday, we headed to that ever-popular railfan Hot Spot, Rochelle, Illinois. Both days were extremely hot and humid, but the 261 hustled right along at track speed, with only an occasional stop for servicing.

Look for footage from both trips as part of upcoming episodes of Trackside.

Many thanks to our friends at the Chicago NRHS and those of you who stopped to say "hi" on the train. We are very grateful.

And for those of you out there keeping score, Program 131, "On The Road With Soo Line 1003 / Camera Day At Rochelle" is the next up in post-production. We have an equipment upgrade to perform first, then we'll be ready to roll.

June 15, 2002

Trackside producer Ken Brown and host Dave Reed would like to personally thank a whole host of people who have made it possible for us to get some great footage for some upcoming shows. They include the members of the Camerail Club, The 20th Century Railroad Club, Chicago Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and the Chicagoland members of the North American Railcar Operators of America. You'll be able to see the results we came away with on upcoming new shows very soon.

This weekend we are in the process of videotaping the second half of our program "Challenger Across The Heartland" featuring Union Pacific 3985. Our trip this time took us from West Chicago, Illinois to Butler Yard in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For the first segment we made a round trip from Council Bluffs, Iowa to just outside Sioux City.

Next weekend, it's Milwaukee Road 261 and a trip to Galesburg and Rochelle, Illinois.

The next program in production is "On The Road With Soo Line 1003". Hope to have it done over the next couple of months.

Welcome to Trackside Online, the official website for the television series Trackside. Be sure to come here often for the latest news and information about the show.

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Want a tape? Some variations of our programs are available through Machines Of Iron. Click on the links below to get to their website.

Inside The Zephyr Pit

Indiana Harbor Belt / Alcos On The Belt Railway / Blue Island Hot Spot