Welcome to the RRPictureArchives.NET contributor site of Tom Beckett.  

In these albums you will find a wide variety of rail photos dating back to the mid 70's. Most are from slides, some from prints, and newer material from digital. Many of these photos will be from Long Island and the New York area, I grew up in Queens, living there til 1988. I had some great opportunities to see the Long Island and their freight operations in the mid 1980's when they were using Alco C420's in freight service. There's LOTS of LIRR!! That was not my entire focus, and I also spent time on many lines within a 300 mile radius of New York.

In the mid 1980's as stack trains started running, I devoted a lot of attention to Conrail and NYSW trains in the southern tier of NY. I moved to Binghamton in July 1988, living there til 2006. During that period I was able to cover the CR Southern Tier Line extensively, as well as the D&H and NYSW. I arrived in Binghamton just as NYSW was starting its directed service of the D&H. It was a really interesting time to be watching trains in that region. There, I met JJ Young Jr, and fellow contributor Sam Botts. From November of 1995 to January of 2001, I was a driver for JB Hunt Transport, which expanded my horizons, as well as set up my present situation.

I moved to northwest Arkansas in November 2006, with my new wife and my two sons, taking a job as a fleet manager for JB Hunt in Lowell Ark. We lived in Rogers Ark for six months til we bought a house in Siloam Springs on the KCS. Since then, I have covered the A&M, but mostly KCS between Joplin MO and Stilwell OK extensively, and have also broadened my range to include Kansas City, Nebraska, Texas and the southeast among other places. As I have time, I am getting more in depth coverage of my new region, which will turn up in these albums.

I have a large slide collection, which I am picking through to scan and post. I shot slides from the early 80's up til they stopped processing Kodachrome in 2010. Much of this collection dates to the 1980's and 1990's, and I am concentrating on getting those photos posted first-seems everyone loves the old stuff!! Recent pictures will also be posted as I have time. Hope you enjoy what is mostly a trip down memory lane.