I’m pleased to announce that I will be speaking at the Real Rails 2025 conference in Burlington, Ontario in October. I’ll be joining a star-studded cast of presenters, a veritable whos-who of Canadian railway historians and photographers. I’m really looking forward to meeting many people and reuniting with friends like blog partner Eric Gagnon. Oh, and giving a talk!
My presentation will be on the life and death of the New Brunswick East Coast Railway, that short-lived short-line railway in northern New Brunswick. Long time readers of Confessions of a Train Geek will know that I spent a lot of time trackside on the NBEC, and I’ll share my photos and videos and knowledge of the NBEC. I hope to learn from others about the railway during the conference, too.
So far I’m scheduled to present at the highly-sought-after time slot of 8 AM on Saturday morning. Bring coffee!
You can register for Real Rails 2025 now! It takes place on October 17-19 (Friday-Sunday) at the Holiday Inn in Burlington. The presentations are on Friday and Saturday, with the banquet on Saturday night, keynoted by Adam Meeks, CPKC Senior Manager of Heritage Services & Operations. Sunday will be a train show from 10 AM to 4 PM.
Expect to see a lot of NBEC content here in the weeks leading up to the conference, as I dig through my photos and posts to prepare my presentation!
P.S. oh, I’m also presenting at another conference in October, MainTrain 2025 in Calgary, which unfortunately has nothing to do with trains, despite its name! My colleague Matt and I will be sharing our company’s (Actemium‘s) experience with asset management, downtime tracking and general computer awesomeness. Maybe I’ll slip a train reference in there somewhere.
P.P.S. I was interviewed by Operation Lifesaver Canada for a spot in their Rail Safety Week, from September 15-21. My little spot will appear on their YouTube channel on the 21st. I have written a lot about rail safety here, and the video will be about safety by the tracks while taking pictures.
That’s a lot of public appearances for this introvert. I’ll be exhausted by the end of October. 😉