11 Glorious Years

Here are my very personal bouquets and brickbats for the last eleven (!) years since I first established my web site in September 1996. If you don't like what you read, why not set up your own site and spend up to 10 hours a week maintaining it? Actually, the most surprising statistic in a hobby which is renowned for its parochialism and infighting is how few people I have managed to alienate and vice versa (names available on application). 

Bouquets

• Michael Powell whose China Rail pages (now, alas, defunct) first inspired me to get going.
• Bruce Evans, Chris West and more lately Louis Cerny for their intrepid voyages of discovery.
• Henry Posner III for putting his money where his mouth was.
• L.D. Porta, Dave Wardale, Roger Waller, Phil Girdlestone, Shaun MacMahon, Nigel Day and others for keeping the dream alive.
• The Government of Eritrea for reinstating their (steam) railway in the face of all so-called expert opinion and without external support.
• All those individual travellers (too numerous to mention) who have sent reports, without which these pages would have sunk without trace.
• All those who have contributed to the Images of Rail CD-ROMs thereby giving me a great deal of pleasure (and virtually no profit).
• My advertisers (including those supporting Google Adsense)  for showing that you can make money out of the Internet (but not very much).
• Those individuals who booked on to my Java tours as a result of what they saw, many of whom are now good friends of mine.
• The sugar mill authorities in Java and their employees who have made me welcome as I research the greatest concentration of working stationary steam engines in the world today.
• Everyone who encouraged me to further my interest in working stationary steam engines by going again to Burma. And all the wonderful citizens of that amazing country who made me welcome once again.
• Those few countries in the world who still maintain working steam locomotives - I doubt that even one has a democracy worthy of the name, but as one gets older then one's conscience takes a terrible hammering.
• Peter Nash, Manfred Schoeler and John Crellin for giving me a little extra web space when I needed it. 
• Florian Menius for running an inspirational China news page.
• My  former wife Marion, who used to respond to all the emails sent to me while I was away and our two cats who still talked to me when I got back. Now, alas all history.
• Finally, Yuehong who has proved that life can start at 55..... An exceptional partner in every sense.

Brickbats - note how the 'curse of Rob' has consigned many of these people and organisations, but not enough, to the 'dustbins of history' - cross my path at your peril.!  

• The individuals and tour organisers who first started the pernicious habit of paying trains crews in Cuba because they didn't have the patience to wait for the real pictures to happen naturally. Thus consigning many of the rest of us to opt out of what has become a circus at many mills and forced other tour organisers and desperate individuals to follow suit.
• Probably the same people who adopted the same practices in China and the tour organisers who went one better by paying thousands of dollars to real steam railways thus turning them into a circus and making life difficult for the independent traveller. 
• The German visitors (sorry to my good German friends) to Java in 2000 who tried importing the same tactics and who thank goodness have failed in their ambition although others are still trying. 
• Steam in Paradise Tours who having agreed to renew their advertising on my website in late 2004 somehow 'forgot' to make payment guessing correctly no doubt that I wouldn't take down their presence until their season was over.... Fortunately now part of history.
• Transnico tours who enjoyed the hospitality of Eritrean Railways in 2001 and only paid 20% of the bill. They settled for 60% of the balance in 2006.  Globe Steam who visited in October 2004 and took 9 months to pay less than half their bill and another month to pay the rest - both only then because of behind the scenes pressure by influential enthusiasts. Both of whom are also probably history too. 
• The Indian Government and Railways who having secured World Heritage Status for the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, promptly dieselised it.
• The JingPeng 'Mafia' and their so-called photo permits and the local authorities there who have also tried to cash in. Hopefully with steam gone, they are begging on the streets.
• The 'gentleman' (Brad Collins) in New Zealand who failed to ensure that payment for a book I sent actually reached me. The only let down in hundreds of transactions which says a lot about the quality of people who are steam enthusiasts.
• There are some extremely pleasant Japanese travellers out there, but as a nation they have a lot to learn about interacting positively with the people in the countries they visit. Hence, the mini-bus load of moronic Japanese gricers at Olean in 2001 who proved that lots of money cannot always buy you results as they and their incompetent local guide completely missed the photogenic Semering working. On being saved a wasted journey, their reaction was to fail to offer me a much needed lift to Duwet leaving in a cloud of dust. As a nation they could do with a collective lesson in smiling, not to mention a little humility.
• Shits Harald Nave and his friend Alfred Luft (sorry to my good Austrian friends) who gate-crashed my special train at Ambarawa in 2001 and despite my bare-arsed tactics refused to go away until I let their tyres down. Up to now the only two, most individual visitors have the manners to ask to join special trains - they are are never refused if they contribute equally with the group members. Harald, I am glad to say wiped himself out on an Alpine mountainside a few years later.
• The two party members (experienced tour leaders themselves from Holland and Germany) whose boorish behaviour at runpasts on my Eritrean visit in 2002, only belittled themselves and must have created a very poor impression with our gracious hosts.
• Chinese guide Mrs. Dung who, while working for Mrs. Sun,  provided my first (and hopefully only) paid-for detention by security guards at Beitai Iron and Steel Works in 2003.
• Dietmar Kramer who spent 9 days trying to take over as tour leader from me on his first trip ever to Java in 2000 and featured in just about everybody's pictures at Olean. Now he runs his own tours there, proclaiming himself a Java expert and alas his punters only discover the 'errors' in his advertising too late when he cannot deliver what he is promising. Never mind, he has their money safely in the bank, a tactic I believe he has tried to use in Turkey too......
• Doug Brooks who, like Dietmar, tried to tell me how to run a tour in Java in 2004 within hours of arriving in the country. Tour operators, you take this poison dwarf on board at your peril. Similarly others on my 2004 tours who failed to understand that when visiting industrial locations in Java we are their guests and must behave accordingly. We have no absolute right to climb all over their mills and locomotives even if they charge us a nominal sum of money.....

Further nominations are welcome, but brickbats may well be refused if the object of attention has already crossed my palm with silver.

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