Meet me

So you have chosen to check out who I am. My real life name is René Vink

I'm about fifty years old, married, three children, no dog ;-). We live in the Netherlands in a modest house. Being educated in chemistry originally I now work at NedTrain, a subsidiary of the Dutch Railways as a manager in ICT. Working at a railway company and having a model railroading interest is sheer coincidence, by the way. Believe it or not.

I have many interests and hobbies, psychology, sociology, theology to name a few.

I like biking and long distance walking. I walked the Pieterpad (about 490 km, the longest long distance trail in the Netherlands) with my oldest son in 2004-2006 in stretches of about 30 km every day. Currently I'm walking the Pelgrimspad (about 400 km) and my wife and I regularly walk in scenic areas. The left photo shows me on the Kampina moors during a 18 km walk

I've been busy with railroading roughly since my 13th. I modeled in N-scale and tried some kit bashing. Not much came of it, usually terminating activities half way. Interest waned during my study years, we got married, we got children etc. etc. The usual story I guess. I always wanted to re-enter the hobby but apart from an occasional visit to a local station on holidays nothing much happened. But when I started my job at NedTrain my interest revived and I got going again. I had the time, the money and the interest again. I got my first kit in 2004 for my birthday from my wife. Since then I've steadily working on collecting and building models of steam locomotives.