Wes Barris and www.steamlocomotive.com

🚂 Some railfans may not know this site exists… but they should.

I stumbled across SteamLocomotive.com and ended up going way deeper than I expected.

This isn’t just a gallery or surface-level info—this is a full-on database of surviving steam (and early diesel) locomotives across the U.S. You can track where engines are, their history, and what condition they’re in right now.

The crazy part?

It’s not run by a company.
It’s not a museum.

It’s one guy—Wes Barris—who’s been building and maintaining this archive for decades. And not just as a hobbyist either… he actually became a qualified steam locomotive engineer.

So yeah—this is coming from someone who’s been on the throttle, not just behind a camera.

If you’re into the real nuts-and-bolts side of railroading—preservation, history, where engines actually ended up—this is a goldmine.

I threw him a few bucks because honestly, this kind of thing disappears if nobody supports it.

👉 SteamLocomotive.com

If you get even half as lost in it as I did… you’ll see why it matters.