Today

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My name is Jr Bosco, I’m in my mid-60’s, retired and the story starts with me. So let’s go back to the Beginning, where the dream began... In the mid 1950’s my Grandfather was an engineer on the Santa Fe Railroad in Los Angeles. At a very young age I had the pleasure of going down to the round house with my Grandpa and  watched the locomotives get steamed up, then pulling out of round house and I got to ride on some of the locomotives. I fell in love with smell of the oil and steam of these massive pieces of equipment. I remember as a young boy having the pleasure of riding on the San Diego Super Chief. Oh my, what a thrill! Unfortunately, my Grandpa passed away before I really got to enjoy the Santa Fe Railroad. His legacy was carried on by my Uncles. Every year at Christmas my seven Uncles would get me a different locomotive or riding cars for my Lionel and American Flyer train sets. Between them and my Dad we built quite the layout in the garage.  

Over the years my love for trains was still there, but I felt like something was missing. In the mid-80’s I built a “N” scale layout and later built a “HO” layout. My imagination still felt there was more. 

Fast forward to the early 90’s when I was introduced to a couple of books, “Building the Heisler” by Kuzo and “So You Want to Build A Live Steam Locomotive”. Bingo I knew what I needed to do! I actually wanted build a 1.5 scale Heisler engine which started the story of my dream coming true. 

It took me 22years to finish it as I was still working and had very limited time to work on the engine. In the beginning I had very few hand tools and no machinery of my own, along with very limited knowledge of how to run machinery. Thanks to my Brother-in-law , I was able to start this build as he had some machinery in his shop. Along with taking a class on how to run machinery, my Father-in Law helped me brainstorm when I was perplexed on the build. I made all the parts including nuts, screws and bolts from scrape brass, steel and bronze. It was quite an accomplishment when completed.

I still wanted more. I went to a few Live Steamer Clubs around California which really intrigued my imagination more. With the help of my wife over time was able to build my own shop and got all the machinery I needed. And so started the building of my 2.5 scale locomotive. I still wanted more. Thinking, it would be nice to share this hobby with other train enthusiasts I was getting to know. After retiring I was doing heavy duty work on contractor’s heavy equipment.  With ample land I asked if they would consider me building a live steam railroad on some of the land. 

I got to thinking, I had to share my dream with others. And this was the beginning of Yosemite Valley Live Steam and Education Center. I don’t ever see my imagination stop going. 

As Walt Disney said many moons ago “As long as you have an imagination and you have land, you too can make dreams come true”