Dan Engstrom

A native of the East Bay, Dan Engstrom started working as a trainman for the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1977. Due to a downturn in traffic in the early 1980’s, he looked for employment elsewhere and found work in the film industry. For the next 20 years, Dan worked as an assistant film and sound editor at Lucasfilm LTD, Pixar, The Saul Zaentz Film Company, Universal Studios and Lorimar Telepictures. As an editorial assistant he worked on over 40 feature films including “Toy Story”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Backdraft”, “The Horse Whisper”, “Monster’s Inc.” and “Runaway Train”.  With the advent of computers in the early 2000’s and the need for fewer editors, Dan returned to railroading and worked as a conductor for the BNSF Railway in South Dakota and Wyoming for nearly 15 years. While he doesn’t still categorize himself as a photographer, some of his photos can be found on RailPictures.NET (http://www.railpictures.net/), Railroad Picture Archives, North American Interlockings, and The Cornwall Railway Society. Dan also penned an article about the SP San Ramon Branch that appeared in the Summer 2015 issue of Southern Pacific Trainline Magazine as well as several articles for Classic Trains Magazine.