As a child Matt's family would take walks, and one of their favorite routes ended at the New Haven tracks near the Van Nest electric shops on the line to Hell Gate Bridge and Pennsylvania Station. At age six he took his first railroad photo of a New Haven EP-4 electric locomotive with the Colonial in the Bronx. Matt Herson has lived in New York City for most of his life. Here, he was employed for 40 years as an electrician on construction projects including Madison Square Gardens and the World Trade Center. During the last 20 years of his career, he worked for contractors installing new signal systems for the New York City Transmit Authority and the Long Island Railroad. As an electrician, Matt was a member of Local 3 of the IBEW since 1959.
Matt has wide railroad interests including steam, diesel, traction and freight and passenger equipment. he has a special interest in mainline electric operation that is likely due to his early exposure to the electric operations of the New Haven, New York Central and the New York subway system. He is also interested in freight cars that operated in the sixties. Matt has travelled extensively to visit and photograph railroad operations. He has ridden and photographed trains in every state(except Hawaii) and also widely in Canada from Quebec to British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. In fact he toured BC five times. He toured Mexico no less than 17 times as well as El Salvador and Guatemala. Matt volunteers at two trolley museums and has operated trolleys in the US, Canada, Mexico and Cuba.