He's found his ticket to ride

''A lot of kids like trains and maybe they grow out of it, but some of us don't,'' says ''Extreme Trains'' host Matt Bown. (Scott Gries/History Channel)

"This is my dream, to ride the biggest, fastest, and most awesome trains in history," says Matt Bown, a Maine train conductor who is enjoying the ride of a lifetime. As the host of "Extreme Trains," a new reality show on The History Channel, Bown lands a weekly front seat on a different coal, freight, or high-speed train and celebrates its inner workings and history.

"A lot of kids like trains and maybe they grow out of it, but some of us don't," says Bown, who grew up marveling at the iron monsters that pulled in and out of his native Maine. The eight-part series, which airs at 10 p.m. Tuesdays, has given him an all-access pass to ride the vehicles he'd only seen in magazines and on websites.

"As a kid, I would have killed for a show like this," adds Bown, who lives with his wife and daughter near the town of Waterville.

Bown was studying education at the University of Maine when he realized he couldn't outrun his love for trains. In 1997, he dropped his studies to work as a conductor at Conrail Boston for a year. He then landed a similar job at Pan Am Railways, formerly known as Maine Central Railroad Company, which had been around since the 1860s.

Ten years into his career as a conductor, Bown says he isn't bored by his job, which involves running the train and handling administrative paperwork and inspections.

"A conductor doesn't drive the train but is in charge of everything else on the train," says Bown, 35.

He was riding the rails in Maine when he heard about an open casting call for a new train reality series. He sent some photos and a bio in which he explained his lifelong fascination for the grand locomotives.

The network offered him an audition. The conductor suddenly became a TV host.

For Bown, the job was a ticket to travel, from Chicago to Los Angeles and Dallas to New York.

In each episode, he details the backbones of the machines and introduces viewers to the unsung workers, from the employees who shovel coal to power the engines to those who clear the tracks of snow and ice.

On Dec. 23, viewers will catch Bown hanging out with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus train as it treks from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.

In that episode, Bown explains how the train consists of 18 flat cars, averages about 20,000 miles a year, and carries 12,000 pounds of staged sets.

"It's literally a town for the rails," Bown explains.

Overall, Bown has enjoyed the ride, which has stoked his passion for one of the oldest means of transportation.

"There is nothing," he says, "like sitting track-side and watching trains rumble by."