in 1985 he joined seattle's rail (winners of mtv's first basement tapes video competition) for several months. he was looking for a new band and one of rail's guitarists, rick knotts, had recently left. billed as 'rail featuring montrose' or 'ronnie & rail', they played a set of half rail favorites and half montrose songs ("rock candy", "rock the nation", "matriarch" and gamma's remake of thunderclap newman's "something in the air"). at the end of the tour, there was an amicable split.