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by Thom Anderson and Mike Mucklin
The 12th annual WPRRHS Convention, held April 11-12, 2008 in Sacramento, California was a record breaker. With 163 attendees, and 140 attending the banquet, the facility was nearly bursting at the seams with WP fans. 2008 convention co-chairs, Tom Campbell and Scott McAllister, organized a very enjoyable meet that began with an informal pre-convention dinner at the former WP depot in Sacramento on Thursday, followed by visits to some area clubs and home layouts that went out of their way to provide a "WP theme". A number of excellent clinics/presentations from Bill Gilbert, Larry Hanlon, Bob Webber, Bill Burg, John Ruczkowski, Bob Rohwer, Randall Cape, Jim Pendley & Scott Brons, Allan Lamb, and Mike Mucklin kept the WP faithful entertained and informed throughout the two day event. Keynote banquet speaker Andy Kinicki, a 30 year veteran railroader (most of it with the WP), shared nine different stories from his tenure with the WP which was well received by the 140 banquet guests in attendance. Andy also donated a 6' by 4' photo of a passenger train in the Canyon to the WPRRHS' Arthur Walter Keddie Railroad Library. The photo appears to be either from the actual construction of the line or soon thereafter, and is a posed PR shot with a locomotive and employees in the canyon. Andy also donated a few vintage WP items to be auctioned off during the banquet to benefit the AWK Library fund. Thank you Mr. Kinicki for a wonderful evening of stories and thanks also to Keith Gillette for being our banquet auctioneer again this year!
The model display room featured an unusual amount of O scale WP and SN equipment this year in addition to HO and N scale equipment, including the Sacramento Modular Club's setup. Also on display was the 1912 Arthur Keddie Plumas County Map that Bob Sims recently purchased and donated to the museum. Thanks Bob! The Sacramento Model Railroad Historical Society's layout opened up twice during the weekend and quite a few convention guests made their way over to see the layout. 2008 convention co-chairs Tom Campbell and Scott McAllister did a great job this year and, hopefully, have recovered by now as we plot next year's convention plans. Thanks for all the hard work guys! |
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