Why "WP Empire"?

I'm fairly new to the hobby -- in it for less than 3 years at the time of this writing -- but got very involved in acquiring and building models. My collection now includes more than 200 locomotives and 600 items of rolling stock. Thinking about it recently it seemed I was building my own empire -- much like the railroad tycoons of 150 years ago, but on a smaller scale.

Why Western Pacific (WP)?

I grew up in the East Bay area of California in the 1960s and 70s, and traveled all over Northern California and thus routinely crossed paths with the WP. In fact, the WP had trackage rights through my home town (Antioch) and ran through about twice a day. I've relocated to the Houston, Texas area, so modeling and studying the WP helps me reminisce both about my younger days and one of the greatest places on Earth. I also love underdogs and admire the eccentric, and the WP ranks highly on both counts....

Why railroad modeling?

I've always been fascinated by trains. There's something intriguing in their tremendous but controlled power, and the juxtaposition of their strong geometrical lines against the chaos and complexity of nature. Over the years I've had occasional brushes with the hobby -- including, of course, the requisite Lionel train set as a young boy -- and eventually calmed down to the point that a more sedate hobby had some appeal. (I also discovered I would never make the Pro Golf tour, but that's another story....) But after launching into the hobby, I found so many parts immensely interesting and engaging. I did not anticipate the breadth of skills that could be involved -- and that keeps it fascinating and fresh. I also enjoy history, and there's plenty of history involved in the research for modeling projects.

Why N scale?

N scale is 1:160, so 1 inch in N scale equals about 13 feet in the real world. N scale is about half the size of HO scale. An N scale locomotive is typically 4 or 5 inches long. N scale allows me to build more scenery and railroad elements in a smaller area -- and this was an important consideration since, living in Texas, I don't have a basement to devote to the hobby. Thus, I could only devote 4 feet by 8 feet to the layout, and realized that a layout of that size in N scale would keep my interest better than one in HO because it would have so much more to it. Also, the quality of N scale products has steadily improved over the years, so they now live up to my perfectionist preferences....

Of course, a downside of N scale is the small size, especially when applying the small detail parts that are available these days. But so far a magnifying lens and steady hand do the trick....