Sun Days on Orcas | Jacob Wright’s affinity for trains

||| SUN DAYS ON ORCAS by EDEE KULPER |||

I met Jacob Wright a few years ago, and within moments I learned that he is an intelligent, enthusiastic, well-spoken young man who loves learning about, thinking about, and hunting down trains. His knowledge about them is mind-bending, and I asked him if he would be the subject of today’s column. Without further ado, meet Jacob Wright.

I am fourteen years old and am currently in eighth grade. I was born in Island Hospital on January 5, 2009, to Buddy and Amanda Wright, and have lived on Orcas my entire life. Having grown up here in and around this great community, I feel I owe much of who I am to this community and my family. I’ve always loved living here, even though it can be difficult at times, especially with my obsession with trains. 

I first became interested in trains at a very young age with TV programming like Thomas the Tank Engine, and my dad’s small train layout. I have been interested on and off for most of my life, but it really stuck about two and a half years ago when I got a book about how to design a layout to emulate real-world railroad practices.

In early 2021, I became a member of the National Model Railroad Association or NMRA. This group allowed me to connect to the hundreds of like-minded modelers like me in Western Washington, and thousands more across the country. I am involved with almost half a dozen other organizations focused on the design, operation, and discussion of model railroads. I am also a member of a historical society focusing on the Great Northern Railway, which is the railroad I choose to model. In my modeling I try to emulate the real railroad as much as I can. This is known as prototype modeling, meaning I model a specific place at a specific time, as accurately as possible in real life. I chose to model the Great Northern Railroad in Anacortes during early July of 1953. But the beauty of the hobby is that many people model fictitious rail lines, and many do not try to operate them realistically either, preferring to run them in a circle or loop, and that’s possible all in the same hobby! It’s hard to say what one thing I like most about trains, but their power has captivated the minds of children and adults alike for almost 200 years now, and for me I guess it just never got old!

Well, I’ll try to keep this brief, as I could easily ramble on for hours and hours if you didn’t stop me! Trains still serve a vital function in our nation’s transportation network today. Fundamentally, our civilization still couldn’t function without their truly amazing ability to haul bulk commodities such as grain, oil, and other low cost, bulk volume commodities at affordable prices. They are also an order of magnitude safer than trucks or personal automobiles, roughly 17 times safer in the US. This means that not only is it safer for people to travel by train, but it’s also safer to transport goods and volatile materials. It is also much more ecologically friendly to ship goods and travel using trains, as they are almost four times more efficient than trucks and cars.

One final misconception I would like to touch on is when all major railroads stopped using steam engines. The last freight runs made by steam locomotives in the US were in the summer of 1960 in the coal-rich Appalachian mountains on the Norfolk and Western Railway. So, while they still may be the classic image that comes to mind when we think of railroads, and there are plenty preserved in museums, they aren’t anything like the diesel or electric locomotives being used in the US today.

Model railroading is a very social hobby. About once a month I day-trip to people’s layouts around the Seattle area and go to their layout for things called operating sessions, or op sessions for short. Here, a group of people gather and try to run a layout just like the real railroads did. These can range from small, informal groups of two to four people on small layouts, to operating crews of 14 on huge multi-thousand-square-foot train layouts using actual railroad paperwork and rules. 

There are also larger events hosted by the NMRA, such as an annual national convention. This year I’m flying to Dallas, Texas, for over a week to see over 1,000 modelers, hundreds of layouts, and participate in other rail-related activities. When it comes down to it, a big part of the enjoyment for many of us, (not to be cliché) is the friends you make along the way. I have made dozens of friends across the US, meeting people I never would have before, all because of this wonderful hobby.

At only fourteen there are still plenty of options to explore, but I’m looking at getting a degree from Western Washington University in either architectural or civil engineering. I am very interested in designing and creating things, so I feel that plays to my talents. I am also a very vocal advocate for the expansion of public transit, and walkable urban designs prioritizing pedestrians and cyclists before automobiles. I also enjoy swing music, silent movies, and golf!

Thank you so much, Jacob!

If you get a chance to chat with Jacob, you, too, will be amazed at him.