(The following story by Diane Wetzel appeared on The North Platte Telegraph website on September 17, 2010.)
NORTH PLATTE, Neb. — It’s perfectly all right to call Wayne Hall a nut.
Hall, who hails from Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, is not just any nut, he’s a nut about the Union Pacific Railroad. It even says so on his license plate.
A member of the Union Pacific Historical Society, Hall and his wife Gloria are in North Platte this week arranging for the UPHS’s 2012 convention, scheduled for Aug. 1-4. They will also be at the UPHS’s booth at the National Guard Armory during Rail Fest this weekend.
Other UPHS members from Ohio and Iowa will help out at the booth, Hall said.
“We are hoping to drum up some new members during the weekend,” he said.
Membership is open to anyone who is interested in the history of the UPR, Hall said. Membership information is available at the group’s website, www.uphs.org.
The Halls attended Rail Fest for the first time in 2009 and a chance encounter with Rod Ury, president of the U.P. Employee’s Club No. 8 put the wheels in motion for the 2012 convention.
“We will have members coming from Australia, New Zealand and England,” Hall said. “I’m expecting at least 200 people, up to 250.”
The Society is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of the Union Pacific Railroad from its beginning in 1862 to the operation it is today.
Ury said he had never heard of UPHS until he met Hall at Rail Fest last year.
“I asked Wayne, why wouldn’t you want to come to North Platte?” Ury said. “We have Bailey Yard, we have the Golden Spike Tower and Visitor Center, Memorial and Cody Parks, and we are Rail Town U.S.A.”
Hall agreed, presenting a proposal to UPHS’s board of directors on behalf of North Platte that was accepted.
“If North Platte isn’t UPR territory, what is?” Hall said.
The 2012 convention will be the third one to take place in North Platte since the group was founded in 1984. It met here in 1987 and again in 1997. Hall attended both and became friends with fellow UPRR enthusiast Harold Matthews.
“This convention will be personal to me,” Hall said. “Harold will be honored during the convention as honorary chairman.”
Ury will be the point person in town to help organize the event.
“This is going to be a really big convention,” Ury said. “Some of the biggest railroad enthusiasts in the world will be here in North Platte in 2012. This is a group that is well-versed in all aspects of the Union Pacific Railroad.”