Saturday Banquet

The featured keynote speaker at the Saturday night PCR 2024 Convention Banquet will be Doug Debs from the Niles Canyon Railway.

Doug Debs is a native of south Palo Alto, back when it was the cheap land at the edge of the apricot orchards!  His real career, from 1976 to today, is as an Electronic Engineer at Fairchild Semiconductor & successor companies. At Fairchild, he helped develop & improve camera chips for fax machines, then space satellite earth-mapping cameras, satellite celestial navigation, video camcorders, medical x-rays, dental x-rays, etc.

Doug will cover the changes in equipment and services on the railroads in the area.

Doug will detail how the PLA acquired the rights to use the abandoned Southern Pacific right-of-way and began building the NCRy in 1987. The first NCRy trains returned to Niles in 2006.

He started as a volunteer at the NCRy in 1977 and was part of the team that restored S.P. 2472 (4-6-2) to full operation, and continues maintain the locomotive. Since 2005,he has served as both the Niles Canyon Railway Hazmat Manager and is also the Commissary Manager.

Doug will talk about the early days of railroading in the Bay Area and how Niles Canyon fit into the overall movement of trains and goods into and out of the Bay Area. He will focus on how railroads through Niles Canyon changed through the years.

He will discuss how Niles changed as the railroads consolidated and services moved from passenger to freight operations.

Doug will conclude discussing how the PLA and NCRy are moving to the future, with new and exciting projects like the restoration of the only remaining Kraus-Maffei Diesel Hydraulic locomotive in the US.

He will talk about the plans to go farther east to Pleasanton and expand operations further. He will talk about how the Christmas “Train of Lights” is a major financial driver for the NCRy.