2 Summer Trips

John Plocher, Katy Dickinson, Loon Lake, Wisconsin June 2022

Our family went on two short trips this summer. John and visited the Plocher family at Loon Lake, Wisconsin, in June. At the end of August, John and I and our kids took a road trip through Northern-Northern California, including a ride on the Skunk Train from Willets. John and Paul and I were in one car and Jessica and Matthew were in another.

Loon Lake, Wisconsin

Plocher family, Loon Lake, Wisconsin June 2022

Loon Lake, Wisconsin June 2022

Loon family, Loon Lake, Wisconsin June 2022

John Plocher, Katy Dickinson, Loon Lake, Wisconsin June 2022

Plocher boating on Loon Lake, Wisconsin June 2022

Dragon fly, Loon Lake, Wisconsin June 2022

Osprey fish eagles, Loon Lake, Wisconsin June 2022

John and Naomi Plocher, Loon Lake, Wisconsin June 2022

John and Naomi Plocher, Loon Lake, Wisconsin June 2022

California Road Trip

Dickinson family, Willits, California, August 2022

Wild Turkey, Red Bluff, California, August 2022

deer, Northern California, August 2022

Road Trip, Northern California, August 2022

Road Trip, Northern California, August 2022

John Plocher, Katy Dickinson, Paul D. Goodman, Road Trip, Northern California, August 2022

Road Trip through redwoods, Northern California, August 2022

Skunk Train tunnel, Willits, California, August 2022

Skunk Train, Willits, California, August 2022

John Plocher on Skunk Train, Willits, California, August 2022

Skunk Train, Willits, California, August 2022

John Plocher, Paul D. Goodman, Glass Beach, Fort Bragg, California, August 2022

John Plocher, Paul D. Goodman, Katy Dickinson, Glass Beach, Fort Bragg, California, August 2022

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Welcome TechWomen Team Kenya

TechWomen Team Kenya, 10 March 2022

I am honored to work with TechWomen Team Kenya this term. My Co-Mentors are Ella Morgulis and Samantha Raniere. Everyone was at my house in San Jose, California, last night for a team meeting and dinner. We are getting to know each other and enjoying learning together. They had fun touring my caboose office, WP668.

TechWomen brings emerging women leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) from Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East together with their professional counterparts in the United States for a mentorship and exchange program. I have been working with TechWomen since I helped to design it in 2010. Launched in 2011, TechWomen is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE).

TechWomen Team Kenya, 10 March 2022

TechWomen Team Kenya, 10 March 2022

TechWomen Team Kenya on Zoom, 12 March 2022

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Redesigned WP668 Web Site

I just redesigned the WP668 caboose website. I am still reviewing and posting old photos but the basic structure is done. It is restful during the coronavirus lockdown to make progress on a project I have been wanting to work on forever. After reviewing hundreds in our online family archive, I keep discovering wonderful photos I had forgotten.  I have finished 2006 and am about half done with 2007 now. More about WP668 :

WP668 is a historic Western Pacific Railroad caboose being restored by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher, a private family in San Jose, California, USA. More information and pictures are added as WP668’s story evolves.

For a summary of the WP668 story, see Katy’s May 2017 Western Pacific Historical Convention slides: “The Story of Western Pacific Caboose 668”. WP668 is the office for Mentoring Standard. Please join the WP668 Western Pacific Caboose Facebook group. WP668 was originally built as a boxcar in 1916. In 2018, the Mayor said that WP668 was the coolest office in San Jose!

As always: Please tell me if you have pre-1960 photos of our WP668 caboose. Thanks to all who have already contributed historic caboose images – especially Don Marenzi.

Thanks to John Plocher and Jessica Dickinson Goodman for technical web support!

2006: SN1642 and WP668 cabooses, at the Golden Gate Railroad Museum in San Francisco
2006: WP668 caboose on truck
2006: WP668 on Highway 101
2006: WP668 in storage in San Jose
2007: WP668 in the air over the trees
2007: family on WP668 in their San Jose backyard
2007: WP668 on the front page!
WP668 in 2020

Images Copyright 2006-2020 by Katy Dickinson, John Plocher, and Danek Duvall

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Christmas 2019

May this blessed Christmas season bring you and your family joy! It has been a busy Christmas, starting even before I turned in my last (16 and 18 page) term papers at the Graduate Theological Union. So far, our adventures have included:

• Reading Charles Dickens‘ “A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas” aloud with my Shakespeare Reading Group
• Hosting the Silicon Valley Lines and John‘s train club lunch group’s annual holiday party
• Dinner with my Education for Ministry class, after the Bethlehem pageant at Santa Clara First Baptist Church
• Lunch with the Interfaith Speakers of the Islamic Networks Group
• Shopping in Chinatown, San Francisco, with Sally Hambridge and Paul
• Receiving my certificate of appreciation from the US State Department for being a TechWomen 2019 mentor for Team Algeria (my 10th year as a citizen diplomat with TechWomen!)
• Dickens Christmas Fair day of music, high tea, and shopping with Jessica and Paul (including buying an amazing Christmas candle)
• Seeing the new Star Wars movie with John, Matthew, Jessica, and Paul
• Cheering on Paul for finishing the many Christmas orders for his reclaimed hardwood cutting boards
• Sitting with John and his teen video crew recording the Christmas Eve service at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
• Bringing services to two Elmwood jail dorms with John on Christmas Day (on behalf of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and the Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy)
• Enjoying family, food, and gifts with John, Jessica, Matthew, and Paul at home on Christmas Day!

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Images Copyright 2019 by Katy Dickinson.

Coolest Office in San Jose

Thanks to San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (and Ahmad Chapman, his Communications Specialist) who created the “Great 408”  community celebration program for San Jose, which says about “77. Backyard Railroad Caboose” –

You can have your glass-walled high rises and ergonomic standing desks; Katy Dickinson has the coolest office in San Jose. That’s because it’s a 1916 Western Pacific steel framed wooden caboose in the backyard of the Willow Glen home she shares with her husband, John Plocher. The couple purchased the caboose in 2006 from the Golden Gate Railroad Museum in San Francisco after it lost its lease. It was in storage in San Jose for more than a year until it was moved to their backyard in May 2007. The couple has been restoring the caboose bit by bit for more than a decade. Be sure to check out Katy and John’s website for more photos and the history of the caboose.

The web page features the 2007 video by Sam Fineberg of WP668 moving into our backyard. WP668 is the office for my company, Mentoring Standard.

Page updated 27 March 2020 – added images and links.

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Photos Copyright 2008-2017 by Katy Dickinson.

Story of WP668 – Western Pacific Railroad Historical Convention

John and I took a road trip from the Silicon Valley to Reno and Carson City Nevada a week ago. I presented the “Story of Western Pacific Caboose 668” to the annual Western Pacific Railroad Historical Conference in Reno, Nevada.  The convention is put on by the Feather River Rail Society.  I was the only woman speaker! While in Reno, we toured Jim Petro’s remarkable model train layout – Jim is a master railroad modeler and scenery builder.  His layout runs on the JMRI software that John helped to create – and uses John’s DCC Brakeman as well.  We also were able to visit Union Pacific’s UP1983 locomotive in the old Western Pacific colors that was brought to Reno for the convention.

On the drive home, we looped through Carson City, Nevada, to visit the WP657 caboose (sister to our own WP668).  WP657 was moved to the Nevada State Railroad Museum from the Ponderosa Ranch.  The inside of WP657 is intact.  We enjoyed our special tour, seeing all of the original furniture, cabinets, and fittings that are missing from WP668.  We came back to California over Carson Pass in the snow and fog, and saw the very-full Carson River dumping its snow melt.

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Images Copyright 2017 by Katy Dickinson

Happy 100th Birthday WP668 Caboose!

On Saturday, we celebrated the 100th Birthday for WP668, the railway caboose where Mentoring Standard has its office in Willow Glen (San Jose, California).  Many friends and family and train enthusiasts joined John and me in cheering on our old train car.  You can read the history of WP668 on her website.

There were balloons and a cake and we distributed WP668 Caboose Con-Duck-tors (a rubber duck toy dressed as a train conductor) as party favors.  John gave tours of his N-scale model train layout in our former garage.  WP668’s birthday present was new night lighting along her roof line.

Images Copyright Katy Dickinson 2016