Sacramento Northern On-Line & Garth Groff

If you consider setting a high academic standard to the presentation of oral railroad history and combine it with an updated electronic resource with supportive photos and bibliography for the public, you will appreciate the efforts of Iowa native Garth Groff and the WEB site, Sacramento Northern On-Line. Originally available at http://people.virginia.edu/~ggg9y/home.html, the new link is http://www.wplives.org/sn/. Garth’s efforts to initiate and then recruit railroad history experts to contribute concise yet detailed summaries on far reaching topics about the SN have been a inspiration for the initiation of the East Bay Hills Project. The extensive critique of material available on the SN, from books, articles, and videos, has provided an invaluable resource to those researching the history of the railroad. It is no surprise that Garth’s professional responsibilities require the same exacting nature, as cataloger for the University of Virginia library system.

The WEB site includes many photos from Garth’s collection. Garth grew up in Northern California, mostly near Folsom, and he started with photos taken by himself and his father, mostly of the diesel era around Sacramento and Yuba City. Realizing the potential benefit of pictures that captured the surroundings in addition to the railroad and its rolling stock, he amassed a large collection of negatives from Willbur C. Whittaker and part of Kenneth C. Jenkins’ collection.

Garth has many interests beyond the railroads, and he commits a significant amount of his free time to medieval re-enactments, including teaching archery to children. In 2011, he was honored by being inducted into the Order of the King’s Missiliers, a recognition of his excellence in archer, and in 2014 he was inducted into the kingdom’s Order of the Yew Bow, the highest award for archers. These days you’d have better luck contacting his alter-ego, Lord Mungo Napier.