Bob Larson hired out on the Western Pacific as a fireman in 1956; he came to the WP from the Soo Line, CN&W and DM&IR. Before the WP, all he had worked on were steam locomotives, EMD F7 or Alco FA diesels. In 1957, he was forced to Portola on the firemen's extra board. He deadheaded up to Portola from Stockton, California on the California Zephyr, #18. At the time he had no idea where Portola was and did not know anything about the Feather River Canyon. His first call came about midnight for a drag west with Engineer Art Hechala and four FT's. His long relationship with Portola and the Feather River Canyon began.

Bob had an old-time nickname (everyone on the railroad has or acquires a nickname); it was "Hoopie". During some of his time on the railroads back east, he worked as a tower operator, where part of the job was to "hoop up" train orders to passing trains. This followed him to the WP. At Winterail many years ago, Bob told us a hilarious story of an evening he spent in a tower in Wisconsin, while live-narrating a slide show of some of his spectacular collection (he was also a great storyteller). He almost always had a camera with him when he went to work, and, as a result, got hundreds of photos that no one else could even hope to have.

Bob shared some of his adventures with the Western Pacific over a long series of articles he wrote for the The Western Pacific Headlight, the journal of WP history from the Feather River Rail Society. The articles were titled “At the Throttle with Bob Larson” and chronicled his career from 1962 to 1978.

Bob Larson died February 14, 2019 at age 81 in Las Vegas.

Bob was one of nicest people you could ever meet and exemplified the spirit of the Willing People.