The Oregon Rail Heritage Center in Portland, OR, opened to the public on 22nd September 2012. Establishment of the center was led by the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organisation set up in 2002 "to secure a permanent home for the City of Portland’s steam locomotives, preserve the Brooklyn Roundhouse, and establish a Rail and Industrial Heritage Museum".
The three locomotives were donated to the City of Portland in 1958 and were placed on static display at Oaks Amusement Park until the mid-1970s. A new development at the park then meant they had to be moved and they were consequently relocated to the Union Pacific's (formerly Southern Pacific's) Brooklyn Roundhouse.
UP’s plans to demolish the roundhouse in 2012 to create additional yard space instigated construction of new accommodation. After considering other potential sites for an enginehouse, the ORHF reached agreement in 2009 on a site near the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Demolition of Brooklyn Roundhouse was carried out in September 2012 at which time, the three engines were moved to the new heritage center.
Southern Pacific #4449 is the sole survivor of SP's GS-4 class of streamlined 4-8-4 (Northern) type locomotives, twenty eight of which were built by the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, OH, in 1941 and 1942 (#4430-#4457).
The class was built to handle the twelve-car premier Daylight over a hilly route between San Francisco and Los Angeles and GS was initially an abbreviation of "Golden State" where it worked for most of its service life. The Southern Pacific subsequently redefined "GS" to stand for "General Service" instead of "Golden State".
#4449 hauled other SP services including the Sunset Route from Los Angeles to New Orleans.
In 1955, one of the last engines in Daylight
livery, its side skirting was removed, it was
painted black and silver and assigned to SP's San Joaquin Valley line, occasionally hauling the San Joaquin Daylight between Oakland and Bakersfield, as well as fast freight and helper service. It was semi-retired from service on 24th September 1956 and kept as an emergency back-up locomotive until officially retired on 2nd October 1957 and placed in storage.
In 1958, #4449 was donated to the City of Portland and put on display in Oaks Amusement Park, where it remained until 1974. It was then restored to operation for the American Freedom Train to celebrate the American Bicentennial celebrations in 1976.
The following year, #4449 hauled the Amtrak Transcontinental Steam Excursion travelling 3,655 miles, stopping in 61 cities and carrying approximately 9,700 passengers. After nearly two years on the road, it was returned to storage at the Brooklyn Roundhouse in Portland.
Oil fired #4449 was built in 1941. It has a 21' 6" driver wheelbase, 48' 8" engine wheelbase and weighs 475,000 lbs, 275,700 lbs on its 80" drivers. The grate is 90' 4" sq ft and the firebox 385 sq ft. Operating at a boiler pressure of 300 psi, total heating surface is 6,973 sq ft including 2,086 sq ft superheating. With 25½" x 32" cylinders, it delivered 66,326 lbs tractive effort. A trailing-truck booster raised starting and hill-climbing tractive effort by 13,000 lbs.
The tender weighs 313,730 with a 23,300 gallon water and 6,275 gallon oil capacity.
#700 was in the midst of restoration when I vitited the Center. It was delivered to the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway on 21st June 1938, one of two 4-8-4 Northern type E-1 Class locomotives built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, PA, acquired to haul the Inland Empire Express (daytime) and North Bank
Limited (overnight) along the north shore of
the Columbia River between Spokane and Vancouver, WA (#700 & #702). A third E-1, #701, provided backup and hauled freight. Owing to an undersized turntable, the E-1s didn't reach Portland, OR, until 1943.
By 1947, the SP&S started purchasing diesels for their premier passenger services. Through the late 1940s and early 1950s, the E-1s continued to pull secondary passenger trains but, by 1954, diesels had completely replaced steam for passenger service and the E-1s were relegated to pulling freight trains until 1955.
Finally, on 20th May 1956, a spruced-up #700,
with its normally grey smokebox painted silver, hauled its last passenger train, the Farewell To Steam with a twenty-one car consist carrying 1,400 passengers from Portland, OR, to Wishram, WA, and back.
An oil burner, #700 has a 48'7" engine wheelbase and 20' 8" driver wheelbase. It weighs 485,820 lbs, 294,500 lbs on its 77" drivers. The grate is 115 sq ft and the firebox 490 sq ft. With 28" x 31" cylinders and total heating surface of 6,739 sq ft, including 2,036 sq ft superheating, it operates at a boiler pressure of 260 psi delivering 69,756 lbs tractive effort. It has Walschaert valve gear, a Worthington feedwater heater and Timken roller bearings throughout.
The 379,700 lb tender weighs has a 20,000 gallon water and 8,800 gallon oil capacity.
After the Farewell to Steam trip, #700 along with other SP&S steam locomotives were sent to the scrap line. At the same time, however, the Union Pacific was offering to donate a steam locomotive to the City of Portland, OR, and the SP&S also offered #700.
It went on static display at Oaks Amusement Park until 1987, then moved to the Brooklyn Rounshouse to continue work to restore it to operating condition. It returned to operation in 1990 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 26th January 2006.
4-6-2 Pacific type locomotive #197 was also undergoing restoration when I visited. It was built in 1905 for the Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company as one of four Vauclain compound locomotives (#194-#197) with 17" x 28" high pressure and 22" x 28" low pressure cylinders by Burnham, Williams & Co., an early incarnation of the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia. It arrived just in time to handle the passenger loads to the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, OR.
In 1923, it was given significant modifications, including a new Vanderbilt tender and rebuilt as a simple expansion engine with 22 x 28 cylinders and Walschaert valve gear in place of the original Stephenson valve gear. By this time, the OR&N had been absorbed by the Union Pacific and the class received numbers in the 3200 series, #197 becoming #3203.
The UP used #3203 until it was retired sometime in the 1950s. In 1958, the railroad donated it to the City of Portland, OR, and it went on display near Oaks Amusement Park, soon joined by SP #4449 and SP&S #700. In 1987, it was moved to the Brooklyn Roundhouse and joined #4449 and #700 to finally move to the new Oregon Rail Heritage Center in 2012.
#197 weighs 241,180 lbs, 142,740 lbs on its 77" drivers. An oil burner operating at a boiler pressure of 200 psi, it delivered 29,920 lbs tractive effort.The tender weighs 159,100 lbs with a capacity of 9,000 gallons of water and 14,000 gallons of oil.
Nickel Plate Road #190 was built by Alco in 1948 as a PA-1. It ran for nineteen years as Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway #62L, and was sold to the Delaware & Hudson Railway in December 1967 along with three other retired PA-1s 4enumbered #18. All four were rebuilt in 1975 by MK Rail, a subsidiary of civil engineering and construction company Morrison-Knudsen, and classed as a PA-4 diesel locomotive.
As of 2012, #190 was one of only five surviving Alco PA locomotives in the United States. And only two PA-4s.
#190 weighs 317,900 lbs with a 251F V-12 4-cycle prime mover and a GT566E5 generator driving four GE-752E6 traction motors.
Starting tractive effort is 79,475 lbs @ 25% and continuous tractive effort, 33,600 lbs @ 19 mph. It has a top speed of 100 mph.