Oregon Rail Heritage Center

97214 Portland, OR, United States of America (USA) (Oregon )

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The Oregon Rail Heritage Center (ORHC) is a railway museum in Portland, Oregon. Along with other rolling stock, the museum houses three steam locomotives owned by the City of Portland: Southern Pacific 4449, Spokane, Portland & Seattle 700, and Oregon Railroad & Navigation Co. 197, the first two of which are restored and operable The center opened to the public on September 22, 2012. The project to establish the center was led by the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation (ORHF), a non-profit organization established in 2002.

Ground-breaking for the 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) enginehouse took place in October 2011. The three steam locomotives were moved to the site from the Brooklyn Roundhouse on June 26, 2012, and were temporarily placed outdoors, awaiting completion of the enginehouse. With the house fully enclosed, the locomotives were moved inside on July 28. Several vintage rail passenger coaches have also been moved to the site from the Brooklyn Yard (surrounding the roundhouse), where they had been outdoors, and they will continue to be kept outdoors at the new center.

Collection

The centerpieces of ORHC's collection are the three steam locomotives: Southern Pacific 4449, Spokane, Portland & Seattle 700, and Oregon Railroad & Navigation Co. 197. All were donated to the City of Portland in 1958 and were on static display at Oaks Amusement Park until the mid-1970s or later. No. 4449 was moved to the Burlington Northern Hoyt Street Roundhouse in 1974 for restoration and proceeded to become famous nationwide, when it hauled the American Freedom Train throughout the country during the United States Bicentennial celebrations of 1975–76. It was thereafter stored and maintained at the Brooklyn Roundhouse between excursions. SP&S 700 moved to the roundhouse from Oaks Park in 1986, and OR&N 197 followed in 1996. SP&S 700 is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Union Pacific diesel switcher locomotive No. 96 was added to the collection in 2016, donated to ORHF by UP. It is an SW10-class locomotive, built originally as an SW7 in 1950 by Electro-Motive Diesel (and originally numbered 1821) and rebuilt by as an SW10 by UP in 1982. It arrived at the ORHC in 2017.

Several pieces of privately owned rolling stock also reside at the new center, including another diesel switcher, other locomotives and several vintage passenger and freight cars. One of the locomotives is Nickel Plate Road 190.

The operational steam locomotives are occasionally used on excursion trips, including an annual Holiday Express, and the new enginehouse was sited and designed in such a way as to enable these trips to continue. Union Pacific Railroad's north–south main line runs past the building, and is connected to the Heritage Center's tracks, allowing the locomotives and other rail cars to be moved onto or off of the mainline tracks. The rail cars also have access to Oregon Pacific Railroad (OPR) tracks at the new location.

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