My family will be visiting Oregon and Washington the first week of September and I would like to go on a couple of train rides. Any suggestions on what is available?
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Originally Posted by 2356:
My family will be visiting Oregon and Washington the first week of September and I would like to go on a couple of train rides. Any suggestions on what is available?
1) Do NOT miss the Mount Reiner Scenic Railroad, all steam too.
2) The Oregon Coast Railroad, all steam also.
3) The Portland Zoo Railroad, if it is still running.
4) In Portland, don't miss the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation facility where the SP 4449, SP&S 700, and the OWR&N 4-6-2 #197 are all housed and worked on.
Keep in mind, most tourist RR operations in the Pacific NW are cold by after Labor day. Check before you go anywhere.
In your search, you might see notations of the Chehalis Steam Train Association. They've convenient to I-5, just south of Centralia (which has a really nice Amtrak depot). They're not running this summer due to issues with the 15-year rebuild of # 15. They ran into some issues and haven't squared away everything with the inspectors. Lots of speculation on that, but I won't get into that drama. They MIGHT be running by the time you're there (I've heard they badly want to salvage as much of the season as they can, but haven't turned a wheel since December) but they usually shut down after Labor day weekend: http://steamtrainride.com/
There is the chance to see steam elsewhere if you catch it right at these places:
http://www.bycx.com/schedule It's a decent run but it's WAYYYY off the beaten path...
https://www.trainmuseum.org/ Way up in the mountains East of Seattle. They just got a little 0-4-0T (owned by a really nice guy who recently came to the operation) running there on some weekends, had been pure diesel for as long as I've ever know the place. Sort of sad driving in there as you pass a really long dead line of rusting steam locomotives. The TV show, "Twin Peaks" was filmed all around there, BTW...
There's a couple of those ride-on small-scale live steam operations in the region if you're interested as well...
Originally Posted by Hot Water:
Originally Posted by 2356:
My family will be visiting Oregon and Washington the first week of September and I would like to go on a couple of train rides. Any suggestions on what is available?
1) Do NOT miss the Mount Reiner Scenic Railroad, all steam too.
2) The Oregon Coast Railroad, all steam also.
3) The Portland Zoo Railroad, if it is still running.
4) In Portland, don't miss the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation facility where the SP 4449, SP&S 700, and the OWR&N 4-6-2 #197 are all housed and worked on.
1) I went out to MRSR about 3 weeks ago and was shocked to find no steam at all running that weekend. That'd never happened to me before as I live not that terribly far from there
2) The Zoo RR isn't running at all this year
4) You can't beat that engine house for a 'wow' factor. It's a very nice, clean environment. Sort of an operating room for steam. Lots of other classic diesels hanging around the place as well, including the only (mostly) complete ALCO PA in the US: http://www.nkp190.com/
