On July 12, 1997, the Portland & Western Railroad, a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming Inc., purchased Burlington Northern Santa Fe's 91.7-mile rail line from Willbridge Junction in Portland, Oregon, to Tongue Point, near Astoria, Oregon (the line from Tongue Point to Astoria had already been sold to the City of Astoria.) On July 14, 1997, I photographed this Portland & Western freight train in Rainier, Oregon. This may have been the first Portland & Western run on this line, or possibly the second.
The locomotive was Willamette & Pacific #1201. It was originally built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in October 1953 as a 1,200-horsepower SW9 for the Pittsburg & Shawmut Railroad. It was originally numbered #232, but was renumbered to #1866 and named
"Oliver Winchester" for America's bicentennial in 1976. Genesee & Wyoming Inc. purchased the Pittsburg & Shawmut on April 29, 1996, and this is one of four P&S locomotives subsequently transferred to the G&W's Oregon operations. With a patched version of its P&S Bicentennial paint scheme, it was lettered for G&W's other Oregon line, the Willamette & Pacific, and classified as a SW1200R.
The train returned late in the evening, and there was barely enough light to photograph the returning eastbound 3-car train.
Though Portland & Western had purchased the line all the way to Tongue Point, it could not actually run trains that far. A landslide blocked the tracks to Astoria at Aldrich Point in February 1995, and since there was no freight business beyond that point anyway, Burlington Northern Santa Fe never bothered to clear the slide, and the tracks were still blocked when Portland & Western took over.
This train could have traveled no further than the James River Corporation paper mill at Wauna, Oregon, the furthest rail customer on the line.
At the end of the train, there was no caboose, or even a Flashing Rear-End Device, only a red flag on the coupler of ACFX covered hopper #42755.
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