Gallery

Railroad History of Portland, OR

Railroads were the largest industry in the United States by the late 1800s, and they held a commanding share of the transportation market for both freight and passengers until well after World War I. As a result, a city's fortunes were largely dependent on its rail connections. In that respect, Portland has been very fortunate, as the following timeline illustrates:

• 1843 - William Overton and Asa Lovejoy landed a canoe near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers and laid a 640-acre claim. Overton quickly sold his half-share of the claim to Francis Pettygrove. Pettygrove, from Maine, and Lovejoy, from Massachusetts, flipped a coin in 1845 to decide whether the place would be named Portland or Boston.

• 1844 - Oregon City becomes the first settlement in the United States west of the Rocky Mountains to be incorporated as a city. The fledging municipality is located at Willamette Falls, a barrier to navigation between the lower and middle portions of the Willamette River, and an important portage site.
• 1846 - The first "railroad" in Oregon is constructed as a portage tramway between Oregon City and Canemah. "Trains" are horse-drawn and operate over wooden track. The line is less than a mile long, but acts as an important link between the paddle-wheeled steamboats soon to be operating above and below Willamette Falls.
• 1851 - The Cascades Railroad Company becomes the first railroad in Washington Territory, operating 5.9 miles between Hamilton Island (North Bonneville) and Stevenson, WA. Like the Oregon City-Canemah operation, the Cascades Railroad was a mule-powered portage line linking river steamboat routes, but in this case it was connecting the lower and middle navigable sections of the Columbia River around the north side of the Cascades Rapids. The Spokane, Portland & Seattle line would be constructed in the same area more than 50 years later.
• 1858 - Construction begins on the Oregon Portage Railroad, the first true railroad in Oregon. Its initial 4.5 mile line on the south bank of the Columbia is built to compete against the Cascades Railroad. It will extend from Wasco Landing (just east of present day Cascade Locks, OR) and Tanner Creek, across the river from Bonneville, WA. Far into the future, the line will ultimately become the oldest portion of the Union Pacific Railroad.
• 1859 - Oregon is admitted to the Union as the 33rd state on St. Valentine's Day.
• 1860 - The Oregon Steam Navigation Company (OSNC) is incorporated in Vancouver, WA, on December 29. D. F. Bradford, one of the owners of the Cascades Railroad, is one of the principal shareholders of the new OSNC. The new company would come to operate steamships from San Francisco to ports on the Columbia River as well as paddlewheel river steamboats on the Columbia and Willamette Rivers and their associated portage railroads.
• 1861 - The Oregon Portage Railroad is completed and begins operations on May 20 under the control of the OSNC. The company initially uses a mule for motive power, like the Cascades Railroad.
• 1862 - The "Oregon Pony” enters service on the Oregon Portage Railroad on May 10, becoming the first steam locomotive to operate in the Pacific Northwest. Built by Vulcan Iron Works in San Francisco, the 0-4-0 is also the first locomotive built on the Pacific Coast. It is displayed in Portland during the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in 1905 and subsequently put on outdoor display at Portland Union Station. The engine has since returned home to Cascade Locks, where it is displayed within a glass enclosure at Marine Park.
• 1863 - The Oregon Steam Navigation Company completes construction of its thirteen-mile Cascade Portage Railroad between Celilo and The Dalles.
• 1863 - The Oregon Steam Navigation Company gains control of the Cascade Railroad, establishing a monopoly on the portage business on the lower Columbia River.
• 1868 - Portland gets its first long-distance railroad when the Oregon Central Railroad (East Side Company) begins construction south along the east bank of the Willamette River from a point near present-day Division Street in the Brooklyn Neighborhood. A competing company, the Oregon Central Railroad (West Side Company) begins construction from Portland the very next day. Its line runs west to Forest Grove and then southward. The East Side Company becomes the first railroad to operate in Portland in 1869, running on 20 miles of track to New Era, and was soon reorganized to become the Oregon & California Railroad Co.
• 1869 - Central Pacific and Union Pacific join at Promontory Summit, UT, to create the first transcontinental railroad. The line links Omaha, NE with Sacramento, CA (and eventually with the Pacific Ocean at San Francisco Bay).
• 1871 - The Oregon Central Railroad (West Side Company) extends its mainline west from Portland as far as Hillsboro, opening service to that city on December 23. The alignment out of Portland is now occupied by Barbur Boulevard as far as Hillsdale (called Bertha at the time) and then turns west directly over the west hills to Beaverton and Hillsboro.
• 1872 - Construction on the Oregon & California has run the length of the Willamette Valley and reaches Roseburg, OR, halting there amid financial difficulties. Henry Villard is sent by the company’s German bondholders to head the company.
• 1874 - The Northern Pacific completes its isolated Pacific Division traversing Washington Territory between Puget Sound at New Tacoma and the Columbia River at Kalama, WA. Scheduled service begins on January 5, and includes runs between Portland and Kalama provided by steamboats on the Willamette and Columbia Rivers.
• 1879 - The Oregon Railway & Navigation Company is organized by Henry Villard on June 13. The new company purchases the Oregon Steam Navigation Company and begins construction on a railroad line east from Albina (Portland) and from several other points along the Columbia River to connect Portland with the Oregon Portage Railroad and Cascade Portage Railroad and extend the line eastward.
• 1879 - The Oregon & California's west side line reaches Corvallis.
• 1880 - The Oregon & California Railroad buys its small rival, the Oregon Central Railroad (West Side Company), which has extended its mainline west from Hillsboro to Forest Grove and then south only as far as McMinnville. The trackage becomes O&C's West Side Division.
• 1880 - Henry Villard gains control of the Northern Pacific Railroad in dramatic fashion. The NP, a struggling land grant railroad chartered to connect Lake Superior with Puget Sound, is still far from complete. But it has begun to build a line between what is now Pasco and Spokane, threatening Villard's transporation monopoly on the Columbia River. With help from German investors who contribute to his famous "Blind Pool," he successfully raises $8 million and buys enough stock to control the company. With control of the NP, the OR&N, and the Oregon & California, Villard establishes a railroad monopoly spanning the whole of the Northwest, centered at Portland.
• 1881 - On May 19th, the nation's second transcontinental route is created when the Southern Pacific (building eastward from southern California toward Texas) meets the Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fe (building southwestward from Kansas City) at Deming, NM. The first through passenger train leaves Kansas City for California on May 28. The SP, however, is interested in constructing its own line east, and feeds the Santa Fe little freight at this connection. The Sante Fe, for its part, is also building west to California to create its own transcon.
• 1882 - The OR&N completes its line along the south bank of the Columbia River from Portland to Wallula, WA, on November 20.
• 1883 - Southern Pacific's "Sunset Route" hosts its first through passenger train between Los Angeles and New Orleans on February 5. The SP had been met in El Paso by the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway earlier in the year, and cooperative agreements were struck with other carriers in Texas and Louisiana. All these other carriers will eventually be part of the Southern Pacific.
• 1883 - Portland is linked to the national railroad network when Northern Pacific completes its transcontinental route at Independence Gulch, MT, on August 22. At first, the company is using the line of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Co. to pass through the cascades. The first transcontinental train on the new line arrives in Portland on Sept. 11. Tacoma, WA, is the NP's official western terminus, but Portland is the largest and most important city in the Pacific Northwest and remains so for the rest of the 19th century. The OR&N and NP begin operating a joint passenger train between Portland and St. Paul, the eastbound Atlantic Express and westbound Pacific Express, with the transfer between the two roads taking place at Wallula Jct., WA.
• 1884 - Northern Pacific puts the world's second largest ferry, the 338-ft. steamboat Kalama (later renamed Tacoma), into service on October 9 to operate across the Columbia River between Hunters, OR, and Kalama, WA. Trains running from Portland to Tacoma travel first along the Oregon bank of the Columbia to Hunters on a track constructed about a year before, are next loaded in their entirety (engine and cars) onto the three-track ferry for the trip to Kalama, WA, and finally complete the journey to Tacoma over NP's previously disconnected Kalama-Tacoma mainline. The slip on the Oregon side is moved from Hunters to Goble sometime between 1891 and 1893.
• 1884 - Wall Street bears attack the NP, which has accumulated significant debt during its construction. Henry Villard returns to Germany for a time after suffering a nervous breakdown. The NP, in his absence, begins separating itself from the OR&N and focusing on connecting Wallula directly to Puget Sound over the Cascade Range.
• 1884 - Portland gets its second link to the east and becomes the terminus of another transcontinental route as the OR&N and the Oregon Short Line Railway (a Union Pacific subsidiary) jointly celebrate a golden spike ceremony in Huntington, OR, on November 25. The OR&N had just completed its line over the Blue Mountains from Pendleton to Huntington, OR, while the OSL had completed construction of its route between Huntington and the Union Pacific's Omaha-Ogden mainline at Granger, WY. The line provides a second link for Portland residents to the east via Boise and Omaha. Through service between Omaha and Portland officially begins on December 1.
• 1884 - Southward construction on the Oregon & California continues over Siskiyou Summit to Ashland, OR.
• 1885 - The Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway completes its transcontinental line between the west coast and Kansas City. Its subsidiary Atlantic & Pacific Railway built west from Albuqueque to the Colorado River in 1883. In 1884, it bargained with Southern Pacific for control of the line SP had built from Mojave, CA, to meet the A&P, along with haulage rights from Mojave to San Francisco. Finally, AT&SF subsidiary California Southern built a line north from National City (San Diego) over Cajon Pass to connect with the Mojave line at what is now Barstow in November 1885. A branch to Los Angeles would be completed in 1887. San Francisco (in 1881) and Los Angeles are the first two cities on the Pacific coast with access to two transcontinental railroads, and the competition drives down rates and spurs growth.
• 1887 - Union Pacific's Oregon Short Line and the Northern Pacific share a joint lease of the OR&N beginning January 1. This gives Portland equal access to the NP and UP.
• 1887 - The Oregon & California and Southern Pacific meet at the OR-CA state line south of Ashland. The O&C falls into receivership allowing the SP to gain control and then lease the company later in the year (SP went on to purchase the O&C outright in 1927). As a result, Portland becomes the northern terminus of the Southern Pacific and an important railroad junction point. Passengers on Southern Pacific’s California Express train can now ride straight through between Portland and San Francisco in only a day and a half.
• 1888 - The bottom span of the OR&N's Steel Bridge (first) opens for railroad traffic, crossing the Willamette River to connect the company's main yard in Albina with Portland's west side. The bridge was proposed by Villard in 1883 and constructed began in 1886 and ended in 1889 with the opening of the top deck for public and streetcar use in 1889. The name may seem unimaginative now, but it was significant in its day as the first bridge on the Pacific Coast made of steel. The bridge was replaced in 1912.
• 1888 - Northern Pacific completes its tunnel under the Washington Cascades at Stampede Pass, giving Tacoma and Seattle a direct and competitive link to the east for the first time.
• 1889 - Union Pacific purchases 50% of the OR&N's stock, solidifying UP's position in the Pacific Northwest.
• 1890 - Portland becomes the nation's 61st largest city, with 46,385 people.
• 1891 - NP begins routing passenger trains to Portland over Stampede Pass and through Tacoma rather than the more direct route on the OR&N.
• 1893 - The Great Northern Railway connects St. Paul, MN with Seattle, WA, to become the nation's fifth transcontinental railroad.
• 1893 - The worst economic depression in the United States up to that time, the Panic of 1893, is triggered by the collapse of the railroad building bubble. Union Pacific enters receivership on October 13th, taking with it subsidiaries Oregon Railway & Navigation Co. and the Oregon Short Line & Utah Northern (comprising the former OSL). Both subsidiaries begin operating as independent carriers. The bankruptcy ultimately allows the soon-to-be legendary Edward H. Harriman to gain control of Union Pacific. Northern Pacific also goes bankrupt, on October 20th, and the Villard interests are eventually purged from the NP as a result. The company is later controlled by J. P. Morgan and, a few years later, by James J. Hill, president of the Great Northern.
• 1895 - Southern Pacific begins operation of the Shasta Limited between Portland and San Francisco over the Oregon & California line through the Siskiyou Mountains.
• 1896 - On St. Valentine's Day, the Northern Pacific Terminal Company opens Portland Union Station, then known as Grand Central Station and later as Union Depot.
• 1896 - The Oregon Railroad & Navigation Co. is formed as an amalgamation of the defunct Oregon Railway & Navigation Co. and several smaller roads and operates independently.
• 1898 - Andrew B. Hammond's Astoria & Columbia River Railroad (inc. 1895) completes its line from Astoria, OR, near the mouth of the Columbia River, east and south to the Northern Pacific mainline at Goble, OR, on April 4. The first train from Portland arrives on May 16. The A&CR also built a bridge over Young's Bay in order to connect with the Seashore Road Company (originally the Astoria & South Coast Railway), a previously isolated railroad paralleling the Oregon coast to Seaside purchased by the A&CR the previous year. The A&CR was in turn purchased by James J. Hill in 1907 and conferred to SP&S control in 1909.
• 1899 - The Great Northern begins its Great Northern Flyer express trains between Portland and Chicago, running on the OR&N between Portland and Spokane.
• 1900 - Portland's inhabitants number 90,426, making the city the 42nd largest in the country and the third largest on the Pacific Coast, behind San Francisco (342,782) and Los Angeles (102,479).
• 1900 - The Northern Pacific inaugurates its daily premier transcontinental passenger train, the North Coast Limited, on April 29. Initially the train runs from St.Paul to Seattle, but will be extended to Chicago and Portland in the coming years.
• 1900 - The Union Pacific Railroad gains control of the four-year-old Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company, re-establishing its Chicago-Portland transcontinental route.
• 1901 - The Union Pacific Railroad gains control over the Southern Pacific. UP's E.H. Harriman reaches a deal for the UP to purchase the 20% company share held by Collis Huntingon. Another 18% will quickly be purchased on the public market. Harriman became President of the Southern Pacific on September 27.
• 1905 - The Great Northern Railway begins its premier Oriental Limited train between the Pacific Northwest and Chicago. The train is split into two sections west of Spokane with one section traversing the GN line over Stevens Pass to Seattle and the other section running on the OR&N to Portland.
• 1905 - The Great Northern and Northern Pacific, both controlled by James J. Hill, incorporate the Portland & Seattle Railway as a joint subsidiary to build a new line linking Portland with Spokane along the north bank of the Columbia River. Construction begins east of Vancouver and on the Vancouver-Portland line, including the three major bridges crossing the Columbia River, Oregon Slough, and Willamette River. The railroad was never intended to reach Seattle—the Portland & Seattle's name was chosen to obfuscate the new line's owner and intentions from the competing Union Pacific/OR&N line on the south bank of the Columbia long enough to acquire the right of way without interference.
• 1906 - Portland receives its shortest link to the east yet when the Spokane International is completed. The SI links UP's OR&N at Spokane with the Canadian Pacific at Kingsgate, BC. The resulting Portland-to-Chicago connection runs from Portland to Spokane on the OR&N, up the SI to the northern border, over the CP through Canada, and finally down the Soo Line to Chicago. An express passenger train, the Soo-Spokane-Portland Train de Luxe, was inaugurated over the route in 1909. The route remains the shortest for 6 years, until Great Northern builds its Surrey Cutoff in 1912.
• 1906 - Southern Pacific builds a connector between St. Joseph (a point on the West Side District just northeast of McMinnville) and Lafayette (on the Newberg branch, also known as the east side line), creating the so-called Yamhill Loop from Portland to Forest Grove to St. Joseph to Newberg to Portland and a shortcut from Portland to Corvallis. These lines will eventually be electrified beginning in 1912 and will host the "Red Electric" interurban trains from 1914-1929.
• 1908 - The Oregon Electric Railway Company begins operating a line south from Portland to Salem on January 20. A branch west to Hillsboro opens September 20 and service is soon extended to Forest Grove. In both territories, the OE is the first competitor to the Oregon & California/Southern Pacific. The company was incorporated as an electric interurban line under the name Willamette Valley Traction Company in 1905, and the Oregon Electric Railway Co. was formed as its holding company on May 15, 1906. It will become a subsidiary of the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway in 1910. In Portland, the line ran south on 10th Street from its station at 10th and Hoyt, then up the west hills on an alignment now partially occupied by I-5.
• 1908 - The Portland & Seattle Railway changes its name to become the Spokane, Portland, & Seattle Railway and inaugurates freight and passenger service between Portland and a connection with the Northern Pacific at Pasco, WA, on November 22. The SP&S’s “North Bank Line” provides a direct, easily graded line east from Portland to connections with its parent companies GN and NP, and the route formed by the SP&S, NP, GN, and CB&Q becomes the shortest link between Portland and Chicago (as it remains today). Construction between Pasco and Spokane continues and will be completed in 1909. The Northern Pacific, meanwhile, has extended its Tacoma-Kalama mainline south to Vancouver in order to make use of the SP&S's Vancouver-Portland line, and discontinues the newly obsolete ferry service between Kalama and Goble. NP also changes the operation of its premier passenger train, the North Coast Limited. Rather than continuing to run the train in a single section from the Twin cities to Tacoma and then on to Portland, the consist is now broken into two sections at Pasco, one running over Stampede Pass on the NP mainline and terminating in Seattle, the other running along the Columbia River via the SP&S to terminate in Portland. Similarly, the Portland-bound portion of GN’s Oriental Limited is diverted from the Union Pacific-controlled OR&N to the SP&S.
• 1909 - Union Pacific's Oregon & Washington Railroad obtains trackage rights over the Northern Pacific line between Portland and Tacoma on February 1. The connection effectively extends Union Pacific's Chicago-Portland transcontinental line to Puget Sound. The O&W was incorporated May 12, 1906 and, beginning August 14, 1907, built two branch lines from Centralia, WA, and a line between Seattle and Black River Jct. that would be shared with the Milwaukee Road.
• 1909 - The "Pacific Extension" of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway (better known as "The Milwaukee Road") is completed on May 19th near Gold Creek, MT, and scheduled service begins June 13th. The new line connects the railroad's namesake cities with Tacoma and Seattle, WA, continuing the ascendency of the Puget Sound area. Tracklaying in the Pacific Northwest has been handled for the company by construction subsidiary Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway.
• 1910 - Portland's population reaches 207,214, the nation's 28th largest city. However, Seattle has now surpassed it with 237,194, due in large part to that city's greatly improved rail connections and the easier and cheaper ocean access provided by Puget Sound. The Alaskan gold rush of 1897-99 also resulted in a population influx since the city served as the southern terminus for Klondike-bound steamships.
• 1910 - Union Pacific completes its purchase of the OR&N and renames the property Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company. UP's Oregon & Washington Railroad is sold to the O-WR&N on December 23 as a means of consolidating its Northwest subsidiaries.
• 1910 - The Oregon Electric is purchased by James J. Hill and made a subsidiary of the Spokane, Portland, & Seattle Railway.
• 1911 - The Pacific Railway & Navigation Company completes its line from the Pacific Coast at Tillamook to a connection with the Southern Pacific West Side line at Hillsboro on June 30 after nearly 6 years of construction through the rugged coast range. Southern Pacific had gained control of the incomplete railroad on June 5, 1909 and will purchase it on July 1, 1915. The branch will prove important as a carrier of forest products and of Portland passengers vacationing on the coast.
• 1912 - Union Pacific's Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Co. replaces the first Steel Bridge (1886-1889) with the double-lift drawbridge that's still in service today. Construction was handled by Union Bridge and Construction Company of Kansas City, MO, (piers) and by Robert Wakefield of Portland (steel structures) at a cost of $1.7 million. Ownership was shared with Southern Pacific, and the bridge's eastern and western counterweight were adorned with the logos of the SP and the O-WR&N, respectively.
• 1912 - The Great Northern completes its Surrey Cutoff, a direct connection between Fargo and Surrey, ND, shortening its transcontinental route by 52 miles. From 1912 onward, the GN-SP&S combination provided the shortest freight and passenger route between Portland and the east. Today, under successor BNSF, the SP&S line handles the majority of the freight traffic between the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest and east.
• 1912 - The Oregon Electric's mainline down the Willamette Valley is extended southward to Albany, with service beginning July 4, and is completed to Eugene, OR, with service beginning October 15. Eugene would be the line's maximum extent, but it provides vital competition to the Southern Pacific.
• 1912 - Southern Pacific acquires the Portland, Eugene & Eastern Railway. The PE&E had been making arrangements to build an electric interurban from Portland to Eugene and already owned city streetcar systems in Salem, Albany, and Eugene. The Oregon & California's West Side Division line from Portland to Corvallis via Forest Grove and its Newberg branch were added to the PE&E. Electrification of these lines started soon after.
• 1912 - The United States Supreme Court decides Union Pacific' control of Southern Pacific is illegal on December 2. The federal government had brought suit against UP to break up the companies in 1908 under the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act.
• 1914 - Southern Pacific launches the "Red Electric" interurban service on January 17, providing new competition for the Oregon Electric. Service is provided from Portland Union Station and extends southwest to McMinnville via both the west side line through Forest Grove and the East Side line through Newberg. Though the rolling stock initially carries the name of SP subsidiary Portland, Eugene & Eastern, the PE&E name will be replaced with "Southern Pacific Lines" in 1915.
• 1914 - The Great Northern Pacific Steamship Company is founded on September 30th to compete with Southern Pacific for traffic to and from San Francisco. Portland area passengers bound for California may now board an SP&S train for Flavel, OR, (today part of Warrenton, just west of Astoria), and embark from there aboard either the S.S. Great Northern or the S.S. Northern Pacific to complete their journey by water.
• 1917 - The United States enters World War I with a congressional Declaration of War on April 16. The ships of the Great Northern Pacific Steamship Company are commandeered for military service on September 17. President Wilson, reacting to the railroads' inability to meet the transportation demands brought about by the war, orders their nationalization on December 26. The United States Railroad Administration (USRA) takes control of most of the nation's railroads two days later. Control of the railroads is returned to their owners on March 1, 1920.
• 1917 - Southern Pacific's "Red Electric" passenger service is extended south from McMinnville to Corvallis on June 17. The planned extension to Eugene (already served by competitor Oregon Electric) was never completed, nor were SP's plans to electrify its other branches in the Willamette Valley.
• 1926 - Southern Pacific completes its Natron Cutoff between Eugene, OR, and Weed, CA, via the Cascade Mountains and Klamath Falls, fullfilling a plan begun more than 20 years earlier. The new route becomes the SP's main line between Oregon and California, in preference to the original 1887 O&C route over the Siskiyous via Ashland. A new overnight train, the Cascade, is put into service on the route and operates as the premier train between Portland and Oakland. The Shasta Limited continues operating on the original, slower Siskiyou line until 1938.
• 1929 - Great Northern's Empire Builder, one of the most famous passenger trains of all time, begins its inaugural run on June 11 following a public showing in St. Paul. The new train operates in two sections west of Spokane to reach Seattle and Portland, duplicating the routing of the Oriental Limited, which continues in operation as a second-class service.
• 1929 - Southern Pacific ends its "Red Electric" passenger service in the Willamette Valley on October 5 after only 15 years of operation. The overhead will be taken down in the early 1930s.
• 1932 - Oregon Electric ceases passenger service on its Tualatin Valley branch line to Beaverton, Hillsboro, and Forest Grove.
• 1933 - Oregon Electric ceases passenger service on its mainline between Portland and Eugene on June 30. Passengers traveling in the Willamette Valley now have only one choice of carrier, Southern Pacific's steam-powered passenger trains.
• 1935 - The Union Pacific launches the City of Portland, the first streamliner between Chicago and the Pacific Coast. The train makes the trip in just 39 hours 45 min at an average speed of over 50mph, including stops.
• 1936 - The Union Pacific takes out a 999-year lease on subsidiary Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Co. on January 1. The O-WR&N will finally be merged into the UP on Dec. 30, 1987.
• 1945 - Electric freight operations on the Oregon Electric end in July.
• 1949 - Southern Pacific inaugurates the Shasta Daylight. The new lightweight streamlined train takes over the premier service on the Portland-Oakland route. The Cascade train then operating on the line was also upgraded with new lightweight equipment, but was shifted to an overnight schedule.
• 1964 - The Vernonia, South Park & Sunset Railroad begins tourist operations on Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway's Vernonia branch between Banks and Vernonia, OR, using Baldwin steam locomatives #104 and #105 from the nearby Long-Bell Lumber Co. (formerly the Oregon-American Lumber Co.) and former Oregon Electric interurban coaches, among other stock. The operation was run entirely by volunteers except for the SP&S-required engine and train crew, which was called from the Portland extra boards. Two of those SP&S employees, Jim Abney and Greg Kamholz, became life-long friends and long-time volunteers with the Pacific Railroad Preservation Association, where both racked up many miles in the engineer's seat of the SP&S 700.
• 1969 - The Vernonia, South Park & Sunset Railroad ends operations on the SP&S Vernonia branch.
• 1970 - GN and NP merge to form the Burlington Northern. Initially, the SP&S continues a separate corporate existence on paper, but it is leased and operated by the new BN until it is fully merged in 1979.
• 1970 - As a concession to the BN merger, The Milwaukee Road (Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad) gains trackage rights over a portion of the ex-NP line between Seattle and Portland. This gives Portland a new transcontinental link to the east and replaces the former GN-NP competition with BN-MILW competition.
• 1971 - Amtrak is formed and takes over most of the nation's intercity passenger rail operations. This includes GN's Empire Builder, which continues to connect Portland and Seattle with Chicago. The Coast Starlight, running along the Pacific Coast from Seattle to Los Angeles, is inaugurated in the same year, combining the services of Southern Pacific's Shasta Daylight and Coast Daylight (and resurrecting the name of SP's Starlight).
• 1978 - The former Astoria & South Coast Railway line between Astoria and Seaside is abandoned by the Burlington Northern.
• 1980 - The Milwaukee Road, under bankruptcy, abandons its transcontinental line west of Miles City, MT, leaving Portland with three Class 1 railroads: BN, SP, and UP.
• 1982 - Tri-Met begins construction of a new line between downtown Portland and Gresham, the city's first light rail line. The new service, called the Metropolitan Area Express (MAX), would be opened on September 5, 1986.
• 1983 - The Port of Tillamook Bay leases the Batterson-Tillamook portion of the Tillamook Branch from Southern Pacific and operates it at the Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad.
• 1990 - Flood damage prompts Southern Pacific to attempt to abandon the Tillamook branch. The Port of Tillamook Bay, which is leasing and operating the west end of the line, secures funding the purchase the Tillamook Branch west of Schefflin, repairs the line, and returns it to service as part of the Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad.
• 1993 - Tri-Met begins construction of MAX's westside line, extending the original Gresham-Portland line to Beaverton and Hillsboro. Service begins September 12, 1998. The Beaverton-Hillsboro section uses a portion of the former Oregon Electric branch to Forest Grove, severing Burlington Northern's route over Cornelius Pass and down to the Willamette Valley. To preserve its access to the valley, BN gains trackage rights over Union Pacific between Portland and Labish (a point just north of Salem connecting with the former OE).
• 1993 - Short line and regional railroad holding company Genesee & Wyoming forms the Willamette & Pacific Railroad (WPRR) to take over operations on several Southern Pacific branch lines in western Oregon south of Portland.
• 1995 - The Portland & Western Railroad (PNWR), another Genesee & Wyoming subsidiary, is formed to take over operations on Southern Pacific branch lines in and near Portland connecting with the lines operated by sister company Willamette & Pacific. Expansion continued in 1996 as the P&W took over from BNSF operations on the former Oregon Electric between Beaverton and Eugene, the former United Railways branch between Banks and United Jct., and the Astoria Branch between Linnton (northeast Portland) via United Jct. and Goble (the site of the former NP ferry to Kalama). The two companies are operated as a unified system stretching from Astoria to Eugene, with the Portland & Western name serving as the public and marketing banner since about 2000.
• 1995 - The holding companies of the Burlington Northern Railroad and the Santa Fe Railway (Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway) consolidate into the new Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation on September 22, 1995. Merger of the railroads to form the Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co., the continent's longest railroad, is delayed until December 31, 1995. The railroad's name will be officially changed to BNSF Railway Co. on January 24, 2005.
• 1996 - Union Pacific becomes the continent's largest railroad by merging the Southern Pacific on September 11. Portland is now down to just two Class 1 railroads.
• 2003 - In honor of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial, the State of Oregon sponsors the Lewis & Clark Explorer trains, weekend excursions between Linnton (in northwest Portland) to Astoria. The popular trains, which are ticketed by Amtrak and operated by the Portland & Western using three former BC Rail RDCs purchased by the State, run for three seasons, with the last train running October 3, 2005.
• 2007 - The Great Coastal Gale strikes the Pacific Northwest, leading to flooding that washes out large portions of the Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad. Owing to the extent of the damage, the line is not repaired.

For Further Reading...

• Union Pacific Railroad's History Page: http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/index.shtml
• Pacific Northwest Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society: http://www.pnwc-nrhs.org/
• Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway Historical Society: http://www.spshs.org/
• Portland State University's Oregon Encyclopodia: http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org
• Oregon Historical Society's Oregon History Project: http://www.ohs.org/education/oregonhistory/
• Pacific Southwest Railway Museum's Global Railroad History Timeline: http://www.sdrm.org/history/timeline/index.html
• The Library of Congress's searchable collection of railroad maps: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/rrhome.html
• A railroad lesson plan for teachers from the National Endowment for the Humanities: http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/i-hear-locomotives-impact-transcontinental-railroad
• Burkhardt, D.C. Jesse, Railroads of the Columbia River Gorge, Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC, 2004
• Culp, Edwin D., Early Oregon Days, The Caxton Printers, Caldwell, ID, 1987