I will have a Saturday to myself in Portland Oregon. I know about the Oregon Rail Heritage Center and Union Station, but does anyone have suggestions for locations to visit where trains can be watched? Thanks, Bert
If you go to the ORHC, you may not get any further, with so much to see and do there. If you do, take I5 north to Vancouver, WA and find the Amtrak station there. Traffic crossing the rivers into the station on the long series of bridges, last one being a swing bridge, is a favorite of railfans.
Yeah, I agree, Vancouver Amtrak station is an excellent place to watch trains if you don't want to do any chasing. If you are up for chases, or travelling outside the city proper, then going up the gorge might be nice. a trip east on one side and trip west on the other. Wa side is BNSF, Or side is UP. I'm not sure which if any PNWR trains on the north end run on Saturdays during daylight hours, but that is a possibility.
As a youngster I spent some times in several summers visiting PDX because my mother had friends who lived there. They lived on S.E.Francis St. relatively close to the river. I used to do my own railfanning. I wandered off one day and found a couple of good areas and one of them was the R.O.W. of the Portland Traction interurban with service from Portland to both Oregon City and Bellrose. i did ride both lines and made friends with a motorman and another young boy-railfan whose name was Steven(sp?). This was a very long time ago and I have played with Google maps with aerial photography to try and pin down the location but I can't seem to nail it. I do remember one set of tracks where I saw an SP switcher(an early SW or NW type) pulling a string of passenger cars which I guessed were heading to a coach yard. Where the Portland Traction ROW was, also contained a high tension electric pole line. There was a small yard adjacent to the Traction main where there was a steeple cab electric loco stored. Maybe some older Portland railfan or trolley jolly can remember and identify the area for me. The google maps gave me a picture of S.E.Francis St. and I remember a couple of houses and that S.E. Francis St ended at the end of the block. It was on that intersecting street that I would walk downhill past the (now defunct) Dairy Co-op creamery where our friend Oscar worked. He was the milkman that gathered the milk from the dairy farmers. I had a ton of fun back then(mid-1950s) Charlie
BNSF Lake Yard in NW and UP Brooklyn Yard in SE. You can take the MAX light rail to both of them. If you're a modeler, the Hobby Smith Model Trains hobby shop is a must-see, it's in the Hollywood district, also accessible by MAX light rail.
Thanks for the info guys. I visit both the Hobby Smith and Whistle Stop whenever I can. The light rail is such a good deal - all day senior pass for $2.50!
