Steam & Excursion > Steam (and diesel) return to Oregon Zoo's WP&Z Railway

Good news folks, the Washington Park & Zoo Railway is finally returning to operation in time for the 2014 ZooLights festival although, unfortunately, on a much-truncated route compared to the historic ZooLights operations.

Video was posted on YouTube yesterday of the "Oregon" and the "Zooliner" engines being returned to the zoo following refurbishment. Sorry, rules prevent sharing a YouTube link here but you may visit the zoo's webpage http://www.oregonzoo.org/news/2014/10/locomotives-return-new-route-track-nov-debut to learn more.

After having run them for ten years last season seemed to have a great void in it after all seven of us "temporary engineers" were dismissed over a year ago because the railroad was shut down. I'm looking forward to getting back to running both engines next month.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/14 14:12 by Jim700.

Hello

How is the new route different, are there still short and long route?

Chris

Thanks Jim. Good to hear it's running again and you're pulling the throttle!

Cjcheely Wrote:
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> How is the new route different, are
> there still short and long routes?

Chris, the first photo shows the long-time route of the WP&Z Railroad within the zoo which was the historic route of ZooLights trains. It was a little over a mile in length and traveled the trackage seen except for the upper legs of the wye and the line to Washington Park departing from the wye which exited the zoo through a gate in the northeast part of the property. The ZooLights ride could vary in length from about 11 or 12 minutes (on busy nights when the waiting line was 1½ hours or longer) to 16 minutes or so on low-patronage nights. Of course, at 16 minutes we were just crawling. The line in the zoo except for the station loop and the leg of the wye accessing the line to Washington Park was torn out about 1¾ years ago following ZooLights 2012.

I have not seen it yet but a new circular trestle has been built as indicated in the second photo. I think it is located approximately at the northeast corner of the former Elk Meadow, closer in than the abandoned-40-plus-years-ago circular wooden trestle which can be seen from the train a few hundred feet outside the zoo gate. The track as seen in the second photo still appears on informational materials posted in the zoo but in actuality it has been highly downgraded from the original plans. Gone is the double track between the station loop and the circular trestle as well as the planned viaduct which was to eliminate all existing in-zoo pedestrian and road crossings of the railroad. Also the planned new engine house and shop as seen appearing inside the zoo station loop has been abandoned. I've been told that the new version of the ZooLights train is expected to be a ride of 6 to 7 minutes in length at a speed not exceeding 3 MPH.

The line beyond the new trestle to the Washington Park station near the Rose Garden is passable but currently out of service to passenger service due to right-of-way slippage which needs to be repaired.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/14 22:16 by Jim700.

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With that much track gone I wonder if the rest will go sometime as it seems there was plenty of people to ride most of the time. What was the reason for removing it in the first place? Poor management decisions based on something other than fact? Its too bad that it happened as would have liked one day time permitting to visit it. Private railroads of small gauge have plenty of riders so seems like the public was short changed on this deal.

Sad.

Poor management decisions, possibly. Based on other than fact I don't know. Recall the organization's name is ZOO, not MINIATURE TRAIN RIDE.

Not having seen the place in either before or after forms, but just looking at the two maps, it seems pretty clear that they have changed from an old-style zoo with a lot of animal cages in a smallish area, to a new-style "open" zoo, where the animals have more room to move around and the bars and fences are harder to see -- at least for the patrons.

Unfortunately, 'open plan' enclosures take a bunch more space than cages, and that means a bunch less space for other stuff. One might reasonably assume that the train could run through the edges of the enclosures in some cases, but that violates on of the prime Zookeeping tenants of the new enclosures -- you aren't supposed to have anything (that the patrons can see) that would not be natural for the animal's original habitat. There weren't any railroads before the existence of humans, and zoos consider humans to be unnatural and not part of an animal's native environment, so you can't have trains running by the cages.

Now, zoos have also learned, at least to an extent, that animals in the savanna aren't enough by themselves to draw patrons in quantity sufficient to pay for those fancy big cages, so they like to have some rides and attractions -- like trains. But if the ride is too small and patrons consider it a waste of time and money, sooner or later the board will hear about it, and then they will investigate adding some track. But don't look for that to happen for a couple of years.

I am very pleased that we still have a railroad at the Oregon Zoo and that the Oregon and Zooliner have returned looking great.