Western Railroad Discussion > Oregon Pony

Work on providing a new home for the first locomotive built on the west coast proceeds: http://www.hoodrivernews.com/news/2017/nov/08/cascade-locks-port-sets-oregon-pony-group/

It is good to hear that this historic locomotive
is getting a new home.

I Googled "Oregon Pony locomotive" and found this Wikipedia
article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Pony

To sum up, she was built way back in 1861 !! as an 0-4-0
built by Vulcan Locomotive works in San Francisco, and was
the very first steam locomotive to be built on the West Coast.
She has 34-inch drivers. She is a wood-burning geared locomotive
and ran on 5-foot-gauge tracks. She first ran for the Oregon
Portage Railway in 1862 and was retired in 1904. Wikipedia says
she was "restored" in 1981, and is currently owned by the State of
Oregon, and is on display i a building at the Cascade Locks Historical
Museum in Cascade Locks, Oregon, which is 43 miles east of Portland, Oregon.

However -- pop-up alert on that website you linked to!
Even clicking "No thanks" did not return me to the article,
but to a page with a pop-up that grayed out the entire page
and still required me to subscribe to read the article.
Even using the "Ctrl-R" combo did not get me back to the article.

Before that annoying pop-up appeared, I did see a nice
photo of a very attractive small building, which I think
is a depot.

Glad this very historic locomotive has been preserved and has
a nice building she is displayed in.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/10/17 11:02 by Margaret_SP_fan.

the current Oregon Pony display building is anything but nice....dry rot, bad humidity control, etc. the Port of Cascade Locks is supposed to be doing emergency repairs this fall/winter....we'll see. I served on the Port's Oregon Pony advisory committee and we made a strong recommendation for a new facility in combination with the History Museum along with a much needed visitor center to be located where the current Thunder Island Brewing is located. Thunder Island will be moving to a new building on main street. we'll see what the new process comes up with. for sure the Oregon Historical Society owned Oregon Pony is a jewel worth preserving. Arlen

the photo used in the HR News article is old....the building has AGED significantly. the Pacific Northwest Chapter, NRHS continues to print copies of their special Trainmaster newsletter edition about the Oregon Pony. The edition is available at the Cascade Locks History Museum, Portland Union Station, and the Oregon Rail Heritage Center or by sending me a PM and I will USPS you one.

one of the strong recommendations coming out of the first Oregon Pony task group was to display the Oregon Pony with a reproduced period correct flat car with fake cargo on board.....as it sits there is no context of what the Pony was used for....portage hauling.... Arlen

Thanks, Arlen, for the info. So sad the building
she is in has been allowed to deteriorate and so
much. I like the idea that she should have a
period flatcar coupled to her,m with fake cargo
on it, because she was used to portage cargo in
that area before the rapids were drowned by the dam.

Photo of the building near the end of this page:

http://portofcascadelocks.org/historical-museum-oregon-pony/

The locomotive moved around quite a bit.

For many hears the Oregon Pony sat outside and not under cover in front of Portland's Union Station. Here she is 80 years ago in August 1937.

Martin

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