Western Railroad Discussion > City of Prineville Railroad

Prineville endeavors to sculpt a railroad for changing future

Published: January 29, 2005

Andy Tullis / The Bulletin

By Ernestine Bousquet

The Bulletin

PRINEVILLE — Seated in the engine cab of an orange-striped locomotive stamped "City of Prineville," railroad engineer Bud Bowman pulled a lever and the train hissed and shimmied to life.

Leaving its downtown depot, the diesel locomotive headed into cattle country, cutting through range land, past copper-colored bluffs and across the trickle of the lower Crooked River. It sidled up to Smith Rock and ended at the intersection of the Oregon Trunk line — the main north-south railroad line.

Bowman, 47, and conductor Ron Edgerly, 58, were on a freight run to pick up two loads as part of their work for the City of Prineville Railway, the longest-running, city-owned-and-operated railroad in the country, according to the Interstate Commerce Commision.

During the railroad's heyday, the city's trains hauled as many as 35 loads a day — usually lumber or wood chips. But for the past three years, Bowman and Edgerly have been lucky to transport one or two loads a week. The railroad has lost money nearly every year in the past decade, and the city has been forced to dip into the railroad's reserve funds.

Some residents, such as Del Everson, who has lived in Prineville for 64 years, question how the railroad can still operate when it has been losing money for so long.

"The rest of us, if we had a business that is not paying, we would either close it up or sell it. You can't operate it day after day if it had a loss," Everson said. "Anything is worth trying to save. If they can make it profitable, then yes. If not, then it's time to say, ‘Bye-bye.'"

In fact, there are new signs of life for the struggling railroad. Last month, the city bought the Crooked River Dinner Train in a bid to tap into tourism.

The city also negotiated a deal with Les Schwab Tire Centers to haul some of the company's freight. The tire business alone could add 1,000 carloads to 2,000 carloads a year, Edgerly and Bowman estimated.

City officials say these deals have the potential to put the railroad back in the black. And they hope tourism and additional freight business will breathe life into what was becoming a dying legacy.

Newly retired Prineville Mayor Steve Uffelman said that if the city lost the railroad, it would lose a fundamental piece of infrastructure for economic development.

"There is so much potential, it's scary," he said.

From their perch at the front lines, Edgerly and Bowman are crossing their fingers.

Built for survival

The Prineville railway was born out of necessity, propelled by visionaries and built by its residents.

When the town was bypassed for Bend in the race to build a main railroad artery through Central Oregon, Prineville had lost its chance for an economic lifeline, according to the book, "Rails to the Ochoco Country," by John Due and Frances Juris.

On March 28, 1916, the town voted 355-1 in favor of authorizing the city to issue bonds to finance railroad construction. It was estimated to cost $213,000 to build the 19-mile rail line — about half of the assessed property value in the city, the authors wrote.

By August 1918, the first shipment of freight — a carload of farm machinery — made its way along Prineville's tracks, the authors said.

From the start, the train struggled. It wasn't until sawmills like Pine Products and Ochoco Lumber Co. opened in Prineville that the railroad had found a saving grace and started to turn a profit.

The golden era kicked in by the 1940s and peaked in the 1970s and 80s, spanning five big sawmills and a handful of wood moulding plants, said John Shelk, the managing director of Ochoco Lumber, whose family started the sawmill.

It wasn't until the 1990s when the timber industry took a hit from tighter forest legislation that the railway started to falter.

"The railway was built by the community in the belief that it was imperative for the survival and economic development of Prineville. To what extent has this belief proven to be correct?" Due and Juris asked in their book, which was published in 1968.

Good times, bad times

For much of its 86 years, the Prineville railway has been a cash cow for the city, not only earning its keep, but subsidizing city life.

In the 1960s, it paid residents' property taxes. In the 1990s, it helped build the city-owned Meadow Lakes Golf Course and wastewater treatment plant. Off and on throughout the years, it has backfilled the city's budget, according to Uffelman, the former Prineville mayor.

But since the 1990s, the railroad has had its own financial troubles, losing anywhere from roughly $4,500 to $354,000 a year in the past 14 years.

Its multimillion-dollar reserve fund, now about $3.5 million, has been the key to its survival.

Without it, the train may have been abandoned long ago, Uffelman said, for the city did not have — nor was it willing — to pump in tax dollars to keep it going.

Former Prineville railroad manager Jerry Price ran the railway from 1986 to 2002, when business dropped from steady to virtually nothing.

"All of our business was directly related to what those sawmills did," Price said.

Never once was there talk of shutting down the railroad, Price said.

By then, the railroad had become a part of Prineville's identity, emblazoned in the city logo and prided by citizens.

"Once the railroad is gone, it will be gone forever," he said.

New directions

To Prineville City Manager Robb Corbett, the railway has a future that hasn't been mined yet.

He sees buying the dinner train as one part of the tourism puzzle. The city also has an agreement with the Oregon State Historical Society to operate its antique locomotive, the Shay locomotive, for excursions.

In addition, the city plans to acquire an open-air car for short trips — a move that he hopes will appeal to train buffs and tourists alike, he said.

This new pleases people like Martha and Ed Davenport, who have lived in Prineville since 1973.

As train buffs who plan their vacations around train excursions, the Davenports have seen firsthand the money tourism could bring in. The key will be to market its historical assets, like the railroad's 1950s diesel locomotives.

"We've always said the city is sitting on a gold mine that hasn't been developed," Martha Davenport said.

Corbett hopes that freight service could become the mainstay for the railroad again as fuel costs rise and shipping by train becomes a cheaper alternative for businesses.

Corbett wants to extend beyond Prineville to recruit other companies to use the railroad.

"You don't rely on one customer to pay your bills," Corbett said. "If one goes away, you still have other industries that are using your service."

Already, a local mill plant, Woodgrain Millwork, and the Burns-based division of Louisiana Pacific Hines, which makes engineered wood products, are using the city's railroad to move their products.

Corbett also wants to explore a new niche by doing freight planning for Central Oregon businesses.

As a short line railroad, Prineville has the chance to become a middle man between local companies and the major railroad companies — Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific — that haul goods in and out of Central Oregon, he said. Burlington Northern owns and operates on the Oregon Trunk line, and Union Pacific also uses the track.

Shelk said the city's railroad can be an edge in attracting businesses to Prineville instead of Bend, Redmond or Madras.

The new forays into tourism and expanded freight service could only help the Prineville railway, said former railroad manager Price.

"It's going to be tough, but if someone hadn't had the foresight to build that railroad, I don't think Prineville would have ever survived," he said. "Maybe what they are doing, almost 90 years later, is starting over again."

Ernestine Bousquet can be reached at 541-504-2336 or at ebousquet@bendbulletin.com.