Passenger Trains > New Commuter Train Beaverton Oregon

First look at the new west side commuter train between Beaverton Oregon To Wilsonville Oregon known as W.E.S. Will be operating this fall.

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Looks interesting. What's the history of this operation? I'm somewhat familiar with Oregon geography but I can't place Beaverton or Wilsonville. Near Portland I'm guessing.

Winnemucca Wrote:
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> Looks interesting. What's the history of this
> operation? I'm somewhat familiar with Oregon
> geography but I can't place Beaverton or
> Wilsonville. Near Portland I'm guessing.


Click this Mapquest link: < http://www.mapquest.com/mq/2-mT*yVbG7 > then scroll down to the map and click "Zoom Out" one time to see the regional area.

While this map gives the highway route via I-5 and Oregon 217, the rail route (originally the electric interurban line Oregon Electric Railway, now Portland & Western Railroad) closely parallels it on the west side.

Jim700 Wrote:
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> While this map gives the highway route via I-5 and
> Oregon 217, the rail route (originally the
> electric interurban line Oregon Electric Railway,
> now Portland & Western Railroad) closely parallels
> it on the west side.

Hey Jim, you gonna come back and operate this? I understand it wil be railroad (P&W) engineers that run it. This google map has the railroad shown. You can zoom in and follow it to Beaverton. I can't get it to show the across the platform connection to MAX though.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=wilsonville+oregon+map&amp;um=1&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=geocode_result&amp;resnum=1&amp;ct=title

EDIT: Jim, Mapquest was locking up on me. Just got it to work and it doesn't show the across the platform connection either.

jb

That last shot. Looks like there isnt enough room from the grade crossing to that back stop. How much room is left there?

Is that a camera I see mounted inside the cab? If so, GREAT idea.

jdb Wrote:
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>
> Hey Jim, you gonna come back and operate this?

Yeah, that'll be the day! Forty years was enough of other people setting my schedule. Gotta admit though that the speed for WES will be interesting compared to the official posted Oregon Electric speed. Of course I won't say how close we got to the WES speed at various times on the OE before the Ricky Gates-resulted licensing!

Winnemucca Wrote:
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> Looks interesting. What's the history of this
> operation? I'm somewhat familiar with Oregon
> geography but I can't place Beaverton or
> Wilsonville. Near Portland I'm guessing.

From downtown Portland, Beaverton is about eight miles west, along U.S. 26 (the Sunset Highway). Beaverton is best known as being the corporate homes of Nike, Tektronix, Resers Fine Foods, Columbia Sportswear, among others; numerous other businesses have significant operations in Beaverton - IBM, Intel, to name two.

Wilsonville is located south of Portland, it's basically a wide spot on I-5 south of the junction with I-205. It's located at exits 286 and 283, whereas downtown Portland is at exit 300 - putting Wilsonville about 15 miles south of downtown Portland. It's best known for the Fry's Electronics store, formerly the very first Incredible Universe store (and one of the very few that was actually a 'success' for owner Tandy Corporation. Of course, it was built in the days that Best Buy, Circuit City and the other big name electronic stores weren't in Oregon, and those stores that were competitors were so small, that having a nearly 200,000 square foot store was like heaven.)

wigwagfan Wrote:

> Wilsonville is located south of Portland, it's
> basically a wide spot on I-5 south of the junction
> with I-205. It's located at exits 286 and 283,
> whereas downtown Portland is at exit 300 - putting
> Wilsonville about 15 miles south of downtown
> Portland. It's best known for the Fry's
> Electronics store, formerly the very first
> Incredible Universe store (and one of the very few
> that was actually a 'success' for owner Tandy
> Corporation. Of course, it was built in the days
> that Best Buy, Circuit City and the other big name
> electronic stores weren't in Oregon, and those
> stores that were competitors were so small, that
> having a nearly 200,000 square foot store was like
> heaven.)

This WIDE SPOT has 22,000 residents and is also the home of Mentor Graphics, Flir Systems, Xerox printer plant(formerly Tektronix), Rite-Aid's regional dist. ctr., Sysco Foods, Joes Sporting Goods, Blue Ribbon Sports(Nike's Distributing Center) InFocus Systems, and Coca Cola's bottling plant.

In fact, there are more people that work in Wilsonville than live here

Butch,,,,,,,,,it's home also

Ahhh! Incredible Universe, the store with lots of product AND NO KNOWLEDGE!! We had one here in Auburn, WA.

Ed

LOL, that RDC looks quite perverted in its shape.

So, If I take MAX out of downtown Portland I can transfer at Beaverton to take the new train to Wilsonville(when it begins operation). Right? I like the Portland area and I'm thinking of taking Amtrak there. This new train will make it all that more fun. BTW what is the name of this new operation?

Winnemucca Wrote:
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> So, If I take MAX out of downtown Portland I can
> transfer at Beaverton to take the new train to
> Wilsonville(when it begins operation). Right?

Correct

> BTW what is the name of this new
> operation?

WES (W)estside (E)xpress (S)ervice. It is part of TriMet. You can do a google search for TriMet and find out info on it.

Here are some additional photos. Scroll down for some by potb101 while they were in transit to Wilsonville.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,1718674

jb