Willamette Shore Trolley

Willamette Shore Trolley
The trolley car currently in use is ex-Portland Traction Company car 813, built in 1932.
Overview
Type	heritage streetcar, seasonal operation
Status	service suspended
Locale	Clackamas / Multnomah counties, Oregon, USA, in Portland metropolitan area
Termini	Lake Oswego (State St. near A Ave.) Portland (Moody & Bancroft)
Operation
Opened	1990
Operator(s)	Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society
Technical
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in)

The Willamette Shore Trolley is a heritage railroad or heritage streetcar which operates along the west bank of the Willamette River between Portland and Lake Oswego in Oregon. The right-of-way is owned by group of local-area governments who purchased it in 1988 in order to preserve it intact for possible rail transit use in the future. Since 1995, the Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society has been the line's operator.

The railroad offers passenger excursions using a historic trolley on a line previously known as the Jefferson Street Branch Line. The line runs for about 6 miles (9.7 km), including a passage through the 0.25-mile (0.4 km)-long Elk Rock Tunnel. The current Portland terminal is at SW Bancroft St. (& Moody Ave.) in the new high-density South Waterfront neighborhood now under construction. The Portland terminal is one block south of the Portland Streetcar terminus at SW Lowell St. (& Moody Ave.). The Lake Oswego terminal is downtown, alongside State Street (Oregon Route 43) just south of A Avenue. Service was temporarily suspended for almost all of 2009, to permit rehabilitation of the line's trestle bridges, but resumed during the 2009 Christmas and holiday season. The 2010 season began on May 1, but the line's only streetcar broke down on July 16, 2010, causing an indefinite suspension of service. This suspension continued in 2011, because the estimated cost to repair the car is high, and no substitute streetcar is available, but the organization is making efforts to acquire a replacement car.

Corridor history

The right-of-way now used by the Willamette Shore Trolley's was established in the mid-1880s by the Portland and Willamette Valley Railway, which began passenger service with steam trains on July 4, 1887. It provided Oswego (as Lake Oswego was known then) with a direct link to Portland. Prior to this, access to Oswego was limited to primitive roads and river boats.

The line was later purchased by the Southern Pacific Company. Southern Pacific widened the line from narrow gauge to standard gauge and electrified it in 1914. This led to its peak in passenger travel in 1920, when 64 "Red Electric" trains traveled daily between the two cities. By October 5, 1929, passenger service ended, though the line was used for freight until 1983.

Right-of-way preserved, experimental trolley service

In August 1984, the Interstate Commerce Commission granted Southern Pacific permission to abandon the line. This prompted several local governments in the area to establish a not-for-profit corporation to acquire the line and preserve the right-of-way for future mass transit. This consortium of governmental entities was initially composed of Metro, TriMet, the cities of Portland and Lake Oswego, and the counties of Multnomah and Clackamas, and it was later joined by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). The line's official name at that time was the Jefferson Street Branch, because during the passenger-service era it had served a station called Jefferson Street and continued into downtown Portland via that street.

In January 1987, on behalf of the consortium, the City of Portland secured a lease of the 6.2-mile line from Southern Pacific (SP), including an option to purchase the line. In autumn 1987, a heritage streetcar/trolley service was operated on the line, as a way to gauge public interest in such an operation, in order to help preserve the right-of-way if the plans to purchase the line came to fruition. This temporary, trial heritage trolley service was inaugurated on September 12, 1987, and was operated by the Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society (OERHS), using a double-deck trolley originally from Blackpool, England. OERHS named the operation the "Willamette Shore Railway", and service ran on weekends and holidays until the end of the year only. As the line lacks overhead trolley wires, the electricity to power the trolley's motors was generated by a diesel engine mounted on a cart towed behind (or pushed in front of) the car. The Portland terminus, with a ticket office in a leased trailer, was located next to Moody Avenue, below the west approach viaducts to the Marquam Bridge. The Lake Oswego terminus was located about one-half mile north of downtown.

The line was purchased from Southern Pacific in October 1988, for US$1.9 million, including the cost of a planned extension in Lake Oswego, to be constructed by SP.

Regular service, extensions

Regular, seasonal vintage streetcar service began operation on July 6, 1990, now named the Willamette Shore Trolley. A private company named Gales Creek Enterprises was the operator for the first five seasons, under contract with the City of Lake Oswego. A 1913-built streetcar originally from San Antonio, Texas, was used, with a diesel-powered generator trailer again employed to provide electricity to the streetcar.

In 1993, a half-mile of new track was laid in Lake Oswego, permitting extension of the trolley service south to a terminus just south of A Avenue, much closer to the city center. The ticket office was then relocated into a small building owned by Southern Pacific at the new Lake Oswego terminus, and since that time, round-trip excursions have started at the line's south end, rather than in Portland. The contract with Gales Creek Enterprises was not renewed when it expired at the end of 1994.

In 1995, the Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society again became the operator of the trolley service, now on a longer-term basis, under contract to Lake Oswego. Trolley operation resumed in August, 1995, initially using a former Sydney, Australia open-sided streetcar, but only as a temporary substitute until the intended car could be moved to the line. This was 1928-built Blackpool tram 48, the same double-deck trolley which OERHS had operated on the Willamette Shore line for a few months in fall 1987. The double-decker entered service on Nov. 24, 1995. It was joined in December 1996 by another streetcar in OERHS's collection, a 1932 Brill "Master Unit"-type streetcar which had spent its entire working life in Portland, where the cars of that model gained the nickname "Broadway cars", from the route they first served.

In April 1997, the line was extended from its north end, to the RiverPlace district, increasing its overall length to about 7 miles (11 km). However, that section was last used in September 2003, and service was thereafter cut back to a new terminal located immediately south of Bancroft Street. The Blackpool double-decker was taken out of regular use on the Willamette Shore Trolley in late 2003 and was moved in May 2006 to OERHS's museum, the Oregon Electric Railway Museum, in Brooks, Oregon. Since then, the 1932 Portland Brill streetcar, No. 813, has been the only streetcar serving the WST line.

Service is provided on a seasonal basis, rather than year-round, the regular operating season normally lasting from May to October, followed by limited operation on a few dates during the Christmas and holiday season, in December each year.

For most of 2009, all service was suspended, so as to permit work to rehabilitate the line's four trestle bridges. The longest of these is Riverwood Trestle, which is 686 feet (209 m) long and about 75 feet (23 m) high.

As a tourist attraction, the line is most popular on the Fourth of July, when the Oaks Amusement Park fireworks display is viewable along the river, and in mid-December, when the area's Christmas Ship Fleet parade on the Willamette can be viewed.

Future transit possibilities

Main article: Portland Streetcar

It is proposed to convert the line into an extension of the Portland Streetcar, running through Johns Landing and into Lake Oswego. Studying of the idea has been supported by Metro, Portland, Lake Oswego and TriMet. Work on an environmental-impact assessment started in spring 2009 and will encompass both the streetcar option and the alternative of "enhanced bus" service, or bus rapid transit (BRT). The streetcar proposal faces some opposition by residents of affluent neighborhoods where the tracks pass close to some homes, but is preferred by Metro, in part because BRT would likely require giving up one auto lane to buses (over some sections) to be effective, as the existing roadway (Hwy. 43) is thought likely to be too constricted by topography to enable widening.

See also

• Portland Vintage Trolley
• List of heritage railroads in the United States

External links

• Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society's website about the trolley
• Lake Oswego's website about the trolley
• Willamette Shore Line right-of-way from the Metro website
• History of the Narrow Gauge Railroad in the Willamette Valley