(The following story by Steve Mayes appeared on The Oregonian website on April 17.)
OREGON CITY, Ore. — The oldest city in the West celebrated the return of passenger rail service Friday after a 50-year absence.
Oregon City marked the opening of its new Amtrak station with a dash of old-fashioned hoopla: A brass band played “Stars and Stripes Forever,” a scraggly band of mountain men fired volleys from their black-powder rifles, and there was a platform of speechifying politicians.
The city is now served by Amtrak’s Cascades trains, which make two daily round trips between Portland and Eugene.
More than 100 dignitaries and guests rode the first train into Oregon City. The northbound train made a special stop in Canby to pick them up. About 200 people met them at the new station.
Oregon City Mayor Alice Norris told the crowd the new Amtrak service will “expand travel options throughout the region.”
Amtrak and city officials hope that riders from Clackamas County and Portland’s east side will jump on the train in Oregon City rather than fighting traffic and paying to park near Union Station in downtown Portland.
The Cascades service attracts about 95,000 riders a year. Amtrak expects the Oregon City station to add 10,000 to 15,000 riders annually, said Gil Mallery, an Amtrak official in charge of strategic planning.
Landing an Amtrak station is a big deal. The last new West Coast station the agency opened was in Tukwila, Wash., three years ago, Mallery said.
The Oregon City station — a 189-foot covered concrete platform — is a monument to perseverance. It took more than 10 years of wrangling and lobbying to bring the $1.55 million station to Oregon City.
The city, which paid for the station, isn’t done yet. Officials plan to expand the parking lot and move an old depot building to the site for passengers’ use.
A couple of prospective customers were on hand Friday.
“We’ve been excited about this. It’s so convenient for us,” said Dona Santos of Oregon City, who was in grade school when passenger service ended in 1954.
“We’re already planning a trip in June” to Seattle, said her brother-in-law, Miles Santos of San Mateo, Calif.
The station fits into the city’s plan to promote itself as a tourist destination with special appeal to history buffs.
“It’s a place where people will come to spend their dollars,” said Sen. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby, who last year was in the middle of a budget battle in the Legislature to preserve state funding for the Cascades service.
Norris, one of several mayors who lobbied to continue the Cascades runs, noted the station’s site links it to the region’s past.
The station is close to the Willamette and Clackamas rivers and near the site of Native American villages. It is built where a sawmill once stood. It occupies a patch of Abernethy Green, where many pioneers camped after crossing the Oregon Trail.
It was history that drew Damascus resident Michelle Clark to the grand opening.
“I came to see where we’ve been and where we’re going,” said Clark, who said her husband is a distant relative of explorer William Clark.
After waiting half a century for the trains to return, Oregon City residents had to wait an extra 20 minutes Friday. The train was delayed by track construction, said Tony Buscemi, Amtrak district manager for station operations.
Delays on the Cascades trains are not uncommon. Last month, they were late 37 percent of the time, Buscemi said.