(The following story by Mark Larabee appeared on The Oregonian website on November 1, 2009.)
PORTLAND, Ore. — It’s musty, cold and damp inside the old Brooklyn Roundhouse in the Southeast Portland rail yards. The roof leaks, metal scrap is everywhere and the smell of oil is pervasive.
But despite that, the once-grand roundhouse is home to hidden treasure — three oil-fired steam locomotives owned by Portland taxpayers and maintained by volunteers. Two of the engines are in working order and among the six largest steam engines operating in the world.
Today, the place is inaccessible to the public, but there are plans to change that. By 2012, the steel beasts should be on display in a new roundhouse near the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Eventually, an interpretive center will be built there, too.
The Portland City Council last week lent a helping hand. The council agreed to allow the Parks and Recreation Bureau to lend the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation up to $1 million to secure a piece of property with the understanding that the loan will be paid back with interest. Money for the new roundhouse, estimated at $3.5 million, will be raised by private donations.
Doyle McCormack, president of the nonprofit foundation, a consortium of railroad history groups, said the Union Pacific’s need for space in the Southeast Portland rail yard necessitated the move. But he said it will finally allow people to get close to the engines.
“This is history,” said McCormack, 66. “These are the machines that made America.”
McCormack should know. He’s spent 38 years driving trains across the nation and his father spent 51 years as a train dispatcher after taking his first railroad job at age 15 in 1918.
McCormack was living in Ohio in 1974 when he first visited Portland to help with the restoration of one of the engines, which was eventually used to power the American Freedom Train. That bicentennial train carried historical artifacts and treasures across the United States in 1975 and 1976.
McCormack ended up as the train’s engineer. He resettled here in 1978.
He speaks fondly of the engines and the railroad life. He’s retired now and instead of playing golf, spends his days with dozens of other volunteers tinkering on the locomotives. He said he works harder now than he did when he was employed. For every hour of running time, it takes 100 hours of maintenance to keep the engines in good condition.
“People call it romance, I call it a disease,” he said. “Once you catch it, it’s incurable. Without passion in your life, you have no soul.”
He’s spending more time these days making sure the locomotives have a new home. It’s a complicated deal that will require a land trade.
The foundation has been negotiating with the railroad for about four years on land near OMSI and was close to closing on the property when TriMet decided it needed the land for the planned eastside streetcar line. The transit agency and the foundation worked out a straight trade.
The foundation next year will get a larger piece of property to the southeast, under the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard viaduct, for its new roundhouse. Timing is critical, McCormack said. The foundation will have about a year after that deal is done late next year to move the locomotives.
It will be worth the effort, he said. “When you fire one of these things up, it’s the closest that man has come to creating life,” he said. “Each one has a personality. They’re warm. They have a heartbeat.
“That’s the magic that the people of Portland should have the right to experience.”