Last week, Portland Metro Council President Lynn Peterson said it is unlikely the Portland Zoo Railway – also known as the Washington Park & Zoo Railway – would resume operations between the Oregon Zoo and the International Rose Test Garden anytime soon. The 30-inch gauge railroad was shut down in 2013 for construction but a year later only a short stretch of track inside the zoo was returned to service. The 1.5-mile route to Washington Park has sat dormant ever since.
Officials said at the time the right-of-way through Washington Park needed extensive work and it only got worse in 2015 when a landslide covered the tracks near the Rose Garden Station.
During a Portland Civic Club meeting on April 19, a participant asked the Metro Council president if the beloved zoo train would return to the Rose Garden in the next few years. Peterson said unless money was found to rebuild the railroad, which some have estimated could cost more than $2 million, it was unlikely trains would be returning to the Rose Garden.
“I think I disappointed a whole lot of people today,” Peterson added, according to the Oregonian.
While Peterson’s comments seemed to spell the end for the popular attraction, Hova Najarian, communications manager for the Oregon Zoo, says no final decision has been made regarding the future of the train. Any decision about the train would have to include multiple stakeholders, including Metro, the regional government organization that oversees the zoo and the railroad, and Portland Parks & Recreation, which manages Washington Park.
“Both Metro and the city are committed to investigating all possibilities on the future of the line,” Najarian tells Trains News Wire.
One of those possibilities is replacing the narrow gauge railroad between the zoo and the Rose Garden with a walking and biking path or building a path alongside the tracks. That plan was outlined in a 2018 master plan for Washington Park that was adopted by the Portland City Council last year.
But many people want to see the entire Zoo Railway saved and restored. Dana Carstensen is a stationmaster on the Zoo Railway and president of the Friends of Washington Park & Zoo Railway. Last year, Carstensen started circulating an online petition to gather support for the railroad and it currently has nearly 30,000 signatures. Carstensen says the railroad is a “regional treasure” that deserves to be saved and that for many passengers to short loop around the zoo just isn’t enough.
“Countless times I’ve seen parents and grandparents take their children and grandchildren to ride the Washington Park & Zoo Railway so they too can experience what they experienced themselves as children,” Carstensen says. “Then I see the incredible disappointment when all they experience is a short 6-minute ride.”
The Friends group is seeking nonprofit status so that it can begin raising money to support its efforts. The group is also working on getting the railroad listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Although that designation would not save the railroad, it would help in the group’s efforts, Carstensen says.
Zoo officials have said in the past that they would be open to partnering with other groups to help fund a restoration of the entire route.
Carstensen is optimistic that his group will help find a way to save and restore the entire route and says he has requested a meeting with Peterson.
The Washington Park & Zoo Railway was built in the zoo in 1958 and extended to Washington Park in 1960. The Washington Park line was built with the help of four local railroads: the Southern Pacific surveyed the route; the Spokane, Portland & Seattle and Portland Terminal constructed it; and Union Pacific hauled ballast for the project free of charge. The railroad features a number of different trains, including an 4-4-0 steam locomotive and the “Zooliner,” a streamlined diesel based off the General Motors Aerotrain.
The Washington Park and Zoo Railway operates daily. For more information, go to oregonzoo.org.
Gerald, I like your idea of UP & BNSF making contributions. With so many people “triggered” over every social cause in Portland, it might be a good gesture on their part.
What seems baffeling is they don’t want to spend millions to rebuild the train, but it’s OK to spend millions to put in a path.
Mr. MacFarlane: Great idea!
I hope they can restore the line. That Aerotrain replica looks awesome. It’s hard to believe that 1.5 miles of track that already exists but just needs to be put back in service could cost two million dollars. Maybe they could start a go fund me account.
$2Million doesn’t seem like that big of a hurdle in an area like Portland, especially if the train truly is a beloved as those in the article claim.
The approach proposed (non-profit) should work, and based on this article – I’ll bet the $2M will be tendered/pledged promptly. I’m supporting Nevada Northern and others, finding much satisfaction as each organization attains goals they’ve established through donations. Go for it, WP&ZR
Funding is easy.Have Portland cancel 2 of those $1 million dollar public bathrooms that mostly serve the homeless and anarchist protesters that troll the city. Issue solved.
Or how about reinstating that joke called a bicycle tax that was formed to promote “heathy transportation options” and sent every Walmart, Target and Fred Meyer within the city limits into palpitations because everyone drove outside the city to get their bikes.
Sounds like an episode from Portlandia.
Do we REALLY need another trail? ..especially when it replaces a historic train ride. This “Rails to Trails” thing is getting way out of hand. In areas where the railroad was abandon, and the rails taken up, many years in the past is one thing..but to destroy a working railroad, for just another “Daisy Picker” trail, is not right !
Perhaps a “Go Fund Me” page on the internet..might be good for fund raising
Here’s a good community outreach opportunity for both BNSF and UP, the successors to the original 4 railroads that helped build the line…both of them jointly announce that they’ll pick up the complete cost of reconstruction of the entire line…that amount of money is pocket change and good publicity is hard to come by for most railroads.
This is about as low as low can get with these stupid trails.
Get rid of Portland’s metro council president, NOT, the railway! I was hoping to ride the train when I came down there this summer to see the Daylight, the real one, the big one at the Doyle McCormack engine Terminal. Maybe you should get Doyle and his crew to build you a 2.5 ft. live steam version of the Daylight or one of it’s two other stablemates like the SP&S 700 or the OR&N 197. That will really pack the people in the park. Not everybody has the time or money to pay for tickets to ride the real steam trains but I’ll bet that those smaller versions would really pack them in, the prices would be low enough and the trains run often enough that everyone could afford to ride the trains. You have enough trails and walking paths as it is. The last time I was in Portland,(the city of my birth by the way), I didn’t see very many people out walking or riding around on bikes or horses. No, you don’t need more trails, keep the train and dump the council president.
I always thought that the Portland Zoo train bore a strong resemblance to the original “Viewliner Train of Tomorrow” that used to run at Disneyland before the Monorail was introduced in 1959 and perhaps had migrated up from Anaheim to Portland, but apparently not.
Rick Weisberg
The last numbers I heard for cost are closer to $4-5 million to repair the tracks (lots of slide damage and stabilization) vs upwards of $10 million for the trail. Which may include a new zoo entrance at that end or building a new connection to the existing one.