Oregon Electric Railway Museum

1912-built car 1187 in service at the museum in 2010

The Oregon Electric Railway Museum is the largest streetcar/trolley museum in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It is owned and operated by the Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society and is located in Brooks, Oregon, on the grounds of Antique Powerland.^[1]

The original museum opened in Glenwood, about 40 miles west of Portland, in 1959, with operation of streetcars starting in 1963.^[2] It was named Trolley Park or, more commonly, the Trolley Park, but its formal name in later years was the same as the present museum. Operation at that site ended in autumn 1995.^[2]

The current museum opened in Brooks in 1996. The museum consists of about one mile of mainline track with overhead wire. There is a four-track carbarn to store the international collection of streetcars.

The collection includes:

Porto car 210 (and PCC car 1159) inside the carbarn

• Two Portland 1904 Brill streetcars (nicknamed Council Crest type), Nos. 503 and 506^[3]
• Portland 1932 Brill "Master Unit", No. 813
• Portland-built interurban, No. 1067
• Blackpool, England double-decker tram, No. 48
• Sydney, Australia, open-sided "Breezer" streetcar, No. 1187
• Porto, Portugal single-truck streetcar, No. 210
• Los Angeles "yellow" car, No. 1318
• Two San Francisco PCC streetcars, Nos. 1118 and 1159
• San Francisco Boeing LRV, No. 1213
• Hong Kong double-decker tram, No. 12
• Portland snow sweeper, No. 1455^[4]
• Three electric locomotive "steeple cabs"
• Three types of trolley buses: a Twin Coach and a Pullman-Standard from Seattle and a CCF-Brill from Vancouver

The museum is open from May through October with trolley operations on Saturdays. The big event of the year is the annual Steam-Up, held on the last weekend of July and the first weekend of August. Thousands of riders use the trolley during these two weekends.

See also

• Heritage streetcar
• Streetcars in North America

References

1. ^ "Oregon Electric Railway Museum (Trolley Museum)". OERHS. http://oerhs.org/oerm/index.htm. Retrieved 2009-12-21. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Young, Andrew D. (1997). Veteran & Vintage Transit, p. 90. St. Louis: Archway Publishing. ISBN 0-9647279-2-7.
3. ^ Thompson, Richard (2006). Portland's Streetcars, pp. 34 and 110. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-3115-4.
4. ^ Thompson, Richard (2006). Portland's Streetcars, p. 97. ISBN 0-7385-3115-4.

External links

• Oregon Electric Railway Museum - official site

Coordinates: 45°03′12″N 122°58′42″W / 45.05339°N 122.978221°W / 45.05339; -122.978221