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Yaquina Pacific Railroad Historical Society

100 N.W. "A" Street, Toledo, Oregon, 97391

541-336-5256 Hours: 10-2 Tues- Sat

Your YPRHS continues to meet the goals and mission through the generous donation of money, time and services. AS the year draws to a close and the New Year is on the horizon, folks often call or come by with old trains that they have found in a closet. We gladly accept them, provide a letter of acceptance for the donor determined value. We also fix trains at our Holiday show. Cash donations are most welcome.

 

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TRACKSIDE SERIES

Officers
President - Bill Bain
Vice President- Lane Plotner
Secretary– Mark Seibert
Treasurer- Allan Preece
National Director-Bob Topham
Chapter Historian – Lloyd Palmer
Conductor-Tom Chandler
C.C.B.W—Leonard Freidberg        
Time Keeper-Allan Preece
Senior Director– John Keefer
Webmaster –Misty Lambrecht
Small Engines - Lane Plotner

 

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Read the Summer 2014 Newsletter

 

SILVERADO LIVE STEAMER MAY HAVE NEW HOME AT YAQUINA PACIFIC RAILROAD SOCIETY HERITAGE SITE.


Planning is underway to insure an appropriate engine house for this live
steamer built by Bruce Silver's father, Curtis B. Silver. A machinist and metal
smith by trade, it took him three years after retirement to construct this engine,
tender and the metal box car. The track is 7 1/2" gauge. The tender accommodates
a seat for the engineer. Fuel for the creation of steam in the boiler is
provided by a propane tank in the box car. For indoors operation, the engine
can be connected to compressed air, with small rollers between the driving
wheels and the rail, allowing for wheel rotation and whistle blowing. This is an
amazingly intricately machined re-creation of an early 2-6-0 balloon-stack locomotive.
It is some 13' in length and weighs just short of 1,000 lbs. Many of the
operational control valves are the same diameter as a ball point pen. Bruce's
dad did operate the engine as part of live steamer club. Live Steamer groups
used to be rather popular and often ran their trains with small flat cars with
seats to hold children. They often could be found in public parks where a couple
of times a month the owners and builders would get together to run their
engines. Many skilled machinists, however, were replaced by computerized
digital machining tools now used in manufacturing.
YPRHS hopes to display the Silverado, under live steam, in the Toledo
Summer Festival Parade, July 26th., while on President Bain's flatbed trailer.
There are live steamer groups in Oregon. One is at Molalla, Pacific
Northwest Live Steamers, www.pnls.org another at Brooks, and Train Mountain
in southern Oregon, where engineers from several countries operate.
Designs are being contemplated for the YPRHS engine house. Anyone
interested in the care, operation and display of this great artifact are encouraged
to contact the Railroad Historical Society. Monthly meetings are held on
the third Friday at 5:30, Union Hall, Toledo, Oregon.

 

Once again, the parade train was enlisted by business members of the Toledo Main Street program to provide some youth rides during their Block Party. On this occasion Leonard took the controls and for some 3 hours gave rides on the blocked off main street. He says that he had better than 100 participants.

The Antique Street Fair and Car Show on August 7th. provided yet another opportunity to pull out the stops at the Train Museum. We were given permission by the Portland & Western RR to use the back track for demonstrations of the motorcars. This allows the members and volunteers to get the batteries charged, engines oiled and gassed along with do safety checks and briefings of both equipment and personnel. Some 70 folks took advantage of the demonstrations on that Sunday.

The next major event on August 20-21, was the Port of Toledo's 7th. Annual Wooden Boat Show. This is usually the largest draw of visitors and once again we had track privileges to operated the motorcars. Boarding statistics assembled afterwards from the Release Forms completed by each participant showed that 200+ got a motorized tour of the site from the Port's main venue past the museum.