Steam on The Albany & Eastern: Two More Days in Oregon

Join me as we venture further along The Oregon Trail (actually, the end of it, as Tillamook overshoots it) as we end our 2022 jaunt without the pitfalls of the journey such as having to ford the river in our wagon, or hunger, or well, you get the idea if you ever have played the game on your Apple II in school.

We're in Lebanon Oregon on the Santiam Excursion Train, the d.b.a. tourist arm of the Albany and Eastern, a collection of lines radiating from Albany Oregon. The Albany and Eastern is a mixture of Oregon Electric, a subsidiary of the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway, and a collection of ex-Southern Pacific branch lines to Mill City. While we won't ride the former Oregon Electric towards the south (the main route of the Santiam Excursion Trains), we'll head on the Espee Mill City line where we don't quite go all the way to the town, but instead see the former San Joaquin and Eastern prairie 2-6-2 materialize from the thick Willamette Valley fog. This graduate of the Baldwin Locomotive Works is seen on the first day pulling a train of freshly felled logs. The next day, the former Santa Maria Valley workhorse of Santa Barbara county (tri tip anyone? Anyone want tri-tip?) leads up some vintage box cars including an outside braced SP one recently repainted. But, not that glitters is gold when it comes down the track when it reflects off the golden glow headlight, as an Electro-Motive Division of General Motors SD-9 in full Black Widow paint (no, not Scarlett Johanson, but there is Scarlett paint) roars down Olive Street after the 205... Yup, this video has a 2-6-2 pulling vintage boxcars, chased by a EMD Cadillac SD-9, covered bridges (not of Madison County, sorry Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep), Vintage Plymouths, Flat Bed Fords! it has everything (if you read that it Bill Hader's Stefon's voice, you did it correctly).

0:00 Intro
2:05 Title
5:13 Whitaker
6:36 Gilkey Covered Bridge
10:01 Santiam River Canyon
13:13 Open Fields
14:48 The Second Morning (West of Lebanon)
17:05 Street Running
21:03 The Harbinger Arrives
22:52 Over the Santiam
27:06 Downtown Lebanon
28:23 The Sun Sets at The End of the Oregon Trail
31:19 Really, it's come to another Blooper Reel?



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