Dear Friends on the Forum - As some of you know, mrs tac and I spend a lot of time in Oregon, a state we love dearly, and we are blessed with a number of good and close friends there.
A year last september, my wife and two close friends of ours from Portland visited with R and K, the owners of this wonderful track and spent a rather damp but exhilarating day with them [and their dogs] on and around their beautiful site.
I'm not going to say who they are either, for fear of intruding, but two more genuine folks, deeply in love with the environment, would be very hard to imagine - they need ALL the support you can muster, bleeve me. The amount of time and effort put into EVERY aspect of the railway, and its impact on the local environment, is prodigious, and deserves our respect and admiration.
The steam locomotive was rebuilt in the shops of the GS4 4449 and SP&S 700 - and I saw it in 'kit-form' on one of my frequent visits. The big-sit-in diesel is just that - it has a cab big enough to sit in for somebody my size - 5'-10" and 230 pounds.
The landscape is not only very beautiful, some might say hauntingly breathtakingly so, but is totally at one with the railway that passes through it so convincingly.
I am appalled by the attitude of those who should know better, especially in a state that prides itself on being friendly to enterprise coupled with respect for the environment we all love so much, although I would stress most strongly that this line is NOT a business venture, but a very private railroad, and visitors are by invitation only.
We'll be there come september to see how things are.
Please help them to keep a piece of Oregon alive.
tac, mrs tac, ig, crow, Larry & Jo-Ann