Kentucky Fried Train Ride - a photo on Flickriver

            When I was a senior at the University of Oregon, I rode a special Amtrak train from Portland to Madras, Oregon. After departing Portland Union Station, it went through the Columbia River Gorge on Union Pacific, and then up the Deschutes River Canyon on the Oregon Trunk. The NRHS Chapter in Portland was the trip sponsor. This is a picture of the excursion train after it arrived at Madras.

Not long after I took this photo, the freight train on the left departed. Once the Amtrak locomotives were run around our train for the return trip, the special was supposed to operate about an hour behind the freight train. Unfortunately for us, the freight train derailed inside a tunnel near Gateway siding, 13 miles to the north. 

The powers that be made a few phone calls. It quickly became clear that there weren't enough buses available east of the Cascades in the entire state of Oregon to transport the passengers back to Portland. Because of this, the special train returned to Portland by going down to Chemult on Burlington Northern, and then over the Cascades on Southern Pacific via Eugene. 

That evening, we sat at the Oregon Trunk depot in Bend for three hours while the local Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet cooked 660 chicken dinners to feed everyone on the train. When the special arrived at Chemult, the BN wreck train from Klamath Falls was in the siding, waiting for our train to clear so it could proceed to Gateway and clean up the wreck. 

Arrival back in Portland was scheduled for 9:30 PM Saturday night. Our actual return to PDX was at 6:55 AM on Sunday morning - just 35 minutes short of 24 hours after our 7:30 AM departure on Saturday. Around 4:00 AM, the train passed within 100 yards of my college dorm and its warm bed.

A few days later at the University library, I saw a copy of the previous Sunday's Bend Bulletin newspaper. There was a small news story about the trip. The headline: 'Kentucky Fried Train Ride.'

Taken in: United States / Oregon / Madras (show map)

Taken on: October 10, 1981

Tags:

Amtrak

AMTK

Union Pacific

Central Oregon

Madras

Oregon Trunk

Detour

F40PH

EMD

Madras, Oregon « less

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