Astoria
dreams
OF A
SCENIC
Photo by Dwight Caswell
Martin Adams shows the ”caustic embrittlement” that doomed the old boiler.
railroad
The Astoria Railroad Preservation Association has been
working for more than 20 years to make that dream a reality
Y
Story by DWIGHT CASWELL
Photo by Dwight Caswell
Jim Smith works to peen stay bolts inside the boiler. The fl attened bolts have been peened.
For more information
about the Astoria Railroad Preservation Association and
Number 21, and a record of the work done so far, visit www.astoriarailroad.org. You’ll also fi nd
information about how to contribute money (ARPA is a 501c(3) nonprofi t) and to volunteer. Or
just go down to the Quonset hut any Saturday after 10 a.m.
10 | January 15, 2015 | coastweekend.com
Photo by Dwight Caswell
This 58-ton Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railroad combina-
tion coach and baggage car, purchased by the Astoria Rail-
road Preservation Association in 2000, has seen better days.
But though it looks a wreck, the car is solid underneath,
where it counts.
You may be surprised to know that there
is a connection between Gilbert and Sulli-
van and Astoria. It is this: The duo’s comic
opera “The Mikado” premiered in 1885,
and when in 1897 the Baldwin Locomotive
Works built a group of 2-8-2 steam loco-
motives for the Nippon Railway of Japan,
the 2-8-2 came to be known as a “Mikado.”
There is a Mikado in Astoria.
The 2-8-2 designation stands for the
wheel arrangement of two leading wheels
on one axle, eight driving wheels on four
axles, and two trailing wheels. This ar-
rangement allows the locomotive’s firebox
to be placed behind instead of above the
driving wheels, making it possible to have
both a larger firebox and greater diameter
driving wheels. As a result, the Mikado
was capable of higher speeds with a heavy
train, and the locomotive was one of the
most common in the first half of the 20th
century.
In 1925 the Santa Maria Railroad, in
southern California, fell on hard times and
was purchased at a sheriff’s auction for
$75,000 by oil tycoon and philanthropist
George Allan Hancock. He immediately
ordered a new Baldwin Mikado locomo-
tive, which arrived two months later. It
was given the number 21, and it became
Hancock’s “pet engine” that he liked to
drive himself. Number 21 spent the next 37
years of its life hauling produce and petro-
leum on the 23-mile railroad, until the days
of steam came to an end. In 1962 Hancock
took the throttle for the last time, with Walt
Disney joining him in the cab.
Number 21 fell on hard times. It was
dismantled and trucked to Snoqualmie,
Washington, but the plan to restore the
engine for an excursion service was never
realized. The classic locomotive began to
rust away, but at last Number 21 is being
given a new lease on life in a Quonset hut a
block from the Astoria trolley barn.
In 1990, a group of Clatsop County
railroad buffs came together to form the
Astoria Railroad Preservation Association
and began looking for a steam engine that
was both restorable and not too heavy for
the old bridges along the Columbia Riv-
er. John Niemann was the driving force
behind the effort. “You can blame me,”
says the ARPA president, adding, “Garib-
aldi has a locomotive. So does Vernonia,
Longview, Portland. Why not Astoria?”
In 1991, ARPA found Number 21, pur-
chased it for $27,000 in community do-
nations, and completed the Augean task
of moving 81 tons of disassembled loco-
motive from Snoqualmie to Astoria. “It
wasn’t too difficult,” says Niemann, “It
was already in pieces.”
It took another five years to catalog all
the parts, and then began the real work of
the ARPA volunteers. They stripped the
engine’s paint, sandblasted and cleaned it,
and painted it with primer. Their goal: to
Submitted photo
The Astoria Railroad Preservation Association is working to restore Number 21, a Mikado steam locomotive, pictured in here in its former glory, to create a scenic railroad
along the Columbia River. The endeavor has been ongoing for more than 20 years.
rebuild Number 21, “to the same condition
as when it departed the Baldwin shops in
1925.” Once that goal is reached the loco-
motive will haul tourists instead of freight
along the shores of the Columbia River for
the new Astoria and Columbia River Rail-
road. The round trips will last one to two
hours and cost less than $20.
That’s the plan, but a lot of work re-
mains. Perhaps this will give you an idea
of just how much. The boiler and firebox
were pretty much worn out before they
began to rust in Washington, so a whole
new unit had to be constructed — under
the watchful eye of the Federal Railroad
Administration — using the original as a
model. This one job required reaming
and tapping both ends of 1,700 large
stay bolts, and finally peening
these bolts (hammering the bolt
ends to flatten them, which
hardens the metal and
makes it more resis-
tant to cracking and
abrasion). Recent-
ly,
volunteers
Mark Clemmens
and Jim Smith,
working together,
peened one end of
15 of these 1,700 bolts
in three hours of hard, very
loud work. Do the math: that’s
1,360 man-hours to peen both
ends of all the bolts, the equivalent
of 34 40-hour weeks by one man. And
there’s the rest of the locomotive to re-
store, right down to the cowcatcher.
A locomotive needs more than a boiler,
of course. It needs to ride on an undercar-
riage and driving wheels, too; that should
happen this summer. A steam locomotive
also requires a tender; that’s already been
restored, including the construction of
a new riveted water tank identical to the
original. The locomotive and tender also
need a car or two to carry passengers, and
Photo by Dwight Caswell
This fully restored tender car will carry the locomotive’s fuel.
in 2000 ARPA acquired a 58-ton combi-
nation coach and baggage car, which had
been built for the run to Astoria on the
Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railroad. It
looks a wreck, but it’s solid underneath,
where it counts. Niemann looks at the
rusting sides and roof, and says,
“That’s just sheet metal. It’s easy
to replace, and we can borrow
another car until it’s done.”
ARPA needs contri-
butions and volunteers
to reach its goal.
ARPA secretary
Martin Adams
points out an in-
teresting difference
in the law regarding
stationary boilers, which
requires workers with var-
ious certifications, and lo-
comotives, for which the only
stipulation is “competent persons.”
Says Adams, “We’ll teach you to be a
competent person.”
If you had walked into the Quonset hut
in the late ’90s and asked how long the res-
toration would take, you would probably
have heard, “two years,” and you would
have been told the same a decade later.
Today you’re more likely to hear, “It’s
done when it’s done” or “Two years and
$80,000.” After 20 years Niemann says,
“It’s really getting close. It needs to get
done. It’s time to play with the thing.”
‘Garibaldi has a
locomotive. So does
Vernonia, Longview,
Portland. Why not
Astoria?’
Photo by Dwight Caswell
Shown here is the interior of the Quonset hut, where the Astoria Railroad Preservation Association volunteers work.
January 15, 2015 | coastweekend.com | 11