Ensuring a Future For Our Past

Welcome to the home page of the Oregon Coast Historical Railway, also known as the Oregon Coast chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. As our motto suggests, we're working to preserve an important part of the region's history by providing a place to restore and display vintage railroad and logging equipment.

   Our signature piece is the 1922 Baldwin steam locomotive No. 104, which served in the region's logging industry until the 1950s. We are in the process of restoring it to historically-accurate condition, and it can be viewed at our display area and museum at 766 S. First St., (US 101 northbound) in Coos Bay. (Read more about No. 104 here.)

   We've also restored a 1949 Alco S-2 diesel switcher engine that was used at the International Paper sawmill and paper plant up the coast in Gardiner. Members and volunteers cleaned and painted engine No. 111 in its Gardiner shed before it was moved to our Coos Bay display area on Nov. 17, 2006. (Read more about No. 111 here.)

   Our latest acquisition was former Southern Pacific caboose No. 1134, which was used on the Coos Bay-Eugene and Eugene-Klamath Falls runs. The 1942-era caboose is another restoration project currently under way at our display area. (More photos and information here.)

   Other equipment and large artifacts have been donated to our group, along with dozens of photographs, newspaper articles and other material known in railfan lingo as railroadiana. Even two conductor's uniform! (See photos and read more about our efforts to preserve these historical treasures here.)

    The display area was provided by the City of Coos Bay, and our group obtained several grants and a great number of donations to install an 800-ft hand-crafted steel fence around the site, and to install utilities and landscaping. In keeping with the historical railroad theme, the fence incorporates weathered, rusted rails from local tracks as corner posts and fence posts. The walkway to our temporary museum is cleverly designed to look like a stretch of railroad track, complete with vintage rails at the edges

   A former storage shed on the site was given a remarkable makeover by members and volunteers ? using mostly donated materials -- into a mini museum to display some of our photos and artifacts.

   Next on the agenda is to construct shelters to protect the two locomotives and caboose. Engineered plans have been completed, and we've accepted a bid for construction. Grant funding is available for a portion of the project, but we must obtain more community funding before work can begin.

      We hope also to build a new museum on the site, with displays of other equipment, materials and interpretive information.

   We continue to seek support from local civic and service organizations, federal and state agencies, private and public corporations, local and regional businesses, granting agencies and private foundations, and from individuals.

   All of these things - from huge locomotives to old rusted railroad spikes, from grants to donated artifacts - are a vital part of our program, but our most valuable resource is people. We need more people involved to properly care for, display and interpret this important part of our region's history.

  You can read more about our projects at this site, but most of all, we need your help. All of our members work on a voluntary basis; we have no paid staff. Join our group, help with a project, make a donation or just stop by and say hello when you see activity. Call Dick Jamsgard, 297-6130 for more information, or find out more on the Contacts page.

  Welcome aboard!

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