Vintage steam train to pass through Vancouver

Train buffs will get a rare chance to roll back the clock this morning, as a vintage steam train rolls east through Vancouver.

The Southern Pacific Daylight No. 4449, with its distinctive orange, red and black color scheme, will lead 11 vintage rail cars on an excursion bound for a national train festival in Michigan. The train is due to depart Portland's Union Station at 8 a.m., which should put it in Vancouver by 8:15 a.m.

Vancouver's Amtrak station should be a prime viewing spot, BNSF Railway spokesman Gus Melonas said. It is due to pause for a service stop at Wishram in the Columbia River Gorge at 10:30 a.m.

The SP 4449 is owned by the city of Portland and maintained by a dedicated cadre of volunteers. Commissioned in 1941, the hulking locomotive pulled Southern Pacific passenger trains mainly in California until it was retired in 1957.

Melonas said the steam locomotive will be backed up by a standard Amtrak diesel locomotive, lest the trip go the way of a previous excursion in April of 2001. A BNSF diesel locomotive had to be dispatched to relieve the old Spokane Portland & Seattle 700 when the 71-year-old steam engine broke down near Pasco.

Today's excursion is the first leg of a trip that will end later this month at Train Festival 2009 in Owosso, Mich.