By Eric Berger
The shocking sight of a former Spokane, Portland & Seattle Alco FA-1 being scrapped in the year 2024 appeared on social media in March, just weeks after it became known that the former SP&S 866 was in danger. The privately owned unit and several historic cars were scrapped in late February after the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation decided it could not afford to move them from the now-landlocked Northwest Industrial Area site in Portland where they had been stored in recent years. The cost became prohibitive after BNSF severed its rail link to the storage site, necessitating the expensive use of cranes to move anything from the property.
Though the cars and Alco cab unit bore the DLMX reporting marks of the legendary Doyle McCormack, he was not personally involved in the acquisition or ownership of that equipment but allowed the use of DLMX markings to facilitate its movement.
The owner of SPS 866 was Northwest Rail Museum, a non-profit entity founded in 1986 by former Oregon State Rail Planner Ed Immel. Following the development of several local organizations dedicated to railroad preservation activities, Immel decided that the best course for NRM was to join forces with the other groups in the ORHF partnership, which was initially based in Southern Pacific’s Brooklyn Roundhouse (later Union Pacific). The arrangement ended when UP gave notice that the roundhouse would be demolished in 2012, leading to its replacement by the Oregon Rail Heritage Center the same year. The 866 and a group of railcars owned by various organizations were moved to the NW Industrial Area site at that time.
While several of those cars eventually left the site, remaining were two tank cars and three passenger cars: Ice Lake, former Great Northern coach 1130; a former Southern Pacific sleeper built as Rincon Hill that became the Clackamas River; and a one-time New York Central baggage car that became American Freedom Train car 111, which served as the Exit Car for AFT visitors. It later served in that role for the Discovery Train in Canada, then as a power car in the Union Pacific business car fleet before being acquired by the Pacific Rail Preservation Association and brought to Portland in 2004. The cars suffered extensive damage from vandalism and theft while stored, as well as deterioration due to exposure, factors that contributed to their demise.
Built in 1950 as SPS 866A-1, the unit served briefly as Burlington Northern 4120 before it was retired in 1972. It then became Long Island Rail Road 613, one of six SP&S Alco cabs converted by General Electric into “Power Pack” units for use on Long Island Railroad push-pull commuter trains, along with most of the other FA units still extant on U.S. railroads in the early 1970s. They served the dual purpose of providing a control cab at the unpowered end of the trains and housing the system that generated Head End Power for the cars. The units were stripped of their traction motors and most had their Alco 244 prime movers replaced with a sled-mounted Detroit Diesel. That equipment had been removed from the 866, leaving it an empty shell.
Four of the other six SP&S FA-1s are believed to survive in northeastern states, the 857, 858, 864 and 860; 856 was scrapped by LIRR in the 1990s due to fire damage.
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