Last year, 12 members of the Feather River Rail Society joined together and donated the funds to preserve WP GP7 705, which was scheduled for scrapping.

The locomotive arrived at the Portola Railroad Museum on March 30, 2005 and is now part of the PRM collection. It is being evaluated for restoration and will likely become part of the Run-A-Locomotive program. The PRM currently owns WP GP7s 707 (restored and operational) and 708 (unrestored). Sacramento Northern GP7 712 will soon be moving to the museum as well.

The 705 is the latest in several recent acquisitions to arrive at the museum, including rare Southern Pacific/Quincy Railroad TR6A 1100.

Eugene Vicknair
Secretary, FRRS

Where did this locomotive come from?

Thanks,

Stuart

Congratulations - always great to see home equipment back on home rails. Get her running would be super.

Jim

The 705 went to the Arizona Central after the UP retired the last of the Western Pacific first generation power. That was sometime aroud 1987. At some point, she left the AC and went into storage on the Great Western in Colorado. That is where we found her, getting ready for her turn in the scrap line.

She is in pretty good shape and will be returned to full operation in the near future.

That's cool. I'm glad she was saved. It's amazing how many fisrt generation diesels are still around and some are still in service. I hate to see any of these see the torch, but I know it is not very realistic to save everything.

Keep us posted on the progress.

Stuart

Maybe I am being too picky; but why does the Portola Railroad Museum need three GP7s?

There are examples of this class all over the country. I can see one of two of an engine in the collection, but three iseems like a bit much!

Care to comment?

Ted Miles

Certainly.

The PRM actually owns 4 GP7s, the fourth is Sacramento Northern 712. Each is going to be used to interpret a different period in the Western Pacific's history.

WP 707 is restored to its appearance in the late 1950's/early 1960's. SN 712 is in its 1970's image and represents the Sacramento Northern. WP 708 is painted in its 1970's image, but this engine has serious mechanical problems and will likely not be restored to operation.

The future use of WP 705 is still being decided. It may be restored to its delivery appearance, complementing WP 707 or it may replace WP 708 and the 708 be declared surplus and released to another museum.

Our goal at the PRM is to eventually be able to represent several eras of the WP's history, and do it with something approaching representative consists of locomotives and cars. We want to recreate the experience as much as possible. As the WP used its first generation GPs until merger day, this means we have many ways to use these engines in our interpretation of the history.

Right now, we own 7 high nose WP and SN GPs: 4 GP7s, 2 GP9s and a GP20. When restorations are complete, it is likely that 2 (GP7 and GP9) will represent the 1950's, 3 the 1960's (GP7, GP9, GP20) and 2 the 1970's (GP7s).

This approach is a massive job, no argument, but we take a great deal of pride is being able to field accurate consists of mutiple unit diesels for our visitors.

Eugene