The Portland Skyline - June 1986

SP E.B. Burlington Northern interchange train at East Portland, Oregon.

SP E.B. Burlington Northern interchange train at East Portland, Oregon

SP 8261 E. at East Portland in June of 1986 with an operation that goes back to pre-merger days with run through trains with the Northern Pacific. In the Sixties, SP ran NPE, and NPW trains classified in Eugene which were operated with pooled NP and SP power. In the Seventies, these trains had become the BNE, and BNW,  which had a Brooklyn cut on the rear end with an SP caboose, and a BN interchange cut on the front with a BN caboose midtrain. The past is prologue for the train seen above, with a BN caboose bringing up the rear.  I was still living in California then, and had made one of my semi-annual pilgrimages to Oregon. Little did I know how familiar I would become with the buildings in the background. The building on the left with the pyramidal green roof is the KOIN Center. To the right of the freeway column is the First Interstate Bank building, now the Wells Fargo Center. Behind the I-5 S. sign is the Standard Insurance Center, once the headquarters of Georgia Pacific. The red roofed building to the right is the old Public Service Building, which once hosted an iconic landmark neon sign. In the bottom photo on the right is "Big Pink," the US Bancorp Tower, which is second in height to only the Wells Fargo building. Big Pink has the remarkable ability to reflect almost any mood of lighting that Portland's very changeable atmosphere can throw at it.