ABANDONED steam engine junk yard Oregon

That is NO junk yard-- THAT IS A GOLD MINE! SAVE SIERRA #18!

Imagine if these old titans of the railways could talk. Amazing stories would be told!!!

I love this. Wonderful that these old beauties are still in existence. Many MANY old steam engines and their components were scrapped for metal in WWII and are sadly gone forever. These old trains are a rare link to our past.

Thank you Fred for saving these Locos.And a new generation may restore them to running condition one day.Rather than dragging them out to sit dead in a museum.They're not going to rot in Oregon nice and dry.

That SP Vanderbilt tender caught my eye. I model the SP in HO Scale and I have a model of one of SP's MT-4 Mountain steam locomotives. It has a Vanderbilt tender, just like the real ones. With that being said, Sierra #18 looks to be in the best condition of them all. All the others would take millions of dollars to restore. Even the GN, though mostly intact, would still cost a small fortune to restore. Sadly, BNSF does not have a steam locomotive preservation program.

I worked on the vernonia Southpark and sunset r.r. when I was 10 yrs old 55 years ago in Banks Oregon

I love the fact that one of them has frickin' shutters on the windows of the steam engine. That just makes it seem more dead...

Seeing Lihue #4 (Ex Mcbryde Sugar #1 is what she actually is) still in sort of one piece, gives me some hope and some faith in humanity. She was renumbered to 304 by Gene Autry for use on his film railroad. Hoping one day, she'll find her way back to Kauai.

Neat old boneyard. Thanks for taking us along. If only they could talk.

I have been involved with restorations in the past. The cost or bring a steamer up to specification and certifying it to operate can be in the millions depending on the condition of the locomotive to start with. Getting a steamer from the scrappers is relatively cheap compared to the cost of an "operating restoration". Many people have embarked on restoring a locomotive to operating condition, only stalling our do to lack of funding. One has to do a in depth inspection of the locomotive to see if it is really restore-able...let me back up, ANYTHING is restore-able if you have the funds...There are projects going on now where 50% of the locomotive has new custom components that has to be specially built because the originals are beyond repair. Most cases boilers are a "do-over", fireboxes are generally need to be rebuilt, drive cylinders are usually seized so that is another do over...the old bearing journals on the tenders are generally not acceptable on most lines so they need to be replaced with roller bearing, asbestos removal everywhere, brake systems have to be updated to be "road legal", and I could go on. If a museum has their own trackage then they can skimp on replacing the tender trucks and even upgrading brakes but my point in everything has to be considered, and it just ain't cheap...even with volunteers doing the heavy lifting. . THEN, you have to maintain it and get it re-certified. Keep in mind, the move from steam to diesel was every bit about the cost of maintaining a steam locomotive. They were expensive to keep on the rails and diesel locomotives were much easier to maintain and parts were interchangeable so repair and maintenance was also less of an issue. So you want to do this anyway you say...funding is the biggest issue. You have to draw in investors. You see all these locomotives and parts everywhere so you have to ask yourself, what locomotive in this yard is going to interest investors to pay to restore it. Is there something special or unique about any one of these. Is there any history beyond "just being old". Someone said on this comment section "I have $120,000 to spend right now"...well that will allow you to buy it, have a rigging company pick it up and truck it to...where?...if you want to transport via rail you still need a rigger to put it on a special flat car and have it secured because no mainline railroad is going to let you put that on their rails...you need to have someone look at it to see what needs to happen and you are likely looking at asbestos abatement. If you are lucky you may have enough money and available parts to do a cosmetic restoration when it is all done....but I dont see any of these locomotives that are in a condition and or have enough parts still remaining to make the candidates for restoration without substantial funds. I can tell you there are plenty of museums that have loco in far better condition that would be candidates if you can talk them out of it.

Like the old guy down the road that refuses to sell his old cars sitting in a field. By the time he dies,they are too far gone to restore. I had to see that happen. His kids were mad also. They got nothing but scrap value because he didn't do anything to preserve them. Same thing going on with those trains. Sad.

Wow, I feel like a little boy at the candy store, I've love trains and still do, I don't own these real ones, but I've got ho scale trains about 80 different frieght cars and 17 locomotives, mostly all diesels and couple steam that do smoke, I like the self tender, with them white wall rings on its wheels, great job, thanks for sharing 👍

My god, I've lived in Oregon my whole life and I've never heard of this. Planning a trip already.

It saddens my heart to see all those beautiful old steam engine just sitting there rotting away, it is almost a fait worth than being sent to the scrappers torch.

That dry desert air really does a great job of preserving those machines for future restoration. A large portion of restored steam locos here in the UK sat in a scrap yard on the south cost of Wales so as you can imagine they rusted up pretty bad.

This video never gets old. It would be cool if they could save that tank engine from the thumbnail.

Thank you for showing the current condition of these engines. It's a shame that their owner (Fred Kepner) hasn't thought of selling them off to more deserving homes. He bought them ages ago and hasn't done a thing with them since - his reluctance to sell them is only going to make them more vulnerable to scrap merchants. #SaveTheKepnerSteamers

I am so happy that there is a no.1 tank engine left in Oregon.

I always heard that Sierra #38 was scrapped but then I heard it was simply dismantled. It would take a lot of work and money to get it to run again but its possible. A classic compound shortline Mallet that was later used for logging. -Stan Fischer

Locomotive number 100 and the Sierra engine number 36 were once owned and operated by the White Mountain Scenic Railway in McNary Arizona. Both had been bought and used for short haul excursion service around 1962. They both ran until 1974 when the Railway shut down and everything was sold off. The remaining part of the railroad is now the Apache Railway and only operates a couple times a week at most. I rode the train back in 1971 with my family, I was 6, what a really neat experience, I will never forget.