After a four-month makeover in Ridgefield, a celebrity couple have returned home with all the bells and whistles.
And don’t forget about custom paint jobs and updated power plants for a steam powered locomotive and a diesel fueled Zooliner. It was all part of the work when two historic railroad engines from the Oregon Zoo train were refurbished at Pacific Power Group.
Following completion of the project, the Old West-style Centennial steam locomotive and the retro-modern Zooliner were loaded onto flatbed trailers this week and trucked to the Oregon Zoo in Portland.
The two iconic engines are on schedule to be part of ZooLights, the annual winter lights display, which opens Nov. 28, zoo spokesman Hova Najarian said.
Both engines were built to help celebrate Oregon’s centennial in 1959, although they represent vastly different eras. The Centennial steam locomotive is a reproduction — about five-eighths-scale — of the 1872 Virginia & Truckee “Reno” locomotive featured in “How the West Was Won” and dozens of other films and TV shows.
The Zooliner echoed the futuristic design (by standards of the 1950s) of the Aerotrain, on a smaller scale; General Motors produced two Aerotrain locomotives that pulled trains from 1956 to 1966.
True to its GM roots, the Zooliner features a cab that was created from the upper bodywork and roof of a 1956 Buick, zoo officials said.
Workers also replaced the steel-frame carriage on the locomotive’s tender car,
Pacific Power Group, which sells and services engines and does a full range of servicing for commercial vehicles and trucks, was able to handle the whole $280,000 contract at its headquarters campus just off Interstate 5 at the Ridgefield exit.
