History:
In 1971, a small group of volunteers set out to rebuild the narrow gauge Sumpter Valley Railway in Eastern Oregon.
Nearly all of today's excursion and museum railroads operate on abandoned rights-of-way. The Sumpter Valley Railway, located 22 miles southwest of Baker City Oregon, on U.S. Highway 7, has a unique characteristic over all of these railroads. We have built the railroad ourselves. Although the road bed and track is mostly on original Sumpter Valley Railway right-of-way, the original track was scrapped in 1947, and nearly all of the original road bed had eroded away. With an a;most all volunteer work force, the SVRy has rebuilt over 7 miles of track, and is still growing.
The restoration railroad began on January 4, 1971, when the Sumpter Valley Railroad Restoration was incorporated under the laws of Oregon as a non-profit operating tourist railroad. This was only 24 years after the original railway had stopped operations. The people in Baker County never could quite forget the "Stump Dodger". Later the Sumpter Valley Railway district was nominated and accepted for the National Register of Historic Places and the little railroad made a come back.
The new organization made arrangements with the Edward Hines Lumber Company for leasing the old right-of-way westward from the county road near McEwen to Sumpter. The right-of-way was acquired under a ten year lease. Another urgent order of business was to retrieve any part of the old rolling stock. Old locomotive boilers were pulled in from where they had been used as industrial boilers or furnaces. Some cattle cars were found rotting in pastures. These were rescued for restoration. An obvious conclusion was that in order to run a railroad it takes a locomotive of some kind. This being true, the group looked about for a vintage narrow gauge locomotive, hopefully from the Sumpter Valley Railroad. The Boise Cascade Corporation had an old W.H. Eccles Lumber Company locomotive located at its Cascade, Idaho, sawmill. This was the two truck Heisler number 3, purchased new by the Eccles Lumber Company in 1915, and operated on the Sumpter Valley Railroad as a logging engine. Boise Cascade sold the locomotive to the Restoration group. For many years Boise Cascade had steamed it up from time to time for use as a stand-by boiler for the sawmill at Cascade. At the time of the sale, the dejected engine sat aging in a shed, waiting for its renewed glory. In faded lettering on the tender was the name of its old boss, "W. H. Eccles Lbr. Co.".
Built in 1890, this coach had been in revenue service for many years. When the SVRy ceased mainline operations it ended up in the hands of a private individual in western Oregon. After painstaking interior restoration work by SVRR member Eric Wunz the car was placed back into service in 1991. Coach #20 was named "Em Eccles Jones" in her honor.
In 1991, the railroad finally arrived in the town of Sumpter and in 2007 moved into its reproduction of the original station.
Today the railroad is just over 5.2 miles long, not counting sidings, spurs, and the McEwen Yard. Oregon State Parks operates the Dredge Heritage Area in Sumpter. The #3 YUBA dredge is visible from the SVRR right-of-way and a short walk from the Sumpter Depot. A steam train ride and tour of the dredge is an enjoyable step "back in time" day trip.
