An 1891 photograph of an early open Patton Motor Co. car.

An experimental gas-electric car built in 1892 and brought to Portland some time between May and August 1892 with an eye to being used to replace steam motors on the Vancouver line. The gasoline engine was meant to to be augmented by electric power from storage batteries on steep grades, but trials along Second street were met with failure. In October 1892, the car was moved from Second and Glisan to the old Mechanics’ Pavilion on a truck pulled by six horses, where it was put into long-term storage.

Despite this inauspicious beginning, the car went on to have a long and varied career in Portland. The experimental engine and batteries were removed and replaced with standard electric trucks and motors, and by 1893 the car was the Portland Consolidated Street Railway Company’s funeral car, running on the company’s only standard gauge track out to the cemeteries on the Fulton Park line.

The car’s history at this point becomes a little hazy, but I believe that it became the personal property of George A. Steel in 1894 or 1895, who transferred it to the lines of the East Side Railway to use as a private parlor car. It was stored at the Milwaukie car barn. Articles from 1895 and 1896 note that Mr. Steel used a car named Portland for picnics in Gladstone Park with his family and their society friends. When he declared bankruptcy in late 1898, the car was listed as a personal asset that he could sell to pay his creditors, valued at $2,000. It would seem to have been inherited by the East Side Railway itself—it was mentioned by name in that company’s own bankruptcy notice in November 1900—and thence down through the Portland City & Oregon Railway Company to the Oregon Water, Power & Railway Company.

An October 1904 Street Railway Journal article about the interurban lines of the Oregon Water, Power & Railway says “the company has a parlor car called the Portland, which has been fitted over from an old car that was thought to be worthless. It is used by officials in inspecting the road and for private parties.” The photograph accompanying the article (below) clearly shows this car to the far right.

The rebuilt Patton Motor Co. car is to the far right of this photograph, serving as the OWP’s parlor car Portland. Photo from the Street Railway Journal, published in October 1904.

Under the ownership of the Portland Railway, Light & Power Company, the car became car No. 1500 and served as a parlor car (before being replaced in this role in 1909 by car No. 1059, which also took on the Portland name), a funeral car and a mail car before being relegated to shuttle service on standard-gauge stub lines in 1917. Richard Thompson notes that the car was finally retired in 1921.

Car No. 1500 being used as a private excursion car somewhere on the interurban lines (perhaps Estacada or Cazadero), c. 1909. Photo: Oregon Historical Society.

Car No. 1500 on the crematorium spur off the Sellwood line, perhaps being used as funeral car, c. 1914. Photo: Oregon Historical Society.

It’s worth noting that William H. Patton, the inventor of this hybrid power system, continued to work on it for many years, and created far more successful versions of it after this early failure. Indeed, he is often regarded as the father of gas-electric motive power technology in the United States.

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