One of two surviving examples of the famous “Council Crest” cars; the other being No. 506. Both are currently at the Oregon Electric Railway Museum in Brooks, Oregon.

Once service ended on the Council Crest line in February 1950, the Portland Traction Company offered cars 503 and 506 to interested parties for preservation. Car 506 was earmarked either for the parks department or the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, but no takers came forward for No. 503. Just as it seemed it might be headed to the scrapper’s torch, a deal was worked out where a boy scout troop would repurpose the body of the car – sans trucks and motors – as their clubhouse. The car body was moved temporarily to North Portland, and then up into the hills behind Linnton sometime in the summer of 1950.

It only remained there for about a year, and was again in danger of being scrapped before the newly-formed Pacific Northwest Electric Railway Association came into possession of it (member Paul Class had been one of the boy scouts who had moved the car up into the hills in the first place!) and moved it again to NE Madrona Street in Woodlawn in May 1951, where it would be a display piece as well as PNERA’s own clubhouse. The famous photographs of the car crossing the St. Johns Bridge were taken during this relocation.

Car 503 crossing the St. Johns Bridge on a flatbed trailer on its way to Woodlawn, May 26, 1951. Photo: City of Portland Archives

The Willamette Valley Electric Railway Association formed in June 1954, with many of the same members as PNERA. Car 503 became part of their collection, and was trucked down to Maple Creek on the old Willamette Valley Southern’s alignment in August 1954, where the association first planned to build an operating museum. These plans fell through and No. 503 must have been put into storage – either at the Union Pacific roundhouse or at WVERA’s storage area on NE Yeon Avenue – until it was moved up to the Trolley Park at Glenwood in 1957.

Car 503 received new standard-gauge trucks sourced from Melbourne, Australia in 1976 and has been operational on-and-off over the years since then, notably when it was loaned to San Francisco in 1983 and 1985 for their trolley festivals. It was also a pilot vehicle for the Willamette Shore Trolley between the Southwest Waterfront and Lake Oswego.

The OERHS website currently lists it as “display only” and in need of restoration.

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