A Oregon Electric “combine” or “combination car” — one that had separate passenger, smoker and baggage compartments. These normally headed up multi-car trains, or could also be operated as a single car.

After passenger service on the Oregon Electric ended in 1933, combine 65 was sold to the Skagit River Railway in Newhalem, Washington, along with passenger cars 132, 133, 135 and 137. No. 65 was de-powered, and the cars and used to transport passengers on weekend tours of the Diablo dam site. The car was renumbered as No. 16 and painted chrome yellow with green trim. Once work was completed on the dam project, the railway was shut down on April 4, 1954 and scrapped by Dulien Steel of Seattle. This company sold cars 65 and 133 to the Willamette Valley Electric Railway Association in 1955. A fan trip using the cars from Portland to Salem in October 1955 raised some of the funds needed to purchase them.

It seems that No.’s 65 and 133 were only ever stored at WVERA’s Guild Lake train yards site on NW Yeon Avenue, never making it up to the Glenwood Trolley Park. The cars were given a fresh coat of paint in June 1960 when they were joined by Oregon Electric parlor car, “Champoeg,” but little else seemed to happen with them under WVERA ownership.

WVERA sold 65 and 133 to the Vernonia, South Park & Sunset tourist steam railroad in 1966, probably as the association wrapped up its affairs and merged with the Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society. This railroad operated on what is now the Banks-Vernonia trail from 1966 to 1970. Here, 65 and 133 were reunited with other ex-Oregon Electric cars that had been purchased from the Pacific Great Eastern in British Columbia – 112, 125, 139, 140, 144 and 950 – that had come down in June 1961. Another car, No. 105, which previously had been used as the Oak Grove Diner on McLoughlin Boulevard, was used by the railroad as a depot building in Banks.

Once this railroad closed in 1970, all of the Oregon Electric cars, including No. 65, were sold to the Black Hills Central tourist railroad in Hill City, South Dakota (also known as the “1880 Train”). No. 65 has been restored and remains in service there today, now named the “Edward Gillette.”

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