A company formed for the express purpose of extending a second streetcar line up the St. Johns peninsula in 1903. The line was planned to be an extension of the Portland Railway Company’s Russell-Shaver line and would have operated in competition with the City & Suburban’s existing St. Johns line.

Because of the nature of the route selected – it was planned to take a direct diagonal route across additions and plats from N Maryland Avenue and N Rosa Park Way in North Albina all the way to N Willis Blvd and N Hamlin Avenue in Kenton – the Portland Railway Company was not able to apply for a street railway franchise (these had to run along existing street and road rights-of-way), so the Portland & St. Johns Railway was formed to gain the franchise, presumably as an “actual” railway that would be allowed to build cross country. It was common knowledge that once the franchise was secured and the line was built, it would immediately be passed over to the Portland Railway Company for operation.

The route was finalised, a franchise granted by the City Council in September 1904 and some work on the extension had started, when the Portland Railway Company and the City & Suburban merged into the Portland Consolidated Railway Company in 1904. A second Peninsula line was no longer deemed necessary, as there was no need for the new company to compete against itself.

Undeterred, the company – headed by real estate man Francis McKenna, who had raised a $28,000 subsidy for the line and was determined to make use of it! – decided to continue to look for ways to bring another line to the Peninsula (and Mr. McKenna’s lots at University Park and Portsmouth). The company reincorporated as the Portland, Vancouver & St. Johns Railroad Company in March 1905 in pursuit of even grander schemes, with a new alignment to the Vancouver ferry thrown into the mix.

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