1. There's a nice long stretch of washed-out track. Unless there is some magical, silent plan to rebuild the track...

2. Portland & Western Railroad owns the track outside of the city of Astoria. P&W has little to no interest in running excursion trains; it hasn't run a public excursion in MANY years. Not to mention no interest in fixing this track (again!) It's attempt to rehab the eastern end of the line for the unit ethanol trains turned out to be a bust but at least the railroad is nice and pretty.

3. ODOT owns the underlying right-of-way; so any repairs to the washed-out track would require ODOT's involvement. Which would mean that it would be PUBLIC RECORD. Of which none exists. Not to mention Corps of Engineers permits, county permits, and so on.

4. It could be barged, but wouldn't that cost a LOT of money; not to mention getting the locomotive off the barge in Astoria would be feasible, but difficult? Tongue Point could probably be a good transload location, but there are no cranes there.

5. Now that you have a locomotive - what about cars? They have to be barged/trucked in as well.

6. Does Oregon really need another 4-8-4? We already have two that spend 360 out of 365 days a year in a roundhouse away from the public. (OK, the 4449 was out a little more than that THIS year...) Besides, I'd rather have the 700 on home rails in Astoria than a foreign-road 2100...although I guess the general public wouldn't know or care.