Colorado Railcar's Aero DMU demonstrator #2002, visiting the Portland area during its 2002 national tour, prepares for a test run at the Beaverton Creek MAX light rail station in Beaverton, Ore.

The DMU is sitting on a Portland & Western freight spur that runs alongside the MAX tracks here. On the adjacent track, MAX car #232 leads a Gresham-bound Blue Line train.

Images like this became reality in February 2009 when TriMet, working with the P&W and using single-level DMUs built by Colorado Railcar, inaugurated regional rail service on a 15-mile route between the downtown Beaverton Transit Center and Wilsonville, along segments of P&W's former SP Tillamook Branch and former BN (Oregon Electric) line.

Unfortunately, demonstrator #2002, which was later sold to the South Florida Regional Transit Authority for service on its Tri-Rail regional rail, was damaged beyond repair in a fire while at the U.S. DOT test center in Pueblo, Colo in 2005.

Photographed by Thomas McCann, November 20, 2002.
Added to the photo archive by Thomas McCann, November 30, 2006.

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