Amtrak's westbound Feather River Express drifts across Rock Creek on the homeward leg of the 2011 Portola Railroad Days excursion. On this day the heartbeat of the Feather River Route's former owner, Western Pacific, takes the pleasant chords of the turbo-charged 567 prime mover inside former Western Pacific GP20 2001. The pioneering La Grange graduate, the first production GP20 built, today calls the Western Pacific Railroad Museum in Portola, CA home. For two consecutive years (2010-2011) the veteran EMD was allowed to pilot the Feather River Express, through its namesake Canyon, between Portola and Oroville, harkening back to an age when the presence of orange and silver painted EMDs was a daily ritual in Northern California.
