Newswise — The PAC-10 is host to some of the country’s fiercest football rivalries. This year’s Civil War takes on epic proportions with the winner representing the PAC 10 on January 1, 2010 in Pasadena for the Rose Bowl.
The Oregon “Civil War” is the 7th oldest college football rivalry in the country. Many fans have been making the pilgrimage south down I-5 all season. Soon one team will have cause to cheer as they drive past the Keizer Station Village Shopping Center. The reason: the owners of the Center have announced that they intend to decorate their 1904 Baldwin steam locomotive in the colors of the winning team and hope to start a “Civil War” tradition.
President Pat Donahue of Donahue Schriber, the company that owns Keizer Station, came up with the idea to share his love for the game and to honor this longstanding Oregon sports rivalry, which started in 1894. Donahue comes from a long line of die hard football fans. His brother, Terry Donahue, was the longtime head coach at UCLA from 1976 to 1995.
While the locomotive awaits its after-game-day makeover, organizers have decorated it with a banner large enough to be visible from the I-5 freeway. The banner features the logos and colors of both Universities. The train’s smokestacks will wear the colors of the winning team for the duration of the year and the team’s logo will temporarily replace the engine numbers.
Many students and sports fans will drive I-5 south, right past the train, on December 3, for the one of the biggest games in Oregon history. “The Civil War is a special college football tradition and we want to be a part of it,” Donahue said. “This year is as big as it gets with the Rose Bowl on the line.”
Keizer Station Village Shopping Center unveiled its 1904 Baldwin locomotive on the property on May 29 of this year. It was built in Philadelphia, and was instrumental in mining work in Mexico until the 1960’s. The locomotive returned to the United States in 1960 where it worked on a plethora of projects throughout the country before being purchased by collectors in 1991. Legends surrounding the train include one in which Pancho Villa actually rode in the cab of this locomotive during the Mexican Revolution. Keizer Station is located off I-5 and Lockhaven in Keizer, Oregon. Train is located just south of the Target parking lot, next to I-5.
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