The Orange Night Bus, Pt. I



The city was deserted as the night bus crossed through Portland. Streets and MAX train stations sat empty, and towers rose silently into the night sky, as the city lights shimmered on the dark expanse of the Willamette River. It was a journey long in the making, and one that I would not soon forget

I’d long been intrigued by the idea of a “night bus”, but only recently had I felt any real motivation to actually ride it. Perhaps I wanted to take that journey for the novelty, to ride a city bus long after most others had returned to the barn. Perhaps I once more drew on my romanticized ideas of passenger trains from days of old. And, less the steam heat and sleeping births, the image wasn’t actually that far off.

An Orange Line MAX waits at the Park Street
station in Milwaukie, OR on a cold winter 
evening, ready for its 11:00pm departure to
 Portland
Major changes were once more on the horizon for Trimet’s system, and while researching these changes one afternoon, I re-discovered Line 291. It was a lonely route, a single dashed line running through the spaghetti-like mass of Portland bus lines. My curiosity piqued: what was an Orange Night Bus? And where on earth had they come up with the number 291? It was the highest number by a long shot, as if they had just picked the route number out of a hat to assign to this bus that hardly anyone saw.


The name, however, is easier to explain. The 291 serves as a makeshift Orange-Line MAX, serving all of the stations after the outbound trips to Milwaukie, Oregon had ceased for the night: one last chance to get out of town. It operated only one or two trips per day depending on the day of the week. Like the green flash on the end of the sunset: blink and you’d miss it.


At a glance, Line 291’s existence seemed oddly ambiguous. Sure, Trimet had a schedule for it on their website, but that was it. I’d stopped by Pioneer Square--Trimet’s tourism office--earlier in the day to try to get a 291 schedule, but there were none to be had. It didn’t appear on Trimet’s most up-to-date system map, though the map was already a tangled mess of blue lines indicating routes, so perhaps they had no room for it. 


The cynic in me knew that I could romanticize the idea of a night bus all I wanted, and daydream about magical beings who could ride it. But at the end of the day, I worked with the public in downtown Portland: I had a pretty good idea of who I would meet. But I couldn’t judge the sort that would be out at this hour of the night – I would be one of them after all. But something this mysterious had to be ridden. I felt I had my work cut out for me.


At 10:15 PM on Monday night, I left home, driving through the sleeping city to the SE Park Street transit center: the southern terminus for the MAX Orange Line. As I entered Milwaukie, I saw a billboard for a Presidents’ Day sale. President’s day was on Monday...it was today: today was a holiday. There might not be two buses tonight… there might only be one. Trimet’s website didn’t mention Presidents’ Day as a holiday, but a MAX operator assured me that it was. (He later corrected this, but at the time I had no idea.) It was too late to go home, I had already driven 20 minute to get this far. My plan was dicey from the get go. In order to catch the Night Bus, I would have to deliberately miss the last train--the only alternative way back--and pray to God that the 291 would actually show up, though there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t. Regardless, it added a certain level of suspense to the whole adventure. I planned to take the first 291 I saw: no loitering around town.


An Orange Line MAX pulled into the station just as I arrived. It was a short layover. I spent it watching someone sitting across from me doing...I’m not exactly sure what, but I figured that I was probably better off for it. My pre-assumptions on what sort of people took transit this late were proving correct.


At 10:59 PM, the MAX rolled out of Milwaukee, heading north. By 11, we were crossing the Clackamas River. The lights of an office building reflected in the ripples, as the water from springs somewhere in the Cascade Mountains continued on their journey to the Pacific. Much of the orange line through Milwaukee is on viaduct, and in the darkness, it was like the train was flying. 


The nighttime clientele continued to meet my expectations: a man wrapped up in a soiled blanket and cape, dug around in the seat across the aisle from me. I found myself, wondering if he was up all night and day, wandering to and fro across the city. A few stops later, he was gone. I just assumed that he had gotten off for good, when he suddenly appeared behind me, and begin to take the seat apart.

The Orange Line MAX, led by car # 407, crosses
under the glowing towers of Tillikum Crossing.


Tacoma… Bybee… Holgate… The stops passed by, glowing islands in the darkness. At last, we rounded the Bend, following the double tracked, Union Pacific mainline, and the lights of downtown finally appeared in the distance. The MAX stopped at OMSI on the east end of the Tilikum Bridge, but it didn’t start out again.


“Uh, sorry for the delay, folks,” The operator’s voice came on the intercom, “we have a trespasser on the tracks, and until he leaves we can’t move.” From the MAX car’s dummy windshield, I could indeed see someone in black dancing on the tracks, or making lewd gestures to the drivers, I wasn’t sure which. As the minutes ticked by though, it became clear that it wouldn’t matter if there was an earlier night bus after all – I would have already missed it by the time we got downtown.


After about ten minutes, and a few more reassuring announcements from the operator, I saw search lights and flashers on the bridge, and after a few more minutes, the train at last begin to move again. Portland, even at night has a certain beauty – the blue lights, atop trolley power poles by the waterfront, for example, or colored search lights on windows, and the distance skyline of the Lloyd District.


I got off at Portland’s Union Station in the midst of a rain shower. The streets smelled foul, and a row of tents, coolers and bicycles lined the side of the abandoned greyhound terminal.


The stop I got off at made no mention of the 291, and when I checked the schedule, I discovered I as on the wrong street entirely. I had one shot to catch the bus, or I, like the tents’ inhabitants, would spend the night here.


Continued in Part 2

 

©2023, All rights reserved - KP Vol. LXXIX 

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