Volunteer John Pohlpeter, of Portland, fills mechanical lubricators in the Southern Pacific 4449 steam engine at the train depot in Bend on Saturday evening. The train carried passengers from Portland to Bend for an overnighter.

Suzie Biggs spent her Saturday evening outside, struggling to stay warm near the railroad tracks on Cooley Road.

After more than three hours, the Southern Pacific 4449 roared by Biggs in a matter of seconds, trailing a cloud of steam, pulling a dozen vintage railcars and carrying nearly 600 train enthusiasts from around the world.

Biggs then raced down to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe depot in Bend to get a closer look at the locomotive, and pose for a few pictures next to its nearly 7-foot-tall wheels. Despite the wait, and the cold, it was all worth it, Biggs said.

“It’s really a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” she said.

One of the most recognized locomotives in the country, the SP 4449 was back in Bend Saturday for the first time since 2006. Owned by the city of Portland and based there, the SP 4449 seldom makes more than one trip a year these days, according to Doyle McCormack of the Friends of 4449.

“We’re an all-volunteer organization, and it’s a tremendous amount of work to put one of these trips together, let alone just maintain the locomotive,” McCormack said. “You can run out of volunteer hours quickly.

Built in 1941, the SP 4449 went into service for the Southern Pacific Railroad as a passenger train on the San Francisco to Los Angeles route. By the late 1950s, diesel locomotives were taking over and the Southern Pacific scrapped it. The locomotive was given to Portland, and until 1974, it was a display piece at the Oaks Park amusement park.

McCormack and the SP 4449 came together in 1974, when the locomotive was selected to be refurbished and tour the United States to mark the nation’s bicentennial. A retired Union Pacific engineer, McCormack helped restore the SP 4449, and spent two years with the “American Freedom Train,” a museum on rails carrying everything from the documents that finalized the Louisiana Purchase to rocks brought back from the moon.

Saturday morning, the SP 4449 pulled out of Portland’s Union Station around 8:30 a.m. and headed up the Columbia Gorge, crossing into Washington before coming back in to Oregon and traveling up the Deschutes River canyon. The train will return to Portland this morning.

Rail preservation organizations and wealthy private collectors lent their restored railcars to Friends of 4449 for the trip, McCormack said. The cars traveled to Portland attached to the back of Amtrak trains over the last several months, he said, and after today, they’ll all be headed back home.

Friends of 4449 volunteer Skylar Reyburn said private railcar collectors often sink millions of dollars into their passion, but when they’re done, the cars look as though they were brand new.

“People who own private cars are the ones who got tired of yachts,” Reyburn said.