After two failed attempts in the early 1910s, the city decided to take matters into its own hands and in 1916 chartered a railroad.

In 2004, business picked back up when the railroad built a transload facility out of an abandoned sawmill.

Both the raw goods received and the finished product would be shipped by truck either to or from an LP facility in Hines.

The lower of the two stripes continued around the locomotive with the road-name "City of Prineville" in white text along the sides of the carbody.

[6][7] In 2014, the COP purchased an EMD SW1500 of Southern Pacific heritage[8] that carries a paint scheme resembling the older ALCO locos the ran in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.