This Photo is of the Oregon Electric Railway Station in Albany. The picture was taken 11/98. The station is now a Restaurant. The OER logo is still visible under the front dormer

By Mark Kavanagh
Reprinted from the June 1995 The Transfer

This article concerns itself with the small streetcar system of the industrial town of Albany, Oregon. Albany is about mid-way down the Willamette Valley. It lies on the confluence of the Calapooya and Willamette Rivers.

Albany's streetcar line opened in 1889, The line started at the Oregon and California Railroad Depot. Today the depot remains as an Amtrak Station. It proceeded towards downtown Albany on Lyon St. When it reached First Street; it turned westbound for five blocks to Washington. In 1892 the line was extended from the depot southward to an orphaned children’s home in the Sunrise District of Albany. The line started with a steam "dummy" locomotive pulling a small horsecar. Fares were set at one nickel. The locomotive was named Goltra Park. The locomotive soon proved troublesome, and horses didn't care for the loud monster. In 1900, "Old Charlie", a white horse, took the iron horse off of the passenger car and pulled the car itself. "Old Charlie" remained a respected member of e community until 1906.

As Albany grew, so did its streetcar line, The line made nine runs daily. Sometimes the old locomotive would pull it, other times by the horse. Soon a larger car was required, and "Old Charlie" received a partner. When he became to old, he was relegated to pulling the mail truck from the depot to the post office.

Horsecar service ended in 1909 when the Portland Eugene & Eastern, the new owners of the line electrified the line. Elba Burnett was the first in motorman of the line. The PE&E sometimes had two cars on the line. This is interesting since the line was only one mile in length. The streetcar line's history ended in 1918. Evidently W.W.I must had taken its toll on the line.

Albany's streetcar line met the Oregon Electric interurban line on a diamond at 5^th & Lyon Streets. This was the location of the OE depot. The Depot is still in existence at that location, although it is currently a Pizza Parlor. The elegance has not been lost and the letter OE still exists on the outside of the brick structure. The building had cost $32,000 to build at the time.

The OE entered Albany in 1912. The OE had two different routes within Albany. The passenger Interurbans ran down 5^th St to the depot. The freight line swung over to the River industrial area, meeting back up with the passenger line on the other side of town. The northern split took place right after the Albany OE yard. The passenger line paralleled the SP line until 5^th St and then went to the depot. Today, the track along the SP still exists as the BN (OE) connection with the SP, just north of the Corvallis Jct. The two OE lines rejoined just on the other edge of downtown. The 5^th St. line was torn up a long time ago, but the OE line along the river still exists and has regular BN freight service.

Bibliography:

The Red Electrics, Southern Pacific’s Oregon Interurban
Tom Dill & Walter Grande, Pacific Fast Mail, Edmonds WA, 1994

The Land of Linn
Floyd C. Mullen, Dalton’s Printing, Lebanon, OR 1973

Stations West, The Story of the Oregon Railways
Edwin D. Culp. Caxton Printers, Nampa, ID 1972

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Since the OERHS one of the mission statements of the OERHS is to educate, this page is dedicated to providing history of Traction operations in the Pacific Northwest. If you have any articles that you would like to submit, please send them to the Webmaster.

Page last updated 02/06/05