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Willamette Valley Railways (Images of Rail: Oregon)

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Willamette Valley Railways is one of the more than 4,000 local history titles published by Arcadia Publishing, and part of Arcadia's "Images of Rail" series. However, this 2008 publication has one key word missing from its title: "Electric." The subject of the book is Willamette Valley Electric Railways, and provides history and illustration of the area's interurban and street railways, but does not deal with steam railroads.

The Willamette Valley is Oregon most populous region, extending 120 miles south from Portland through Salem, Albany, Corvallis and Eugene. The book is divided into eight chapters: Portland Area Interurbans (1891-1958), Oregon Electric Railway (1908-1933), United Railways (1911-1923), SP Red Electrics (1914-1929), Willamette Valley Southern (1915-1933), Salem Street Railways (1889-1927), Albany Street Railways (1889-1918) and Eugene Street Railways (1891-1927).

Portland Street Railways, the Oregon Electric Railway and the SP Red Electrics have been covered in other books, but this volume collects the basic company histories, photos, maps, timetables and vintage advertising in one handy reference. Some of the photos have been often published, but many obtained from museum and local library collections will be new to most readers. The book consists mostly of photos and captions, with just one page of historical text per chapter. The dates included with each chapter title refer solely to the years of passenger operation. In most cases this conforms to the company's history, but in the case of the Oregon Electric Railway, electric freight operation continued another dozen years into 1945 and the corporate identity lasted past the Burlington Northern merger, Oregon Electric being a subsidiary of the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway.