Bay Area Electric Railroad Association Collection

The mission of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association is to preserve the regional heritage of electric railway transportation as a living resource for the benefit of present and future generations. In 1946, a group of like-minded individuals learned that an old Oakland streetcar that they had chartered for a day's outing was to be scrapped within a week. They immediately and gathered enough money to buy the car on the spot. In this spirit of philanthropy and historic preservation, the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association was created to foster interest in streetcar, interurban, and mainline electric railroad operations, and to preserve these rapidly vanishing pieces of history. During 1993, the Union Pacific Railroad made a gift of 22 miles of right-of-way to our museum. Donations enabled purchase the rails, ties, and associated hardware. This donation was significant, making possible the recreation of an authentic interurban trip, but also because the right-of-way was originally built as an electric interurban line: the Oakland, Antioch, and Eastern (later known as the Sacramento Northern). To date, five miles have been rehabilitated to the original standards, using drawings and schematics preserved in the Museum archives. In 2001, the Museum's new 12,000 sq ft Visitors and Archives Center opened. In 2004, work began on the Loring C. Jensen Memorial Car House, a fully enclosed, publicly accessible artifact storage and display facility. It was completed and officially opened to the public on May 3, 2008. In 2010, two major operational restorations were debuted: San Francisco Municipal Railway PCC Streetcar #1016 made its inaugural run at the Museum on Saturday July 10, 2010. And after a decade in the Western Railway Museum restoration shop, Sacramento Northern interurban #1005 made its debut on Saturday, September 18, 2010. On June 30, 2012 the Western Railway Museum opened a new segment of track for our interpretive ride on the historic Sacramento Northern right-of-way. Visitors can now take a 10-mile round trip ride.