The Albany and Eastern Railroad is a short line railroad in the Willamette Valley of Oregon that was created when the

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

spun off its Sweet Home Branch Line in May 1998. It operates about of track and is based in Lebanon, Oregon. The main line runs from Albany to Lebanon, with two branch lines at Lebanon going to

Sweet Home Sweet Home or Sweethome may refer to: Places in the United States * Sweet Home, Arkansas * Sweet Home Central School District in Amherst and Tonawanda, New York ** Sweet Home High School (Amherst, New York), a New York State public high school * ...

and Mill City. At the Albany end of the main line it connects to Union Pacific and BNSF lines.

History

The of the Albany-Lebanon mainline were built by the newly founded Albany and Lebanon Railroad in 1880. The A&L was shortly thereafter bought by the Oregon and California Railroad, which ran from Portland to the Oregon-California border. In turn, the O&C was bought by

Southern Pacific The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

in 1887. The Albany-Lebanon line became one of several branches off the main route from San Francisco to Portland, which went through Albany. New branches were also constructed as the Willamette Valley industrialized, including a route northeast from Lebanon to the booming lumber town of Mill City built in 1910. SP leased both branch lines to the

Willamette Valley Railway The Willamette Valley Railway (reporting marks WVR, WGR) is a short-line railroad that operates in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. It leased a line from Woodburn to Stayton from the Southern Pacific Transportation Company in February 1993, as w ...

in 1993, and sold them outright to WVR in 1996 shortly before its acquisition by Union Pacific. The Lebanon-Sweet Home branch was built by the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railway in 1930 as a spur of their passenger

Oregon Electric Railway The Oregon Electric Railway (OE) was an interurban railroad line in the U.S. state of Oregon that linked Portland to Eugene. Service from Portland to Salem began in January 1908. The Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway purchased the system in ...

, and eventually acquired by BNSF. The railroad spun it off into the Albany and Eastern in May 1998. Five years later, in 2003, AERC bought the Albany-Lebanon and Lebanon-Mill City lines from WVR, completing the current network. In 2007 a revamping of its aging infrastructure began, with new rails, ties, and rebuilt crossings. By 2011 all three lines had been refurbished.

Fleet

As of 2022, the AERC roster consisted of the following:

References

External links

Official website
Albany, Oregon Oregon railroads Spin-offs of the BNSF Railway 1998 establishments in Oregon Railway companies established in 1998 {{Oregon-transport-stub