The city of Dallas is the county seat of Polk County, Oregon, United States. The population was 14,583 at the 2010 census.
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 1910, and extended service to Eugene in 1912. Regular passenger service in the Willamette Valley ended in May 1933. Freight operations continued and the railway survived into the 1990s, ultimately as a Burlington Northern feeder. Operation as an electric railroad ended July 10, 1945.
The Willamette Shore Trolley is a heritage railroad or heritage streetcar that operates along the west bank of the Willamette River between Portland and Lake Oswego in the U.S. state of Oregon. The right-of-way is owned by group of local-area governments who purchased it in 1988 in order to preserve it intact for possible rail transit use in the future. Streetcar excursion service began operating on a trial basis in 1987, lasting about three months, and regular operation on a long-term basis began in 1990. The Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society has been the line's operator since 1995.
The Portland and Western Railroad is a 466-mile (750 km) Class II railroad serving the U.S. state of Oregon, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of shortline and regional railroad holding company Genesee & Wyoming Inc. The PNWR includes a subsidiary, the Willamette and Pacific Railroad.
The Central Oregon and Pacific Railroad is a Class II railroad operating between Northern California and Eugene, Oregon, United States. It was previously a mainline owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) between Eugene and Weed, California via Medford, Oregon. SP sold the route on December 31, 1994, in favor of using its route to Eugene via Klamath Falls, Oregon and Cascade Summit.
The Willamette Valley Railway 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 well as a branch from Geer west to Salem, and purchased the property in 1996. The company also leased a line between Albany and Mill City in 1993, but transferred the lease to the Albany and Eastern Railroad in October 2000.
The Oregon, Pacific and Eastern Railway is an Oregon-based short line railroad that began near Eugene as the Oregon and Southeastern Railroad (O&SE) in 1904. O&SE's line ran 18 miles (29 km) along the Row River between the towns of Cottage Grove and Disston. The Oregon, Pacific & Eastern Railway Company incorporated in 1912, purchased the physical assets of the O&SE two years later, and shortened their total trackage to operate 16.6 miles (26.7 km) from an interchange yard with the Southern Pacific Railroad at Cottage Grove, east to a turnaround loop at Culp Creek. The last of this track was closed and scrapped in 1994, and ownership of its abandoned right of way property was later reverted back to the state of Oregon to become one of the first-ever Government/Private Sector cooperative partnership Rails to Trails programs in the US, forming the Row River National Recreation Trail.. A successor corporation now operates a narrow-gauge line at Wildlife Safari.
Louis Gerlinger Sr. was a businessperson in the railroad and timber industries in the U.S. state of Oregon in the early 20th century.
Carl Gerlinger, Sr. was an American businessperson in the U.S. state of Oregon in the early 20th century.
Rail transportation is an important element of the transportation network in the U.S. state of Oregon. Rail transportation has existed in Oregon in some form since 1855, and the state was a pioneer in development of electric railway systems. While the automobile has displaced many uses of rail in the state, rail remains a key means of moving passengers and freight, both within the state and to points beyond its borders.
The Lake Oswego Railroad Bridge is a truss railroad bridge that spans the Willamette River between Lake Oswego, Oregon and Oak Grove, Oregon. Owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, it is currently leased by the Portland and Western Railroad.
The Oregon Central Rail Road was the name of two railroad companies in the U.S. state of Oregon, each of which claimed federal land grants that had been assigned to the state in 1866 to assist in building a line from Portland south into California. The "East Side Company" of Salem, supported by businessman Ben Holladay, eventually received the grant for its line east of the Willamette River, and was reorganized in 1870 as the Oregon and California Railroad (O&C), which completed the line in 1887. Portland supported the competing "West Side Company", which only built to McMinnville, and was sold to the O&C in 1880. The O&C was later acquired by the Southern Pacific Company, and mostly remains as part of the Union Pacific Railroad's I-5 Corridor; the West Side line is now operated by the Portland and Western Railroad between Beaverton and Forest Grove.
The Oregon Eastern Railway was a predecessor of the Southern Pacific Company that acquired or built most of the Natron Cutoff or Cascade Line in northern California and southern Oregon, United States. It also made surveys and acquired right-of-way in eastern Oregon, which were subsequently sold to Union Pacific Railroad subsidiary Oregon–Washington Railroad and Navigation Company.
The Willamette River is a 187-mile (301 km) tributary of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Oregon. The upper tributaries of the Willamette originate in mountains south and southeast of Eugene and Springfield. Formed by the confluence of the Middle Fork Willamette River and Coast Fork Willamette River near Springfield, the main stem meanders generally north from source to mouth. The river's two most significant course deviations occur at Newberg, where the stream turns sharply east, and about 18 miles (29 km) downriver from Newberg, where it turns north again. Near its mouth, the river splits into two channels that flow around Sauvie Island. The main channel enters the Columbia about 101 miles (163 km) from the larger stream's mouth on the Pacific Ocean, and the smaller Multnomah Channel enters the Columbia about 14.5 miles (23.3 km) further downstream near St. Helens in Columbia County.
The Christmas flood of 1964 was a major flood in the Pacific Northwest and some of Northern California between December 18, 1964, and January 7, 1965, spanning the Christmas holiday. Considered a 100-year flood, it was the worst flood in recorded history on nearly every major stream and river in coastal Northern California and one of the worst to affect the Willamette River in Oregon. It also affected parts of southwest Washington, Idaho, and Nevada. In Oregon, 17 or 18 people died as a result of the disaster, and it caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. The flooding on the Willamette covered 152,789 acres (61,831.5 ha). The National Weather Service rated the flood as the fifth most destructive weather event in Oregon in the 20th century. California Governor Pat Brown was quoted as saying that a flood of similar proportions could "happen only once in 1,000 years," and it was often referred to later as the Thousand Year Flood. The flood killed 19 people, heavily damaged or completely devastated at least 10 towns, destroyed all or portions of more than 20 major highway and county bridges, carried away millions of board feet of lumber and logs from mill sites, devastated thousands of acres of agricultural land, killed 4,000 head of livestock, and caused $100 million in damage in Humboldt County, California, alone.
The Southern Pacific Red Electric Lines, also known simply as the Red Electric, was a network of interurban passenger train services operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad in the Willamette Valley of the U.S. state of Oregon from 1914 to 1929. The service got its name from the bright red color of its cars. Despite its short history, among West Coast interurbans it was unique, and it was considered the finest such system in the Pacific Northwest. It was the only major electric interurban railroad converted from steam to electric passenger use. It was also one of few systems using all-steel equipment, and one of the largest 1500-volt systems in the country.
The Valley and Siletz Railroad (VS) is a 40.6-mile (65.3 km) defunct railroad located in Polk and Benton counties in the U.S. state of Oregon.
