Santiam Excursion Trains

Santiam Excursion Trains are the passenger arm of the Albany and Eastern Railroad, a Willamette Valley short line based in Lebanon, Oregon. The rails carry deep Oregon history: the eleven-mile Albany–Lebanon main line was built in 1880 by the newly formed Albany and Lebanon Railroad, soon absorbed by the Oregon and California Railroad and then by Southern Pacific in 1887; a thirty-six-mile branch reached the booming lumber town of Mill City in 1910; and the Lebanon–Sweet Home branch was laid in 1930 by the Spokane, Portland and Seattle as a spur of its Oregon Electric passenger line. The modern company was created in May 1998 when BNSF spun off the Sweet Home branch, and it completed today's roughly 64-mile network in 2003 by buying the Albany–Lebanon and Lebanon–Mill City lines from the Willamette Valley Railway. With all three routes refurbished by 2011, the railroad began offering excursion and charter trains under the Santiam name in 2014.