Willamette Valley Railway
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| Reporting mark | WVR |
|---|---|
| Locale | Northwestern Oregon |
| Dates of operation | 1993– |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Headquarters | Independence, Oregon |
The Willamette Valley Railway (reporting mark WVR) 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 (partly abandoned in 1995), 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.
Willamette Valley Railway began in 1980, when Mike and David Root were in search of a shortline railroad to operate. They located an eight-mile shortline between Willamina and Grand Ronde, and purchased the railroad from International Paper. They resurrected a former name of the railroad, the Willamina and Grand Ronde Railway (W&GR). The railroad rostered a single Alco S-1 locomotive and began hauling lumber from the sawmills in Grande Ronde and Fort Hill to its connection with the Southern Pacific in Willamina. Within a few years, the line from Fort Hill to Grande Ronde was abandoned; however, operations between Willamina and Fort Hill continued until the mid-1990s when the railroad was sold to Hampton Lumber Sales, the owner of the Fort Hill Lumber Company. Hampton chose to contract with Willamette & Pacific Railroad, who now operated the line into Willamina, which ran trains into Fort Hill on an as-needed basis.
Shortly after purchasing the W&GR, the Root brothers also acquired a three-mile branchline in Independence. The railroad was the remnant of the Valley and Siletz Railroad which had been previously abandoned south and west of Independence. The railroad was acquired from Boise Cascade, which used the railroad to access its timberlands in Oregon's Coast Range as well as a sawmill located in Valsetz. This railroad was renamed the Willamette Valley Railroad. The railroad now rostered an EMD GP9 locomotive and two EMD SW1200 locomotives, all of Southern Pacific heritage. One of the SW-1200 locomotives was repainted into a scheme reminiscent of Southern Pacific's Shasta Daylight passenger train and lettered "Willamette Valley".
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