BAERA/ Western Railway Museum

The Bay Area Electric Railroad Association (BAERA) was created in 1946 to foster interest in streetcar, interurban, and mainline electric railroad operations, and to preserve these rapidly vanishing pieces of history. BAERA’s continues its mission to preserve the regional heritage of electric railway transportation as a living resource for the benefit of present and future generations through the operation of the Western Railway Museum on Route 12 in Solano County. Since its inception in 1985, the museum has served this role by encouraging the study of electric railways, their physical equipment, properties and operations in northern California and the West, and by procurement and preservation of historic electric railway equipment, materials, and property, and display and interpretation of surviving historic equipment, materials and properties. All of this has been possible by the Museum’s 2001 expansion creating the Visitors and Archives Center, and the opening of the Loring C. Jensen Memorial Car House, a fully enclosed, publicly accessible artifact storage and display facility in 2008.

A visit to the museum offers the opportunity to ride historic streetcars and interurban electric trains from all over California and other western states. Streetcars loop the shaded picnic grounds. Interurban cars run over the restored main line of the Sacramento Northern Railway. With over 50 historic cars on display, railway exhibits, the Museum Store and Gift Shop and the large, shaded picnic grounds, the Western Railway Museum is ideal for family and group outings.

Planning your visit is just a click away at www.wrm.org/about/visitor_center.htm. Also inquire about joining the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association as a member, donor, or volunteer to continue the legacy of electric rail travel in California.