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BOOK REVIEW: Sacramento Northern by Harre W. Demoro;MSRP: $70, plus shipping.Signature Press, 11508 Green Road, Wilton, CA 95693800) 305-7942 • www.signaturepress.comReviewed by Roger C. ParkerFor several years now, I’ve been waiting for SignaturePress to release their Sacramento Northern book, originallywritten by Harre W. Demoro. There’s quite a story behindthe book, but, in short, the wait has been worthwhile. It’s aspectacularly good book.Harre W. Demoro, the “dean” of Bay Area electric railwayauthors, completed the original manuscript for the SacramentoNorthern book in 1991, but he died before the bookappeared. What Signature Press’s co-owners Bob Churchand Tony Thompson did was to not only publish Demoro’soriginal manuscript, but publish an even better book thatgoes far beyond what Demoro had envisioned.Signature Press added new text, including Chapter Six,“A Ride on the Sacramento Northern,” commissioned maps,and researched never-before-seen photographs to create anew standard in quality. The result is a truly significant book,one that traction fans and modelers should own.The Sacramento Northern is a finely-printed, large-formatbook, with 350-pages of beautiful photographs, maps, anddetailed information about the rise, peak operations, anddecline of one of America’s most interesting interurban lines.There are several reasons for the widespread popularityof the Sacramento Northern Railway. One is the variety ofenvironments through which it operated. The line extendedfrom the San Francisco Bay Area to Chico, Calif., operatingthe longest interurban passenger route in the United States.In the Bay Area, the Sacramento Northern was a high-densityurban line that originally terminated at the Key System’sOakland Mole ferry terminal, then moved to downtown SanFrancisco reached by trackage rights over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Outside the Bay Area, it operatedthrough the streets of several cities before serving a predominatelyagricultural rural area.An amalgam of several lines, the Sacramento NorthernRailway operated a wide variety of passenger and freightequipment, at both 600 volts and 1200 volts. Power wasdelivered through, at different points on the line, trolleypoles, pantographs, and outside third rail.The line’s signature characteristics included its long,multi-car passenger cars, complete with the line’s distinctiveopen-ended observation cars. Passenger trains regularly containedsix cars, although some were cut off at Sacramento.One of the line’s most interesting features was its unique carferry, the Ramon, which bridged Suisan Bay. Because of theline’s extensive agricultural freight business, the line owneda variety of steeplecab and boxcab freight engines, plus severalstyles of cabooses.The line included numerous wooden trestles, one ofwhich is a 4,000 foot trestle that collapsed under the weightof a steeplecab propelled freight train. Many of the photosof the collapsed trestle and train have been frequentlyreprinted.Many of the Sacramento Northern’s structures wereas distinctive as its rolling stock. There were numerousSpanish-influenced, Alamo-style stations, such as the uniquethrough-style one at Woodland. There was also a busy4-track station in Sacramento, accessed over street trackage.Reasons why every traction modeler will want this bookinclude the breadth of its photo coverage, the high-quality ofthe photographic reproduction, the informative and carefullyedited text, and the 20 maps which trace the line, mile bymile, and detail the most important stations.Although I own many books covering electric railwayoperations in the Bay Area, I had never seen many of thephotographs of the line’s 40th and Shafter private right-ofwayfacilities in Oakland, the exterior of the ivy-coveredWoodland station, and the exterior and street side of theSacramento terminal.I especially appreciated the descriptions of the numerousoperating details, including the procedures to switch from600 to 1200 volt power or from overhead wire to outsidethird rail. There are some great photos of the transitions takingplace, including close-ups of the line’s unique removablethird rail shoes.Signature Press’s Sacramento Northern is a hefty book,one which will provide its owner with renewed appreciationfor the Sacramento Northern and interurban electric railwaysin general. It’s a fitting memorial to both a great tractionauthor as well as the country’s premier interurban. The SacramentoNorthern was worth the wait.46 • O Scale Trains - July/Aug ’09