Harre W. Demoro
Harre W. Demoro was a veteran Bay Area newspaperman and author of 11 other books on urban transportation, ferryboats and railroad history. These include a highly regarded two-volume set, The Key Route, a history of the Key System ferry and electric train system in the Oakland-Berkeley area, and Electric Railway Pioneer, the story of the Northwestern Pacific ferry and electric third-rail train network that served Marin County across the Golden Gate from San Francisco. He also was a coauthor of Special 26: Sacramento Northern, published in 1963 by Interurbans.
Demoro, a native of Oakland, Calif., covered urban transportation for the San Francisco Chronicle. He wrote extensively for magazines and was technical editor of Mass Transit magazine from 1976 to 1984. He passed away in 1993 and is survived by a daughter, Kristin.
Demoro served eight terms, seven of them as chairman, on the board of directors of the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association Inc., the owner and operator of The Western Railway Museum. Demoro's other memberships included the San Francisco Press Club, where he served two terms as first vice president; Pacific Coast Chapter, Railway & Locomotive Historical Society; San Francisco Maritime Museum Association; the Mechanics' Institute; Northwestern Pacific Railroad Historical Society; and Friends of the Nevada State Railroad Museum.
Demoro was a graduate of Oakland City College and California State University at Hayward. In 1985 he was honored as "Alumnus of the Year" by the CSUH Mass Communication Department. His reporting while at the Oakland Tribune on the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system's design and engineering earned him the journalism medal for "The Most Significant Writing on Engineering" in 1968 from the National Society of Professional Engineers. In 1990, Demoro was the first journalist to receive a "Tranny" award from the California Transportation Foundation.