CHENEY, Wash. — Author and railroad historian Charles V. Mutschler, 63, has died.

Mutschler, an archivist at Eastern Washington University who had been named interim dean of the university’s library system in 2018, was killed in an auto accident Sunday in Four Lakes, Wash., near Spokane. He had worked at the university for 37 years.

Mutschler was the author of two railroad books: “Spokane’s Street Railways: An Illustrated History,” published in 1987, and “Wired for Success: The Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railway,” published in 2002. He was chairman of the Cheney Historic Preservation Commission and president of the Cheney Depot Society, founded in 2016 to preserve the city’s 1929 Northern Pacific Railway Depot. He also worked with the Inland Empire Railway Historical Society, which operates the Inland Northwest Rail Museum in Reardan, Wah.