dan sinker @dansinker.com · Apr 17 One side obsession from my research into the 1920s is the extensive network of ELECTRIC trains that used to connect cities and towns across the central Midwest called the Interurban. We had this more than a hundred years ago. The things we had and the things we lost.
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Not an interurban but RIP to the Milwaulkee Road and the Little Joes as well
My Grandfather told me about how he used to take the interurban back and forth for visits from Columbus to Massillon.
These were all systemically dismantled by the automakers though shell companies that bought up electric train companies, ripped them up, and replaced them with buses.
Electric trains aren't that special. It's not like they run on batteries. They just use overhead power lines that follow the track. Amtrak's Northeast Corridor MetroLiner trains were electric between Washington DC and New Haven from the early 70s. The Acela between DC and Boston is electric.
this is great. thanks for sharing. Detroit to Muskegon!!
I knew someone who, as an aspiring actor in the 1930s, rode the interurban train lines from Washington DC to Boston. So many of those rail lines throughout the U.S. were ripped up for metal to feed the war industries in the 1940s-50s, with active pressure from auto companies.
Just wild how many electric lines there were in the early 1900s. Virtually every podunk town in Otsego County NY was connected by a line that went from Oneonta (present day pop: 15k) to Mohawk (2.4k). Random middle-of-nowhere stops with names like "Bob's House" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souther...
My city, Toledo, also had steam powered city trolley cars that ran all over town. Now? Nothing. You can barely catch a bus.
The Interurban! Such a great network of train travel.
This makes me very sad! Return with a V! I’m loving the resources people are posting.
They should make a Who Framed Roger Rabbit 2 about what happened to the interurban.
the central Midwest lollllll
Yes this. Grew up in Wheaton Il, the dot on the Aurora Elgin and Chicago line west of Chicago. Now it's the Illinois prairie path system. Salt Lake City gave up their interurban rail rights of way. Now they are spending money to try to retrofit what never should've been given up in the first place.
WE. HAD. ELECTRIC. TRAINSSSSSSSS?!?!! !!!!!! !!!!!
Los Angeles had streetcars once upon a time. My understanding is that all of those old forms of “public” transportation were operated by privately owned companies, which the tire & auto companies bought & destroyed. Which is why public services must be publicly funded. #TaxTheRich #InvestInAmerica
In Marin County where I live the rails used to go to the ferries to San Francisco until the Golden Gate Bridge was built. Now we have traffic jams.
It's so fascinating! I did a research project for a grad class many years ago where I walked (as best I could) the path of the interurban line that extended from Indianapolis to Martinsville. I was surprised how much of the infrastructure (mainly bridge elements and the old rail bed) remained.
In the late 1800s there were many miles of narrow gauge railroads in the southern Rockies of Colorado and northern New Mexico. You could be homesteading at 8,000 ft and take a STEAM TRAIN to Denver, for example. Order tools, supplies, go pick 'em up. More isolation now than then.
Some say it was purposefully axed by the auto industry… I wish we could bring it back.
Half of Athens Ga was founded by electric trolley 100 years ago. Killed by auto industry.
For your interest Historical Map: Pacific Electric Railway System in Southern California, c. 1926 by Jake Berman Https://transitmap.net/pacific-electric-jake-berman/
the only thing truly gained since then is the amtrak route from grand rapids to chicago
I live in Columbia county in New York and one of the little things i have come to learn to see is abandoned railbeds in the woods. It's a great shame much of that land was sold off for nearly nothing to neighboring property owners. Even after nearly sixty years they're just barely covered.
curious to know WHY we lost these my guess is oil companies and car companies mostly oil companies, because (somebody told me) they also bought up patents for electric cars
🤯
I wrote about this. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
An elderly family friend of mine once told me a story about getting on the Interurban in Danville with a note pinned to his lapel and riding it all the way to St. Louis to visit relatives ... like when he was seven or some such ridiculous thing...
Melancholic thread to read. especially after having just visited Mannheim, where it is connected to its two neighboring cities (Heidelberg, and Ludwigshafen) by streetcar.
Side note of another lost opportunity cost: when Mr Diesel invented diesel fuel, he did it with vegetable oil.
Jeez that line between Columbus and Chillicothe if it still existed and had been updated accordingly over the years would have been great in grad school, when I had to make that commute daily for an internship. Actually I think all my grad school commutes would have improved if I'm reading it right.
May I say one bad thing about the South Shore Line? It’s not great in bad weather. I’m not sure why, but during the winter months my coworkers from Indiana were always coming in with those little excuse notes from the train station.
If you're in Chicago/northern Indiana, the South Shore line is one of the last remaining Interurbans.
The train station in Cincinnati is now a museum. Its architecture is beautiful, which I’m glad has been preserved but it’s also depressing knowing what we lost.
Up here in Wisconsin, at least a fair bit of it was converted to bike trails. But still.
The new Geoffrey Baer special goes into this a little bit too:
bsky.app/profile/lexa... (thread)
the beautiful scene in "Ragtime" where they take a trolley out of Manhattan to the north and just keep going to the end of the line, then transfer to the next trolley line, and the next, and the next, making their way across New England in that way
Rockford to Chicago!
Old-timers in Wilmette and elsewhere along its route have never ceased to mourn the loss of the North Shore Line, which was so much a part of everyday life. Gone over 60 years ago now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=T50g...
This photograph, made into a t-shirt, shows them handing a check over as they burn the last streetcar in the Twin Cities. burlesquedesign.com/collections/...
I learned a bit about this at the East Haven Shoreline Trolley Museum! It blew my mind that ~100 years ago you could commute to NYC from all the way up there by electric rail! Amazing!
This map of the Kansas City Interurban railway network in the 1920s alway makes me feel some ways Sad that we lost this Hopeful that we can have it again
One of my favorite maps of Illinois kind of zooms in on your map to show the insane level of connectivity here, the number of places accessible with a 1- or 2-seat ride is just mind boggling
It's simple, the Capitalists do not want to invest in anything that will not use gas (cars) or planes (private & all paid for with tax writeoffs with tax monies going to expand airports) -- it's better if American families drive 2 cars & spend money on gas monthly than if they purchase a train pass.
I did not know that. Thanks!!
Same issue in Australia; every little town had a siding for trains, and the big cities all had electric trams. Now we’re all jealous of Melbourne, which kept the trams.
Never forget that short hop airlines like SWA have lobbied for decades against HS Rail.
Wait WHAT?! I lived in the Midwest for 32 years and never knew about this!!
Where I grew up in SW Ohio, a giant chunk of it is fairly nice bike paths now, but wow it would be so much better if it was still trains.
there was a ton of that in upstate NY and even rural New England
Yes, things could have gone so much better worksinprogress.co/issue/why-ja...
Los Angeles was a world leader in transit until the early 60s ...before the freeways! imagine that back again...
pretty sure the regular spike in blood pressure i get thinking about our started-and-abandoned subway here in Cincy will be one of my fatal comorbidities
I was annoyed when I heard some guy on Rick Steves's podcast say the US built itself up with highways instead of railroads like Europe. I think I might've yelled back at the bluetooth speaker.
I can't allow myself to think to much about how much public transport infrastructure was built and deliberately trashed because someone decided 'no, only cars forever'. I get too upset.
My parents rode the interurban from St Joe to Kansas City. I live in Lawrence KS now. I wish I could go to KC on one like folks over 100 years ago did.