Dedicated to the once vast network of electric railroads that covered the United States (and Canada).
>>885638
Could the old Electroliners still run on the loop today or has too much track been realigned for such a thing to happen?
>>885653
Only one of them is currently in operating condition, but in theory they could still physically run on the "L" if you could get them on there. The old routing through Chicago itself hasn't changed. The CTA, however, wouldn't allow it unless they were retrofitted to be compatible with modern signaling systems.
BCER, from 1897 - 1958. had a better system than anything they've built here today.
It lives!
About 60ish years after the originals trains stopped running Sonoma county in CA rebooted their interurban as a commuter train using DMUs.
>>885674
>did you know a minor gasoline tax could subsidize our entire west suburban mass transit system? too bad that would be literal communism, better let it burn instead...
>>885970
If we had kept the existing systems in place, sure. But 60+ years after the fact and with little to no infrastructure still intact? It would cost hundreds of billions to restore interurban service back to where it was nationwide in the 1920s.
Not that I don't think that's a great idea, it's just not very realistic.
>>885984
I was meme-texting as an Illinois legislator circa 1958, tbh.
>I rode in this. Deathtrap. Awesome
>mfw MILW-Autist thinks he knows shit about evil railroad conspiracies
>>885638
We had some interurbans in Europe, too!
Notice the double-gauged track: The red tram is an urban tram running on standard gauge, the green one is an interurban running on metre gauge.
>>886410
I'm not limited to one transportation-related conspiracy, friend.
>>886410
What's the conspiracy here?
>>886427
After the North Shore Line was discontinued, the CTA bought the last 5 or so miles outside of Chicago and revived it as a "pet project" in federally funded suburban transit. It was a big success, and continues on today as the Yellow Line.
Shortly thereafter, the communities north of the Yellow Line started forming a regional transit agency to help the CTA extend service back north and subsidize its operation.
While that was happening, the Chicago & North Western Railway (a long-time competitor) bought this (they had a lightly used freight branch parallel to the North Shore), scrapped the northbound track, then sold the right-of-way off to a power company to build those large, tubular power lines on.
The C&NW itself admitted that they didn't want to compete with the CTA out in the suburbs (prior to 1974, suburban transit in Chicago was entirely run by private companies) and did this to prevent the Yellow Line from being extended north.
Guess where one survived. Communist Cuba.
>>886606
Better check that out while you can, I'm guessing this kind of equipment won't last the neoliberal economic modernization that Cuba will soon undergo with the help of multinational corporations and American intervention.
>>886606
Running trains from my city. Truly an honor.
>>886700
>my city
Aren't you that autistic tram obsessed kraut expatriate that shits on the Spanish?
>>885970
why cant the system support itself?
>>886710
Because the competitor was heavily subsidized by way of 1950s public freeway construction.
>>886710
>>886711
Chicago decided to demolish the "L" line that the CA&E used to get into the city and build a superhighway (with trains running in the median) in its place. However, this took five years, and during that time, most CA&E riders either switched to cars or competing railroads. A year before they were to re-gain access downtown, they decided to simply quit altogether.
>>886701
aren't you that autist calling everyone on /n/ autistic?
>>886701
Yes, yes I am, although I'm not actually a kraut but swiss. Also, is someone considered an expat if he's been in said country most of his life and considers himself more at home in it that in his home country? legit question. I sometimes feel that I don't belong anywhere. Interurban pic for good measure.
Sacramento Northern is objectively the best interurban that ever existed. It even played a role in the creation of BART.
Which presidential candidate will make pic related real again?
>>889173
Where in Japan is this?
>>889179
Bay Point-machi, California Prefecture
>>889198
Grew up by there... but I can't speak Jap worth a crap
Got any New Haven?
Maybe P&W?
Some more SN
>>889234
>>889235
>>889236
Here's a map of the Northern Electric, a predecessor to the SN and which later made up the northern half of the SN's system.
>>889241
So what happened to most of the RoW anyway? Did most of it get pulled up when the SN died?
>>889236
>that slight cant deficiency
>that nice cut
>those poured concrete retaining walls
>that tidy wiring job
Wow they really didn't spare any expense.
>>889243
Yes, some of it has been paved over for highways, some of it has been redeveloped into housing and commercial space, some of it has been turned into bike trails, and some of it has remained in place but abandoned. The biggest sections of intact track are between Port Chicago and Rio Vista Junction, where the Western Railway Museum operates original SN interurban cars (and other rolling stock from other railroads) on a ~10 mile stretch of original ROW that has been restored to operation (with catenary). Besides that operating stretch owned by the railroad museum, most of the rest of the track still in place hasn't been used in decades.
The track for the Clarksburg branch (opened in the 1920s) was being pulled up back in 2006 (pic related) and is all removed now. Not sure what has happened to the ROW since then though.
>>889244
That subway (which passes underneath the lines of the SP and Santa Fe) is still intact but usually flooded and full of trash. It's also in a pretty sketchy neighborhood of Pittsburg.
>>889246
Thanks for the info. Did they rely on electric traction until the last days or did the wires come down before that?
What a shame that it's gone. If anything, the heavy rail connection between Oakland and SF that would have saved everyone a lot of headaches today.
The 22 miles of museum tracks sounds awesome though. Definitely beats the tiny loops most museums have up here in the Northeast.
![654-3[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ONh4sdK.jpg "654-3[1].jpg")
>>889249
The southern half of the line south of Sacramento completely de-electrified after 1957, following a major trestle collapse and the decommissioning of the SN's rail ferry "Ramon" across the Sacramento River. Other sections had been de-electrified from the 1930s onward. SN was a subsidiary of WP and dieselized around the same time as its parent company. IIRC the last section of track to de-electrify was the stretch between Marysville-Yuba City. Electric freight operations north of Sacramento lasted to some extent until 1965, interurban passenger service was discontinued by the early 1940s. Also important to note is that there were significant portions of the former Northern Electric that were third rail, and some remained so up until the last days of electrification.
If you are a fan of interurbans you definitely have to visit the WRM at least once, they have an amazing collection of restored streetcars, trolleys, freight motors, interurban cars etc. from around the country, and a lot of that is operational and on display.
Also if you are interested in the SN check out this website: http://www.wplives.org/sn/index.html
>>889249
>>889252
Also the SN continued to exist for another two decades after de-electrification as an operating subsidiary of the Western Pacific, along with the Tidewater Southern, another former interurban that WP bought up in the 1920s. The three companies were merged into UP in 1983.
>>889234
The were originally going to build a bridge where Ramon crossed.
The Interurban part of this bridge still exists Road part got fucked in a flood.
Did New York City ever have interurbans?
>>889729
Not really. Traffic in NYC was already big enough in NYC that building overland interurban lines in Manhattan or Brooklyn wouldn't have made much sense.
>>889729
Technically the Long Island Railroad, but that's a huge technicality.
![kt5779q9jr-d3e7858[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/cNiM4wU.jpg "kt5779q9jr-d3e7858[1].jpg")
>You can no longer take train rides across the US
rip
This is a pretty good resource from 1905, showcasing the types of interurban and street cars made by Brill.
https://books.google.com/books?id=aU6hKno3LbEC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpulGxVK6Q0
If you have a couple hours to spare, click this link, grab a cup of tea, sit back and follow the series of videos. Its a bunch of POV and trackside shots of the British Columbia Electric Railroad in the early fifties right before the interurban was decommissioned. Its nice and organised as you follow all the various lines. And its narrated by a motorman who worked on the interurban. The series was compiled in the early 90s, the narrator passed away a couple years ago unfortunately.
>>885678
>dat TTX idler flat car
From 1912 to 1930, Portland OR had a fun little trolley ride from downtown to a place now known as Dodge Park, a nice spot where the Sandy and Bull Run rivers meet. You and your big gay family could ride this...
...across this...
...to do this!
>>885644
That looks ancient as fuck. I mean it's 1958, we have modern automobiles now.
>>895317
Interesting construction.
>mostly private, double-tracked right-of-way
>80-90mph speeds in regular service
>competed head-to-head with inter-city streamliners
>last line to be abandoned, outlasted all but two
Sometimes I have to wonder if the other interurbans were even trying...
>>903911
>still ended up being abandoned
Sometimes I have to wonder if any interurbans were even trying.
>>902644
only murikans would think this normal
>>903943
Yeah, it should be metre gauge for economy.
there is a surviving line in Michigan, Indiana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Shore_Line_%28NICTD%29
>>903914
Had a suburban transit authority been created 10 years earlier, it would've made it.
>>885638
>tfw I started this interurban shit here about half a year ago
>tfw I'm non-American
>>903943
>build railroad in roadway in pre-auto era
>decades later
>carkekoldry in full swing
>"hey can we get some gubmit money to move our tracks?"
>"lol no fuck off commie"
>>889227
Have a map.
>>889227
One of my favorite interurban cars.
>>904546
The bullets were a brilliant bit of pre-war engineering and design. Such a shame they were never mass produced.
Why are photos like this so comfy?
>>904721
Because the image of a cold and windy day makes you conscious of how warm and comfortable you are while sitting in front of your computer.
How many interurbans ran on third rail in addition to, or in lieu of overhead wire?
Chicago, Aurora & Elgin
Laurel Line
LVT
North Shore Line
Phialdelphia & Western
Who else?
BC Hydro 960 at West Pender and Taylor St Downtown Vancouver 1969
>>906830
how it looks today
>>906299
Sacramento Northern ran largely on third rail north of Sacramento and on overhead wire between Sacramento and Oakland. This has to do with the fact that the SN was a merger between two distinct companies who built separate routes, with a common connection in Sacramento.
>>906830
>>906831
Nice.
>>906838
Did they ever have plans to convert the whole network over to either overhead or third rail?
>>906831
The Squamish Railway Museum is so comfy. Big yard that you can just wander through. Pretty decent length miniature railroad. Plus the roundhouse with the Royal Hudson. If you're a railfan visiting Vancouver it's worth the trip up to see.
>>906911
No, but I believe they equipped most of their interurban and freight motors with the ability to operate over both types.
![sn442[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/xfWMqEA.jpg "sn442[1].jpg")
>>906983
Yeah. A bunch of steeplecabs with a pantograph, a trolleypole, and sometimes third rail shoes. Not sure if that combo was ever replicated anywhere else.
anal
>>909549
You mean if there's a gap at a crossing or something? Momentum.
>>885638
Fuck GM for killing electric traction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrKlp1ApzEw
>>898332
I think you have an error there, did you mean cozy as fuck?
>>885674
Hey, rail for the valley?
Apparently they are an advicate to re-establishment of the old interurban route in the valley. I also understand that much of its right of way woud still be free.
>>909594
>tfw Sweden also had some old commieblock-like buildings
Anyway, have some other European one.
>>909628
pre-fab concrete was the death of actual architectural accomplishment :C
>>909644
Meh, I prefer these commie pre-fab buildings to the silly "post-modernist" shit they're building today.
Welcome to beautiful ShiTiPa Town.
>>889235
/n/gasm
>>889805
They were an interurban for a tiny bit, because the PRR and all of its railroads were weird, in that they were steam lines that did convert (The A train line before it became subway was a classical third rail interurban, the pattern of the LIRR in Brooklyn is literally interurban).
I just realized that Newark Light Rail might be the last surviving interurban as it never went away!
How did we go from this...
>>909706
...to THIS?
>>909603
Turku is probably the worst offender on what comes to destroying perfectly good neo-classical buildings under shady circumstances so much so that it's known as "Turun tauti" (Turku diseace / Åbosmittan på det andtra inhemska sråk).
In other ways, Turku is a bad picture, because they didn't have any interurban lines, no matter how much the term is stretched. I just found the picture nice, that is all. In Helsinki, with only slight generosity, the former lines KB, K, M and H, specially because the traffic authority of the day called them such, though it had more to do with ticket pricing than operation principle. Also M and H + KB were originally build and briefly operated by fully private companies.
I find your many "three foor" lines fascinating, specially as quite many, I understand survived up to mid 60s or so and the last days of passenger and small parcel traffic was handled by rail buses.
The three foot network in the southern Sweden seems quite extensive, what I can interpret from the maps online, but there seem to be many small companies with tracklenght from few tens to few hundreds of kilometers, how much these separate networks were connected and how much through traffic happened at the heyday of these railroads, or were they all separate systems, serving local standard gauge railheads and maybe harbors / lake harbors?
If anyone has bothered to read this flow of consciousness, here's a knob: what's happening in the pic?
>>909707
Definitely a change for the worse.
>>912798
Why did LAMTA go through all of the trouble of repainting them if they just ended up bustituting it a few years later?
>>903952
that is magnificent
![s-l1600[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/g4MAsGj.jpg "s-l1600[1].jpg")
>ywn ride on a poorly maintained and seldom used trolley line through beautiful rural countryside during the twilight years of streetcar operations
Feels bad man.
>>917112
You can get a similar experience by visiting the Isle of Wight, it uses prewar London Underground rolling stock.
>>917112
What model of streetcar is that? I had an N scale model as a child that I loved dearly. And now I'm sad again.
>>917147
It looks like it's on the "Laurel Line"
>>885638
104507
RIP ;_;
Also, I kind of like the "fruit salad" NCL paint scheme, too bad it signaled the end of interurban operations.
Does TTC count for this thread?
>>921529
>>921531
>>921537
Not sure, I'm not Canadian nor do I know anything about Toronto transit systems, I'm just posting some TTC photos I found.
I believe this one is from the last day of streetcar service in LA, back in 1963.
>>921543
Looking your interurbans, their operation look rather railroadish, whereas most Europosters have more tram-like image in their mind, I'd imagine.
Were they operated in mixed traffic how much?
What was a typical minimum curve radius?
>>924714
>Were they operated in mixed traffic how much?
Most interurban lines had street-running segments.
Many of them were originally streetcar routes that expanded over the years.
That said, an interurban is partly defined as having large portions of private, dedicated right-of-way.
>What was a typical minimum curve radius?
35' (10.6m) was relatively common.
>>924714
An interurban was loosely defined as a railway that...
>utilized electric traction
>utilized faster, heavier and larger-sized trams than electric street railways
>connected cities and towns
>operated mostly over private right-of-way, with some segments of mixed traffic
>>909707
That's pretty 80s looking.
R.I.P. in pieces my beloved <3
>>929983
Was any of this rolling stock preserved?
>>932196
About 24 of those standard cars survive in various museums, though I believe a few have fallen into complete disrepair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PtV2FvRYig
>>929983
>dat 3-car train with three raised trolleypoles
kawaii as fuck desu~
>>932196
Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL and Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin, IL both have a couple of units. IRM runs them pretty regularly.
>>934576
Is the Illinois rail museum worth visiting if I'm ever in the area? Is it near Chicago?
>>937702
>Is the Illinois rail museum worth visiting if I'm ever in the area?
Yes, it's one of, if not the best rail museums in the country.
>Is it near Chicago?
It's about 60 miles NW.
>>939113
GOAT paint scheme.
Restored catenary on the original ROW of the Sacramento Northern at the Western Railway Museum, Rio Vista Junction, using the same specs as the original poles.
Why did the Midwest have so many interurban lines?
>>948112
Best way to get around farm towns in bumfuck nowhere prior to the automobile.
>>948112
A lot of them also served as light freight lines for taking farm produce to market.
>>921507
Key System RIP in peace. All that's left in my neighborhood is a pair of concrete walls, and a curiously-flat trail.
>>948215
What once was. The theater is still there.
>>948219
Piedmont Station, Piedmont Avenue & 41st St. The station building still exists though the overhang is gone.
Shame they are gone.
>>948219
Why is that truck running on the left?
>>948728
looks like some sort of parade or convoy or something
will the states ever have a decent public transport system?
>>949725
Maybe if the Chinese decide to invest in one after WWIII.
Bump16
Didn't Philadelphia save *most* of its interurbans?
>>951066
Yes, people have barely touched upon this (>>909707) But other routes like the Philadelphia-Allentown "Liberty Bell" route (>>945416) and the suburban routes running adjacent to roadways were mostly abandoned. The Camden-Trenton River Line is also an example of a revived passenger service operating as a novel interurban, albeit diesel
>85mph
>>921531
>that cable spaghetti
there HAD to have been a neater way of doing that.
>>886730
>That bus though.
What even.
>>951743
we need more color pics of interurbans
>>955471
Unfortunately, only a few were left by the time color film became commonplace.
The Chicago, Aurora & Elgin 450-series were the last "traditional" interurban cars ever built (rolled out of the St. Louis Car Company shops in 1945).
After rail service ended in 1957, both Cleveland and Philadelphia considered purchasing them for rapid-transit service, but neither plan came to fruition.
4 of the 10 cars were preserved. The other 6 were scrapped in 1963, before they were even 20 years old.
>>955997
>4 of the 10 cars were preserved
Not bad, all things considered.
Why were interurbans so fucking comfy?
>>961061
>short trains or single units
>electric traction
>running through small backwaters in rural areas
>also runs on streets in mixed traffic
they were designed for maximum comfyness.
>>904078
>carkekoldry
I smirked.
