The Ohio interurbans were fairly early (00s or 10s). This interurban didn’t even begin operations until 1920.
In response to daveklepper, the C&O and South Shore stations in Hammond are about a mile apart. The South Shore station is on Hohman Ave. just south of Gostlin and I assume that C&O used the Erie/Monon station on Douglas just east of Hohman.
The Southern Pacific’s interurban subsidiary in Portland. OR?
Wait, of course,
SP’s Interurban Electric, with Sacramento Northern’s interurban passenger service gone after two years and Key system remaining. The major city being Oakland, not SF, unless you include the SP ferries.
IE dated back to the teens. To recap, and add a couple of hints:
The system I’m looking for opened for business in 1920, with two divisions, running out of its home city in different directions, one division running mainly on a class 1 railroad’s main line. When it folded in 1932, fetching $500 at auction, its main city had two remaining interurbans, of which one folded in 1934.
Additional hints:
Neither of the other lines ever got any all steel cars, and both of them ran limited services with colorful names. The one remaining line after 1934 had an end-to-end length of over 160 miles making it almost as long as the SN, but it never offered through service through the large city. Finally, all three lines shared the same terminal in the major city.
Well, it is obvious that the one remaining line with that end-to-end length was the Indiana Railroad, and the major city was Indianapolis. k
I will have to take some time to do what research I can on other interubans…
'Or do you mean the 160-mile long interurban never had all-steel cars, but still lasted until sometime after 1934? That would rule out Inianapolis and the Indiana Railroad. Maybe Dallas and Texas Electric as the survivor.
Reght. Texas Electric was the survivor, and the interurban you want is Texas Intgerurban,with one line to Denton almost entirely on Katy tracks, and the purpose-built line to Terrill. Have not looked up the name of the line abandoned in 1934. Texsas Interurban was sold in 1932.
You got it. Texas Interurban really had no business being built at all, and never covered either it its operating or capital costs. Texas Electric had “Bluebonnet” service to Waco, and the other line, Northern Texas Traction, had “Crimson Limited” service to Ft. Worth. The interurban terminal was owned by Dallas Railway and Terminal, the city system. Stone and Webster was involved in both DR&T and NTT in the early years. Texas Interurban’s line to Denton was owned and dispatched by M-K-T. Two DR&T lines built for Texas Interurban service outlasted the interurban, in one case by more than 20 years. The Interurban Terminal was still in use by Trailways until their operations fizzled in the 1990s. Some TI work equipment, along with a lot of parts, ended up on DR&T. Texas Electric’s rail operations lasted until 1948.
An amusement park was located on the outskirts of a certain medium-sized city. From downtown, and close by the railroad station, one could ride a lightweight one-man streetcar to the amusement park, and these came in two varieties, one variety being more modern with semi-automotive styling. An alternative was to ride a wood interurban car, one of only two wood cars remaining on this interurban line’s roster, with the two wood cars being the only operationally double-end cars. The standard car on the interurban line, with hourly runs to a distant middle-sized city, were steel cars, with doors and traps at both ends, but normally setup for single-end operation, two-man for either one-car or two-car trains (mu), and a loop at each terminal. But the ride to the amusement park, on a branch of the interurban, involved a reverse move and switch from third-rail to trolley-wire power.
Name: Citiy 5 points
Distant City 4 points
Interurban line nickname: 4 points
Interurban line full name 4 points
Amusement Park name 3 points
Car builder of the more modern of the lightweigiht streetcars: 3 points
Name of the other streetcar lines running in the city in 1949-1950: 1 pt each
Additional rail and amusement park information on either city or both or between, 1 point for each item. (Paint, other stations, connecting railroads, conditions today, etc.)
I’m doing this without the book, so let’s see how well it goes:
City: Scranton PA
Distant City: Wilkes-Barre PA
Interurban nickname: Laurel Line
Interurban Full Name: Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley
Amusement Park: Nay Aug Park
Car builder: Osgood-Bradley
Other Scranton streetcar lines: Petersburg, Green Ridge
The Laurel Line tunnel in Scranton, at 4700+ feet a third again longer than Pittsburgh’s Mt. Washington Tunnel, is now part of the Steamtown/Electric City site. I seem to remember there being a big amusement park directly on the Lurel Line, at Wilkes-Barre?
There were a number of connecting interurbans, and the Scranton system itself had some long suburban/interurban lines, including one to Pittston. The Scranton sytem itself was a very early (1886) Van Depeole installation, with their usual platform-mounted motors and balky chain drive. Like the other VanDepeole systems, the cars were eventually replaced with Sprague-type cars.
Most of the Laurel Line ROW is intact, though without rails.
Went very well indeed, and only one error. You got enough points, obviously, that you are the winner without doubt.
I can add: The main line was third rail except within Willksbarre limits where frequent grade crossisng meant trolley wire. The museum operation includes the tunnel, which was used by the Nay Aug Park branch cars, reversing just south of the tunnel, and is trolley wire. There was another amusement park half way between Willksbarre and Scranton, but I forget its name. The four Scranton streetcar lines still running in 1949-1950 were Nay Aug Park, South Scranton (served by a trolley-wire Laural Line freight branch that still sees diesel freight service, but I don’t know which railroad), and Green Ridge Peoples and Green Ridge suburban, two lines serving the same suburb built originally by two copeting companies, probably in the horsecar days, In 1949 and 1950, steam commuter service was provided primarily for coal miners between Scranton and Carbondale, with steel roller-bearing open-platform coaches,usually with 2-8-0 power. In Wilksbarre, at the time, most local routs were trolleybus, but the long cross-country line to Nanicoke remained, with one-man arch-roof cars, and there was shuttle to Hanover from a junction south of another amusement park, about half way betwen Nanicoke and Willksbarre, named San Suci or San Soci. Where else in the USA in 1949 or 1950 could you travel betwen three amusement parks using only electric rail?
My first visit was in the winter of 1949-1950 as an MIT Freshman with Richard Seeley, an MIT Sophmore. Our trip was PRR to Philly, Market St. El, (P&W)LVT to Allentown, Northhampton, Fairview Yard, South Bethlahem, Mincie Trail, then LV to Willksbarre, Nanicoke, Hanover, Larula Line to Scranton, hike the South Scranton Laural Line branch ride the four remaining car lines, then DL&W (in a Nickle-Plate Coach) back to Hoboken and H&M to Manhattan.
I returned in the summer of 1950 as
Let’s move away from electric railroads to somthing a little different.
This railroad which was well known for conservative markings and colors on its equipment electrified the industry in 1951 with large white letters spelling out the road’s nickname on a series of (still oxide red) boxcars. The markings later were used on other equipment, in other colors
SOO
I still need the railroad’s legal name.
MINNEAPOLIS SAINT PAUL AND SAULT SAINT MARIE (SP?)
[:P] har, that sounds like my Rabbi!
It would be Minneapolis, St. Paul and SAULT STE. MARIE. (Francais , please). In french, a “sault” is a place in the river of tumbling rapids.
Dave had it (with a little more info). The cars were actually painted at Wisconsin Central’s Fond Du Lac WI shops (WC had been leased by MSPSSteM since 1909) and about half of them were on WC equipment trust certificates. The large lettering eventually made it to the sides of locomotives after the 1960 MSPSSteM/WC/DSS&A merger that created the Soo Line Railroad. The “New Soo” used the large lettering along with a color band for “Colormark” specialized cars, a program that began in 1965.
One railroad has some fairly modern Pacifics, then bought some Hudsons, and then sold some of its heaviest Pacifics to another railroad, that was also buying new Pacifics while other railroads were buying Hudsons. The second railroad used both its new Pacifics and the second-hand Pacifics for all its most important trains except for one train. (Foreign power did visit, also generally Pacifics.) And these Pacifics regularly ran through on neighboring railroads in through passenger service. They were too heavy for bridges on certain lines, where passenger service was powered by lighter and older steam power. The selling railroad generally used its new Hudsons on its best trains, but also used heavier power. And it retained a large Pacific fleet as well.
Massive dieselization of road passenger power did not start on either railroad until WWII. Both railroads had passenger service of one sort or another up to Amtrak and saw passenger trains afterward.
I’m going to go with the DL&W acquiring Hudsons and selling some of it’s Pacifics to the B&M, who was acquiring new, big Pacifics, one of which has been the subject of a very long restoration effort by Steamtown. B&M often shared power in run through service with both the Maine Central and the Rutland. I’m guessing the one important train you refer to is the vest pocket diesel streamliner, the “Flying Yankee”. B&M also had a lot of branches which would not tolerate power as big as their Pacifics. These lines utilized rebuilt Moguls, Consolidations, a few Atlantics and some classy Americans. Their ten-wheelers played out prior to the war.
100% And you covered all basies except to possibly mention that the only foreign passenger power that was not of the Pacific type belonged to the Rutland. Its 4-8-2’s ran regularly over the B&M into Troy. Also, B&M shared power on through runs with the CP, also Pacifics. Next question please.