The internal combustion engine caused the change in agricultural areas.
Not only did it power automobiles, it replaced human labor on the farm. It started with water pumps, corn shellers and other single digit horsepower applications. Once the tractor took over, the decline accelerated. Visit an area where Amish still shun tractors. Notice the small size of the farms and large farm houses holding large families to work the land.
The light density rail network would have died with the highways. An over all decline in rural population density with agricultural mechanization reduced the need for small towns as much as the ability to travel farther with ease.
locomutt: I see u r a nieghbor, I retired to Charlestown,In 5yrs ago after 38yrs (train service) on the Milw/Soo/CPRR. I grew up in a small town(Pleasantville,In- pop100 on Easter sunday) in the middle of coal country, it dried up after school consolidation closed and eventualy removed the school buildings completely,left only the gymnasium which is still in use today after almost 60 yrs.In Indiana one can almost attribute every towns demise to the loss of the school.
Milw Butch
Another factor is the end of using coal for domestic heating. I recall the coal siding where I grew up but there were very few houses that took delivery in those odd dump trucks. The coal business shut down when everyone burned oil and not long after, the railroad went away.
My observation is that small towns failed more because of improved highway systems and car then because of the loss of rail service. The Interstate boom of the 50’s & 60’s doomed the economies of may small towns along their routes. The overall improvement of state highway networks doomed many others.
Railroads did not have the effective power to rationalize their bloated trackage until after the passage of the Staggers Act in 1980 - and it took several years after the passage of Staggers for the carriers to formulate and implement their abandonment plans and those plans were based on sustainable traffic levels. If a line did not possess the traffic level to sustain it’s operation it was a candidate for abandonment or spinning it off to a Short Line operator that could make a buck with the Short Lines reduced cost structure.
If there is a sustainable level of traffic that will cover it’s costs and return a profit - that traffic will be serviced. In today’s form of railroading that is not single car customers.
Here in Indiana, North Judson had 4 railroads crossing. 700 people were employed by the various railroads to operate and maintain them. Now, only the Hoosier Valley Museum operates out of there and all the jobs are gone. Railroads have reduced their workforce drastically since the change from steam to diesel, mechanizing the maintenance workforce and going from signal tower operation to CTC and electronic control of traffic.
TRAINS had an article that pointed out the rails are hauling twice the loads with a third of the employees. Many small towns were built to serve the railroad and those working for the railroad are no longer there. North Judson lost the tower crews, signal and right-of-way crews before the rails were removed. Now it is basically a retirement community.