Interesting article about one of the many misfired schemes in the heyday of the interurban boom.
http://www.kpcnews.com/articles/2007/04/19/features/columnists/bob_gagen/doc462780d4cd906592879236.txt
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
The preserved Dan Patch locomotive has an interesting history. After Dan Patch went south it was sold to the Central Warehouse Company in St Paul where it was converted to trolley operation and then sold to the Minneapolis, Anoka and Cuyuna Rage in 1922 and I believe lasted there until the line, which had changed ownership, de-electrified in about 1957. It actually was not a diesel but a gas electric on the Dan Patch and is now in the Minnesota Transportation Museum.
No less an authority than George W. Hilton once opined in a book review in TRAINS of an interurban history that a good interurban history should cover: 1. where the interurban intended to go, 2. where it actually got, 3. how much damage the shortfall caused.
The classic example of overreaching was the Chicago-New York Electric Air Line, which wound up being a nowhere-to-nowhere line in northwest Indiana as part of Gary Railways' interurban lines. Most of Milwaukee Electric's lines beyond the Milwaukee city limits intended to go further than they did.
Certainly agree that C-NYEAL represents either the ultimate or the basement (depending on your perspective) of interurban dream-schemes! The dreamt-for, big city-to-big city, high-speed operation was certainly not borne out by the way they ran what they actually built - stopping at every wide spot in the road to make connections to this or that town, etc.
Art
Another Grand Scheme came to mind...The Windsplitter Interurban....a series of scientific tests using a flat car mounted with various body shapes was run down a cooperating line in the study. Gauges were attached to measure wind resistance. The idea was to save energy costs. Finally.... a parabolic shape was the winner, whose front end looked much like an arrowhead. Some cars were ordered and constructed on this design..which was bizarre to say the least...and they spent the remainder of their careers plodding along on lightly built right of ways, at sedate speeds, to put it mildly....what an odd sight they must have been.
An interesting topic gentlemen. one that's near and dear to my heart. My own home Province of Ontario was once criss crossed with interurbans and some city lines with dellusions of grandeur.Sir Adam Beck's dream was to have every major Ontario city connected by electric routes,one that for a time 1900's to 1935 almost happened many a Hydro Electric Power Commission line ( utility owned at least 30 different lines ) and the lines owned by the Canadian Northern were for a time a going concern.Times and governments changed and the rubber tired vehicles one out. Sir Adam's Prot tyopr the London and Port Stanley tough only 17 miles long but was the "prototype" of his grand scheme was the last to shut down in the late 50's.I ahve the privilage of helping preserve and operate it's last operating car Jewett car #8 at the HCRY museum.
Rob
Hello again. Yes the L&PS was a unique little interurban. The G8's L4 and L5 just seemed to fit with the way they did things.CN also stabled some of their big sisters the G12 again for the small light rail branchlines on Vancouver Island and PEI. In fact the two G8's ended up out on Vancouver Island as well.from what I understand the G8's were not used all that much ny the L&PS only grudgingly when the three boxcabs were either busy or laid up for repairs. They were found to be too light to pull the coal trains up from the harbour a job that sometimes required all three of the electric box motors.From t what we found in talking to former L&PS employees that were on hand when we were refurbishing #8. The big Jewetts were used as feight locomotives up until 1960 when CN removed the electrification from the line ,passenger service ended in 1956.Seeing as how #8 and here sisters weighed in at close to 50 tons they were more capable of getting frieght trains moving than the two G8's. By the time passenger service had eneded all three of the electric loco's were out of service and no repairs on them were deemed economic to do. Suprisingly two of the three still exist. our museum has L2 we haven't restored it to operation yet. And the Elgin county railway museum in St thomas has L1, it's had a nice external paint and window type restoration done to it, they also have large Jewett #14 and are slowly doing a cosmetic restoration on it as well.
The closest we got to a Chicago-Toledo interruban was the Toledo & Western plus the St Joseph Valley (which was never electified past Bristol) plus one of the Chicago - South Bend interurbans. Might have been interesting to see what would have happened if that had come to fruition. Thie real money maker would have been freight, but it would have been a good route for an interurban sleeper.
The most unfortunate what-if was the interurban running west northwest out of Crawfordsville. The grading had been largely finished and track was about to be laid when teh treasurer absconded with the funds. Had this line been completed, it would have been a simple matter to connect the Indiana-Ohio network with the Illinois Traction System. I suspect the freight traffic would have been enough to keep the Indiana system running until WW2.
Hi - There was a linkage between the OH-In-IL interurban networks, although not from northern OH, as you were discussing with the potential extension of the St. Joe Valley. BTW, the SJV proposed extension to Toledo several times, the last being in 1918, when the line was already in receivership. The line was sold for scrap later that same year. One car was sold to the NIRy, operating in the South Bend city system for another 20 years or so.
The OH-IN-IL interurban connection existed through Dayton-Richmond and then through the UTC (later IR)-Winona-NIRy-SSL connection. NIRy's abandonment of interurban service in mid-1934 severed this all-electric connection.
artpeterson wrote:The OH-IN-IL interurban connection existed through Dayton-Richmond and then through the UTC (later IR)-Winona-NIRy-SSL connection. NIRy's abandonment of interurban service in mid-1934 severed this all-electric connection.
A slightly more direct route was via the Ft Wayne, Lima and Van Wert though the Dayton and Western lasted a bit longer.
On the subject of the St Jospeh valley, I was able to trace most of the route using a combination of 7.5 minute topos and the satellite view from Google maps. Surprising how much remains after being gone for almost 90 years.
At least two St Joseph Valley depots are still standing. These are the brick depot at Middlebury and the frame depot at LaGrange. We have property near Shipshewanna and cross the St Joseph Valley (and NYC) roadbeds every time we come in from the south. There may be a surviving depot or two east of LaGrange. I have not looked for them, but Ghost RR's of Indiana mentioned one or two depots being converted to private use. I think the St Jpseph Valley used a storefront in Shipshewanna as a depot (like many other interurbans did), and this may be still another surviving depot if the building still stands.
Even if the lines had been completed they would not have lasted past the 1930's. Most interurbans were competitive in getting country folk into the county seats, etc., but were never competitive over a long haul. South Bend-Indianapolis, Indianapolis-Louisville, etc. were about the longest they could try to match service against a steam road. As soon as people discovered the convenience of automobiles the die was cast.
There were very few electric lines that didn't benefit from WW2, provided that they survived to the start of WW2.
My point about the St Joe Valley road was the benefit for freight haulage with a more or less direct connection from Chicago to Toledo. Same thing has the ITS had a connection with what became the Indiana RR. Both would have opened up larger markets for freight haulage and decrease losses so that some of the Ohio-Indiana network may have survived to WW2. At the same time, it is likely that most of the remaining network would have shut down not long after WW2 ended.
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Get the Classic Trains twice-monthly newsletter