It can be amusing when some fans who never had the experience of real interurbans (enjoy the South Shore's street running while you can!) call some other type of electric railway an interurban.
The most amusihg case was the one stretch of non-paved passenger service track on the vast Third Avenue Transit - Third Avenue Railway system that extended from City Hall, Park Row, Manhattan to both the Yonkers-Hastings Line and the New Rochelle RR station (went farther north before my time). This side-of-road single track with passing sidings was the northern half on Yonker's Neperhan Avenue "5" operated by the 301-400 home-built lightweights that ran practially all the Yonkers lines and had a top speed of about 35 mph. This speed limitation (and that it never left Yonkers) did not stop NY railfans from calling this single stretch of non-paved track Thid Avenue's "Indiana Railroad."
Note that one should not call the "A" Subway - New Rochelle line an interurban either, even thorugh it ran in the The Bronx, Mt. Vernon, Pelham, and New Rochelle. Strictly a suburban trolley line, and all its service tracks were were in paved streets. The "N" Nanico line of Willksbarre Railways was entire PRW after a short distance from the downtown area, and a few blocks in Nanico, but was simply a country trolley line. Fun to ride though.
To provide some background, here are the North American interurban lines I rode:
South Shore, including South Bend street trackage, C&AE, including Batavia Banch,, North Shore, including Shore Line and Mundlein, but no local North Shore streetcars
West Penn, all lines running at close of WWII
Laural Line (Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley, Scranton -Wilksbarre, Nay Aug Park Branch
Baltimore and Annapolis
Pittsburgh Ry to Charleroi-Rosco, Washington, and Donnora
Waterloo Ceder Falls and Northern, both Ceder Rapids and Waverly (and Ceder Falls local car)
Lehigh Valley Transit, Liberty Bell and Easton Limited
Former Quebec Ry, then CN Quebec City - St. Joaquem
Overseas, several now abandoned Vicinal Lines, plus the operating Belgium coast line, the Rhinebahn between Mannheim and Heidelburg, and of course Manx Electric. Lots of mountain lines in Switzerland, some using streetcar trackage when entering cities and running between metropoliitan centers.. The Weiner Localbahn, Vienna - Baden
No, I would not count Staten Island Rapid Transit or the New Canaan Branch or the Gladstone branches as interurban lines. Sorry
Yes, of course many consider the Washington and Old Dominion as having been an interurban, and many, including me, continued to think of it as an interurban even when it was de-electrified. As far as I recall, all its passenger services were by self-propelled cars, first interurban cars and then gas-electric or diesel-electric doodlebugs. But I don't believe it is around anymore. Just pieces of it run by NS or CSX.
The branches you consider interurbans are considered, rightly in my opinion, by most people, as suburban electried commuter lines. And DC Metro with its special low-profile cars is clearly a rapid transit system.
Railfans have obsessed over the true definition of a Interurban ever since the South Shore called itself the last interurban. Its part of of the game that men play over who is the largest 3 foor man in the room. Now let me throw out there the Washington and Old Dominion..( Now the W&OD Trail)..It hauled electric passenger cars and heavy haul freight trains.....Also the definition of how big a metro area is....Talking to locals in Michigan City some still refuse to be assimilated into the Borg known as Chicagoland....I personaly think that some of the branches of NJ Transit,Metro North and even the DC Metro could be considered interurban. Silver Springs MD was out there for many years before the Metro.
Rather than contrasting the CA&E with the Fox Valley, one can contrast the CA&E main line, particularly east of Wheaton, with its own Batavia Branch.
Hitlen and Drew, in their classic book, did state the CSS&SB was the USA's last operating interurban. Other lines, like the Norristown line, were characterized as having interurban characteristics but were not real interurcen bans. Now, granted that the CSS&SB was built as an interurban, but to steam railroad standars, when do my critics say it ceased being an interurban? When the IC started hauling its AC electric cars to Randolph Street behind steam? When it changed its electrification? When E. Chi. street running quit? With double deck cars? With diesel freight?
I will opt for no more street running and only then.
The same could be said for Texas Electric's and Illlinois Terminal street trackage. I have seen automotibles use the MC tracks as a perfectly acceptable lane. Some of it meets your description, but the area around the station is a concrete paved street with tracks imbedded. Jack London Square does not have overhead wire or self-propelled electric passenger equipment. Call the South Shore anything you want. It's a free country with freedom of speech. I simply state what I think it is.
INdeed, the West Penn wide-gauge tracks in Connnolsville and Uniontown looked much the same as the South Shore's iin Michigan City. T-rail instead of grooved "girder rail", wide deep flangeways where a child could catch his foot, etc. But the West Penn's "trolley freight interchanged only with Pittsburgh Ry's and certainly did not resemble frreight railroad in any sense. But the steam and then diesel Union Freight in Boston did use girder rail with street tracks looking like streetcar tracks in Atlantic Avenue and Commercial Street, somewhat deeper flangeways typical of Euuorean tramlines, but of course no overhead wire or self-propelled passenger equipment and no intercity operation.
If you examine the new track on Canal Street, New Orleans, the downtown paved area, you will find track similar to the South Shore's paved Michigan City track, this on a local streetcar line! (Of course much sharper curves for the crossover switches!)
All CA&E cars had both trolley poles and third rail shoes like nearly all North Shore interurban cars. The operations withiin Elgin and within Aurora used overhead wire.
CSSHEGEWISCH The Michigan City street running does resemble an interurban operation but it isn't that different than the UP/Amtrak operations to Jack London Square in the Bay Area. It may be in the street but the line through Michigan City was built to steam road standards and lacks the really tight curves of an interurban, note that the jog between 10th and 11th Streets moves off the street right-of-way to ease the curve rather than stay in the street.
The Michigan City street running does resemble an interurban operation but it isn't that different than the UP/Amtrak operations to Jack London Square in the Bay Area. It may be in the street but the line through Michigan City was built to steam road standards and lacks the really tight curves of an interurban, note that the jog between 10th and 11th Streets moves off the street right-of-way to ease the curve rather than stay in the street.
CSSHEGEWISCH Many have considered the SEPTA Norristown Line (ex-Philadelphia & Western) to be more nearly the last interurban than South Shore and I would tend to agree with that opinion. The current equipment on that line is similar in size and appearance to an updated Brill Bullet. Third-rail current supply is hardly a disqualification as CA&E was also primarily a third-rail operation.
Many have considered the SEPTA Norristown Line (ex-Philadelphia & Western) to be more nearly the last interurban than South Shore and I would tend to agree with that opinion. The current equipment on that line is similar in size and appearance to an updated Brill Bullet. Third-rail current supply is hardly a disqualification as CA&E was also primarily a third-rail operation.
BroadwayLion Those are Traffic Lights, not street lights. ROAR
Those are Traffic Lights, not street lights.
ROAR
The AE&FR handled hoppers on a regular basis from the interchange with the IC at coleman to the Elgin State Mental Hospital. Although the Batavia branch of the CA&E was single track, trolley pole, there was little street running, while much/most of the AE&FR was in streets and highways. The CA&E otherwise was fast, overunning, exposed 3rd rail, much to the delight of naughty boys on a summer night.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Not so huge. The Batavia branch of the CA&E was very much like the AE&FR, and I understand that the AE&FR did on occasion handle interchange regular freight cars. The Indiana Railroad (the 1931-1941 interurban, not the current Indiana Rail Road regional) had some real extremes. It did handle interchange freight in a few places (Bickley Mine spur for one) but most of its freight operations were with equipment that could be interchanged only with connecting interurban lines. Its medium and heavyweight steel cars were almost as heavy as the South Shore's (with three ending up there), but the High Speeds resembled a modern (2013) intercity bus more than a conventional railroad car! (comfortable seats facing in one direction only, right front door, blind left side, etc.). Interurbans covered a wide gamut, from equipment simply modified streetcars (PCC's built for the Pittsburgh to Washington and Charleroi Pittsburgh Railways (definitely) inerurban lines) to the huge cars of the South Shore, some Pacific Elecric, etc. Indeed, within Pacific Electric's operations, you can find extremes with greater differences than between the Rauren Elgin and the Fox River. Or how about contrasting the Skokie Valley main line with the Mundelein branch when it was operated, except for the rush hour through trains, by the two lightweights that were then put into storage for being unsafe mixed with the heavyweights.
General characteristics of interurbans include some limited intown street running, at least occasional single-car operation, self-propelled electric passenger equipment, at least some overhead wire current collection, operation between more than one metropolitan center, more than just a city to its bedroom suburbs. For example, Waco, Texas, is not just a suburb of Dallas, Aurora not just a suburb of Chicago, and Milwaukee not just a suburb of Chicago, Long Beach not just a suburb of Los Angeles.
Norristown lacks any overhead wire or street running, and Norristown is questionable as a separate metropolitan area from Philly. Thus, to me, the CSS&SB is still a better example unitil the Michigan City street running is bypassed. Then, to me, it will finally loose its character as an interurban.
The IT? And you have to admit there was a huge difference between lines close together such as the CA&E contrasted with the AE&FR.
I would also point out that the Piemont and Northern and the Sacramento Northern were primarily freight carriers and were also considered interurbans. The SN also had local streetcars (three local operations, Sacramento, Marysville-Uba City, and Chico, but not the P&N. On boh interurbans, the passenger equipment was full size like the SS&SB.
In addition to the remaining street running, the South Shore passenger service is still operated by self-propelled mu cars, and not locomotive-hauled trains, and yet it is more than just a suburban passenger operation, with people commuting to jobs in Michigan City and possibly to the South Bend Airport, as well as Chicago. And all passenger service uses catenary supplied electricity.
Trains and lots of oher railfan publications call double-truck lightweight safety cars that do not have tapered ends as double-truck Birneys. But even Brill, who had the BIrney patents, never called such cars Birneys. Strictly speaking, the term BIrney should be reserved only for single truck (4-wheel) streetcars built by Brill and its various subsidiaries, including American and Wason. But Osgood Bradley built similar cars and they are called Birneys, and St. Louis and CC&F some also. Cincinnati's had enough differences (curved sides and very different trucks) that they escape being labeled Birneys.
A good case can be made for considering some of the new Light Rail lines as interurbans, particularly those based on Portland, OR, Los Angeles, Denver, and St. Louis. In some cases they do indeed duplicate an old interurban line, like LA's Blue Line. But they are new so they are Light Rail.
The very professional magazine, LRTA's Trams and Urban Transit, did print my letter pointing out that Docklnds Light Rail is not light rail at all, with cars weighing more that CTA's, end doors, train operation all the time, third rail pickup, high platforms for level boarding, and no street running and not even any grade crossings! But the name sticks!
The Norristown Line was really a prototype for modern light rail. (No end "train" doors and lots of single-car operation) So was and is Shaker Heights. Both retained their characters. Media and Sharon Hill are suburban trolley lines. The Lehigh Valley Transit's Liberty Bell line, which had trackage rights over P&W to reach the 69th Street Terminal, was definitely a true interurban in every sense.
Interurbans generally priced tickets by distance like ralroads. Light Rail, streetcars/trolleys, and rapid transit genrally had and have one fare or zone fares.
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Well....Over the weekend I saw a SS Locomotive blast down the street in MC IN they now have the streetlights under automatic control.... Now since locos don't stop on a dime I was surprised to see this huge monster (Compared to everything else in its way doing 30 mph down E 11th street.
Now I would venture to say that SEPTA Doylestown Line is closer to a interuban as well as the old Deux-Montagnes line that had MU cars and train windows that opened
The word interurban has two meanings, one legal and one characteristic. YOu are absolutely correct on the first meaning. However, note that at one time both the South Shore and the North Shore were legally Class One Railroads. But nobody would doubt that characteristically, the North Shore was an interurban, the very best in many fans' eyes. The Hudson and Manhattan was the railroad legalliy but a rapid transit subway line characteristically. The existing Port Authority Transit Company, PATCO, the Lindenwald line, is legally an interurban but characteristically a rapid transit heavy rail line.
As long as the South Shore runs on the street in Michigan City, with its passenger and freight trains controlled by ordinary street traffic lights, with a store-front passenger station, fans have every right to still call it an interurban.
Most interurbans hauled freight as a side show....The SS made it a main part of there buisness. Now I know NICTD and how that works but without the freight to help pay for the road bed they would have gone the way of the North Shore which had much less freight traffic???
South Shore was always a bit different from most interurbans, having been engineered to steam road standards at the outset. The Insull passenger car fleet as built was short (60-61 feet) but filled out a steam road clearance card in other dimensions. The real changeover began during and after WW2, with the stretch of a large percentage of the passenger cars to 77 feet and the acquisition of the Little Joes and R2's for freight service. The 1980's completed the job with the dieselization of freight service and the takeover and re-equipping of the passenger service by a public agency (NICTD).
Um, Bonaventure10,
The South Shore Line is now two railroads: The CSS, a diesel powered class III short line, and the NICD, a government operated electric passenger service.
Confused,
NW
There conductors and engineers are under railroad retirement ,they haul more freight in tonnage then passengers in tonnage,they can run 80 MPH, There overhead voltage is higher then streetcars and they share the same tracks as a Class 1...CN/IC. Now the SS may have started out as the Toonerville Trolley way back but since the acquisition of the Little Joes and the fact that they now have 125 car coal trains and use Commuter Rail equipment and not light rail like St Louis does....The SS is a railroad!!!
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