A New Interurban Era?

[Falcon48]

blue streak 1

IMHO:  The demise of many interburrbans and street car systems is the economics of the situation. Compare the 1920s with a streetcar or birney with maybe two person crews carrying about 40? seats or the PCC one crew carrying 44? seats. I do not know the PE operating rules or crew requirements. Since most PE lines survived longer maybe it had to do something with longer trains and the same amount of crew. Also the north shore line may have lasted longer for this reason and its demise tied to the take over of CTA by the city slowing down its travel times.

once a system could change to 53 seat buses if the salvage value of rail system could pay for those buses then the change was economically called for.

Move to the 2010s and there is now a different metric. The ability to MU any number of vehicles changes the number of passengers one operator can carry. Now a system needs to be built for MU and my travels on several systems seems to prove that is a help. Planning for a MUed system is important and the negelect of some systems to provide for such is very regrettable, such as Charlotte, NC. There are many items that go into building for a MU system: Robust electrical distribution, long platforms or future space to lengthen platforms, priority traffic light systems, signal systems, proper spacing of double track seqments on single track portions of a system, provision to have some cars of a much shorter leength for off peak periods or the end of a line, and one of the most important is space to store one or more cars of enroute trains short of the trains' destination: as other than for maintenance reasons excess capacity (read empty seats) should be parked and picked up on the next train in the other direction. 

  The reasons for the long survival of the PE in Los Angeles and the North Shore in Chicago are somewhat different.  The PE was a subsidiary of a much larger railroad - the Southern Pacific - and many of the PE lines were important freight routes (some still are).  That has two consequences.  First of all, the passenger service benefited from sharing many of its costs with the freight operation.  Secondly, even if the passenger operation itself iwas losing money (as it undoubtely was from the 1930's on), the value of the PE, as a whole, to SP was probably positive.  Had PE been a passenger only operation, it likely would not have survived the 1930's. None of this means that SP should have continued a money losing passenger operation because it was making money on freight, and obviously SP did not intend to do so.  But more on that later. 

The North Shore, on the other hand, was a stand-alone railroad, not part of a larger system.  The reason it survived was that it had an excellent access to Chicago over the Chicago 'L' rather than over city streets, and gave a service that was far superior to anything that could have been provided by busses or autos before the development of the expressway system.  Unlike PE, however, freight was only a small part of its business, which could not hope to offset passenger losses if the passenger operation went south.  Thus, once the passenger operation became a loser, the railroad as a whole was doomed.  The CA&E was in the same boat and suffered the same fate (the South Shore, which had - and has - a far more robust freight operation, did not). 

The reasons for abandonment for both PE and NSL are essentially the same - loss of passnger business to autos.  But the path is different.  We can't know for sure what was going through the minds of the PE and NSL managers, but we can take a pretty educated guess based on what they actually did.  In the case of PE, it appears that SP must have come to the conclusion in the mid to late 1930's that PE's passenger service was not only a loser, but had no reasonable expectation of recovery.   They apparently made the same kind of determination as to their electric suburban operations in the San Francisco area, abandoning their Oakland operations once it became clear that operations over the Bay Bridge were financially hopeless, and the Marin County operations when the Golden Gate Bridge opened.  Some other electric rail operators followed the same path.  In Milwaukee, for example, the Milwaukee Electric had embarked on a major improvement program in the 1920', which continued into the 1930's, and then abruptly stopped and a bus conversion program instituted(apparently when its management decided that they were throwing money into a losing enerprise).

However, SP probably realized that terminating the entire PE passenger operation in one fell swoop was not a viable option, fboth for political and legal reasons (since the SP system as a whole was profitable at the time, they could legally be required to continue passenger service, even though that service lost money).  So they approached it on a sytematic basis, beginning with abandonment of weaker lines and the outlying portions of their major routes. It's possible that, in the late 1930's, they felt parts of the passenger system were still potentially viable (the belief that the erosion of traffic to autos had stabilized was common in the late years of the interurban industry) but, if so, they likely would changed their view pretty quickly, and the system would have been completely gone by the late 40's had WWII not intervened.  The war, of course, delayed things but, by the late 40's, it would have been clear that the loss of traffic to autos would continue.  Thus, they moved quickly to get out of the operation by converting lines to busses and finally, in 1954, selling the remaining passenger rail operation to Metropolitan Coach Lines.  Interestingly, though MCL undoubtedly planned to convert the remaining rail operations to bus (MCL's intent to substitute "modern" busses was widely reported at the time), the final rail abandonments (including the important Long Beach line, later resurrected as the Blue Line) were made by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority after they acquired the MCL system in 1958. 

The North Shore's path to abandonment was a little different.  NSL had been bankrupt before WWII, but their wartime profits enabled them to emerge from bankruptcy in 1945.  I can't know this for sure, but it appears to me that they intitially thought the system, (apart from its urban streetcar operations) could be operated profitably.  But, when the magnitude of the postwar passenger losses began to set in, they probably realized that they needed to make cutbacks.  The most obvious cutback was the "Shore Line Route", a short haul, high cost operation which was right next to a C&NW commuter line.  While the Shore Line line wasn't abandoned until 1955, the decision to get rid of it was probably made 2 or 3 years earlier, the time lag being due to regulatory approval requirements. I strongly suspect that NSL management  believed in the early 1950's that the rest of the rail operation was still viable.  What would have changed their minds was the continued erosion of passenger traffic (they eventually lost half their business), the building of the Chicago expressway system (much of which predates the interstate highway system), and the knowledge that there would soon be an expressway between Chicago and Milwaukee. Another factor would be the realization that the system would require capital investment to remain in operation, which they had no hope of funding or, if the funds could be found, no hope of recovering.  While the NSL's ICC abandonment filing wasn't made until 1958, the decision to seek abandonment was probably made a year or so prior to it.  Unlike PE, which was part of the SP rail system, the NSL was a stand alone railroad, There was no issue of a profitable railroad being required to continue a money losing operation - the entire operation was unprofitable. Under these circumstances, abandonment was inevitable (the Supreme Court had ruled long ago that requiring a money losing railroad to continue unprofitable service was an unconstitutional taking of private property).  Still, it took until 1963 to clear all of the regulatory requirements for the abandonment to take place.

I'm not aware that a "slowing" of NSL's operation over the CTA 'L' was a factor in its abandonment.  I rode the NSL many times in its last few years, and it CTA portion was pretty fast (far faster, in fact, than it probably should have been given the general lack of signaling on CTA at the time).  One of the changes CTA made when it took over the 'L' system was to eliminate many stations and local services that competed with the surface system.  That, if anything, would have made it easier to keep NSL trains moving. 

 More than you probably wanted to know, but I needed to do something while recovering from my Christmas hangover.

[blue streak 1]

IMHO:  The demise of many interburrbans and street car systems is the economics of the situation. Compare the 1920s with a streetcar or birney with maybe two person crews carrying about 40? seats or the PCC one crew carrying 44? seats. I do not know the PE operating rules or crew requirements. Since most PE lines survived longer maybe it had to do something with longer trains and the same amount of crew. Also the north shore line may have lasted longer for this reason and its demise tied to the take over of CTA by the city slowing down its travel times.

once a system could change to 53 seat buses if the salvage value of rail system could pay for those buses then the change was economically called for.

Move to the 2010s and there is now a different metric. The ability to MU any number of vehicles changes the number of passengers one operator can carry. Now a system needs to be built for MU and my travels on several systems seems to prove that is a help. Planning for a MUed system is important and the negelect of some systems to provide for such is very regrettable, such as Charlotte, NC. There are many items that go into building for a MU system: Robust electrical distribution, long platforms or future space to lengthen platforms, priority traffic light systems, signal systems, proper spacing of double track seqments on single track portions of a system, provision to have some cars of a much shorter leength for off peak periods or the end of a line, and one of the most important is space to store one or more cars of enroute trains short of the trains' destination: as other than for maintenance reasons excess capacity (read empty seats) should be parked and picked up on the next train in the other direction. 

[Falcon48]

wallyworld

 It may be the case that it is similar to a homicide trial, wherein if you fatally shoot someone who is terminally ill, it is still murder. Like most, this is a case of profiteering and greed per ususual which in this example, the motive was to sell more tires, more vehicles, etc on the taxpayer's checking account for the benefit of "modernizing" public transit. In hindsight time would have provided the same result. No one is going to bring the Senate up for trial for essentially doing the same thing through the lopsided priorities of the Federal Highway fund. The irony in this, is that perhaps in hindsight, modernization was a more expensive proposition than they realized,in terms of congestion, the sprawl of suburbia, the waning of inner cities, etc...all of which now are looked at as though one were coming off a round of binge drinking, sobering up to the harsh reality of putting all our eggs in one basket.What I see as the Achilles heel in turning this around is our insistance on spending more money studying an issue than is necessary, as well as insisting every aspect of a project be "state of the art" One is reminded of the Boeing LVR debacle.."Keeping it simple stupid" is a lost art. The best example I can provide for the case of penny wise and pound foolish is the loss of the North Shore Line. I rode this line zipping along at 75 mph via 1920's technology, where now the dead lines of autos wedged in congestion on I-94 idle away stopped in their tracks year after year, burning fuel as if it were still 27 cents a gallon. Ah, progress!

 

The point I've been trying to make is that, whatever one might say about NCL and its role in urban trolley conversions (an activity in which it was unquestionably engaged), NCL had practically nothing to do with the demise of the interurbans either before or after WWII.  The North Shore, for example, had absolutely no affiliation with NCL at any time.  Without public funds, the post WWII NSL was doomed.  Consider that it was primarily a passenger railroad.  Today's commuter rail operations which share freight railroad tracks consistently lose large amounts of money, even though freight traffic is sharing part of the costs.  The NSL didn't have this luxury.  It's freight traffic was only a small part of its revenue base, nowhere near enough to offset the passenger losses.  Moreover, it was the type of carload business that would have been almost entirely lost to trucks had the railroad survived past 1963 (in fact, the Weber industrial district, which was one of NSL's major freight sources, doesn't even exist today). To add to its woes, the railroad lost about half of its passenger business when the Chicago expressway system was built.  Yes, it would probably have been nice if someone had saved the NSL.  But public funding wasn't available for such an undertaking in 1963 (and remember that, under the terms of the ICC abandonment order, anyone could have purchased to whole railroad lock stockj and barrel for continued service for about $6 million). It's unreasonable to expect a private firm to bleed cash indefinitely to sustain non-viable business. 

[wallyworld]

 It may be the case that it is similar to a homicide trial, wherein if you fatally shoot someone who is terminally ill, it is still murder. Like most, this is a case of profiteering and greed per ususual which in this example, the motive was to sell more tires, more vehicles, etc on the taxpayer's checking account for the benefit of "modernizing" public transit. In hindsight time would have provided the same result. No one is going to bring the Senate up for trial for essentially doing the same thing through the lopsided priorities of the Federal Highway fund.

There is another irony in this when you consider the billions of dollars in interest that is now due on deferred maintenance of this supposedly more efficient system of mass transit. The irony in this, is that perhaps in hindsight, modernization was a more expensive proposition than they realized,in terms of congestion, the sprawl of suburbia, the waning of inner city efficiencies in terms of the distances required to travel from A to B, etc...all of which now are looked at as though one were coming off a round of binge drinking, sobering up to the harsh reality of putting all our eggs in one basket. The exosuburban housing tracts where you have to drive ten miles for groceries is the punchline of this shortsighted joke we played on ourselves.

What I see as the Achilles heel in turning this around is our regulatory insistence on spending more money studying an issue than is necessary,or practical in financial terms, as well as insisting every aspect of a project be "state of the art" One is reminded of the Boeing LVR debacle.."Keeping it simple stupid" is a lost art.If you look at the construction techniques of the boom years of the interurban era, economy was weighed against utility.A motorman with a screwdriver could remedy a faulty relay. The lines followed the topography of the land.

The best example I can provide for the case of penny wise and pound foolish as far as public transit is concerned is the loss of the North Shore Line. I rode this line zipping along at 75 mph via 1920's technology, where now the dead lines of autos wedged in congestion on I-94 idle away stopped in their tracks year after year, burning fuel as if it were still 27 cents a gallon.The Skokie Valley line that I rode along was completed in one year while the relatively small extension of it's remnant has been studied, proposed and discussed for decades, of course adding a inflationary mound of projected costs , the price tag is now understandably absurd.Compare this to the initial asking price of 27 million for the entire line.This was close to the same cost of adding one additional lane to I94 for a few miles a couple of years later after the line was reduced to a cow path. 

 

 

 

 

[Falcon48]

JT22CW

jockellis

The trolleys and interurbans would have died out if GM, Firestone and the bus company had never gone into any partnership. Why?
1. Americans from the very beginning of the country have been after life, liberty and the choice of transportation. I think that's what John Locke wrote before TJ misinterpreted and wrote it as pursuit of happiness. We have always wanted to try new ways to get around. Now after about 100 years of sitting in traffic, we have decided that commuter rail might not be as bad as we thought 70 years ago when riding public transportation was a signal that you didn't have enough money to own a car. It is quite different to leave your BMW in the MARTA parking lot now than having to walk to the street corner to catch a trolley back in the day.

You've undermined this point when you used the word "choice".  The implication there is that there was no "choice" before the internal combustion engine arrived, which is not the case.  (BTW, 70 years ago brings you back to 1938, which is regarded as a high water mark of rail travel.)

2. The Good Roads Movement back in the early days of the 20th century excited citizens about the possibility of being able to go anywhere they wanted any time they wanted. Now who wouldn't want to do that. Let's see. How do politicians get elected? They do what the voters want. So they quickly began a road construction program for both city streets, rural roads and long distance highways. With that, the private trolley and interurban companies lost any chance to compete with cars. Although National City Lines was contractually prevented from using trolleys, according to the book "Getting There" the company had to go back to the rails in at least once instance because all the new cars jammed traffic to a standstill. NCL still had to move passengers so it get some trolleys back out for a temporary reprieve

There was at least two big wars during the period you describe.  Kinda hard to build new buses when all the steel is going for munitions and war machines instead of engine blocks and bus frames.

Not to mention, buses and trolleys had grown up together pretty much.  You can find trolleybuses that date back to the times in the 19th Century when electric streetcars were really catching on.

3. Politicians made so much hay early in the century by aiding road transportation that they kept at it until at last, the highway industry found it highly lucrative to buy the congressmen, much as Dr. Thomas Durant did for the Union Pacific's Credit Mobilier in the 1860s. Here in Georgia my first cousin twicest (good Southern word) removed, Mayor William B. Hartsfield told the trolleys to get out of town in 1947. Now rarely does a month go by in which the Atlanta Journal-Constitution doesn't run an article about the Georgia DOT members going to a weekend seminar at luxurious island motels, the cost of which is picked up by the highway lobby or its paid third party organizations. And the DOT has told cities and counties that will do so many road projects that the department is about a half billion dollars in debt and probably won't ever get all those things done. Of course, the state senators and representatives have already told their constituents that the new road is on the books and are off the hook. Now they can tell their constituents that they will weed out such inefficiencies if re-elected.
We got $87 million federal seed money for a line to run southward from Atlanta to Lovejoy on Norfolk Southern tracks. The state has already squandered a fourth of that on studies

What does that put the onus on, the voters or the politicians?  Voters, as mentioned, want a choice.  They don't get to dictate via propositions what kind of transportation projects they want, at least not often.

Transportation consultants pitch such grandiose rail line plans that there is no way they can ever pay for themselves. In the teens and twenties, lines were thrown down much like those of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific were 50 years before. The difference is that the interurban lines had to pay for themselves through fare boxes, not government grants. Now in many cases, city fathers wisely reject these expensive plans. Sometimes they scale them back, sometimes they opt for buses and sometimes, they just keep on paving. For them, it is the thing they know best. Kind of like the expression "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." They know voters love roads, so they just keep building them

That does not follow.  Especially when it's supposed to be, as mentioned earlier, about "choice".  Also, voters don't love roads that much during winter weather like a lot of states have just recently been experiencing.  (People over in other industrialized countries also love roads, but they also love saving their cars for important things, not the back-and-forth commute.)  You've also identified a long-standing problem with consultants, that being their focus on the payday instead of actually being responsible with the taxpayer's money.

None of this really identifies whether or not the interurbans would have definitely "died out".  People were still riding them when they were "killed", after all.

I just want to point out, again, that the interurban rail industry was in dire straits before National City Lines and its bus conversion program ever came into the picture.  With some important exceptions, the interurban rail industry was in tough shape before the depression, and there were significant abandonments in the late 20's. Interurbans proved much more vulnerable to auto competition than urban trolley systems once hard paved roads were extended into their service territory.  Where failed interurbans converted to busses in the 20's and 30's, the conversion was most often done by the interurban itself, without any involvement by a transit holding company,  Often, after conversion, these interurban bus companies were combined into the developing intercity bus industry, for example, as parts of the Greyhound system, but this typically occurred after conversion, not before it.

The handful of interurbans that survived the general collapse of the industry in the late '20's and 30's, when they eventually died, mostly did so without any help from National City Lines or its affiliates.  For example, Pacific Electric, often used a poster child for the NCL conspiracy theory, was a subsidiary of Southern Pacific, not NCL.  It was Southern Pacific that made the initial big cutbacks of PE's passenger rail operations between 1938 and 1941.  Undoubtedly, SP would have systematically abandoned the remaining PE passenger operations through the 1940's had WWII not intervened(remember that SP also abandoned its San Francisco area electric rail operations iduring this period).  But, after the war ended, SP resumed this policy. I've been told by a retired SP executive who was in a position to know that SP offered the sytem to Los Angeles County in 1949 (retaining freight rights) for $12 million, but the county wasn't interested.  Whether or not this is accurate, there's no question that SP moved rapidly to dismantle the system after 1949, abandoning the important Northern District and some other key PE routes (like the Venice Short line) in 1950.  Finally, SP sold the remaining passenger operation to Metropolitan Coach Lines, which proceeded to abandon most of the remaining lines (as was expected at the sale).  Metropolitan Coach is probably the basis for the belief that NCL had something to do with PE's demise (even though most of PE was already gone).  Trouble is that Metropolitan Coach was NOT affiliated with NCL. Also, Metropolitan Coach didn't abandon PE's key Southern District Lines, which were some of PE's most important lines.  That was done by a public authority - Los Angeles Metrolpolitan Transit Authority - which acquired the Metropolitan coach system in early 1958, including the remaining PE lines, and then abandoned the rail operations over the next 3 years.  

I've focussed on PE because, as already mentioned, it is most often used as the example of the NCL conspiracy.  But other important interurbans also expired in the post WWII period without NCL involvement, including the North Shore and CA&E in the Chicago area, the extensive Illiniois Terminal system, and the Bamberger in Utah. Undoubtedly, there were some interurban lines abandoned by NCL affiliates (eg., the Key System, which was more of a suburban electric railroad than a true interurban), but this was, by far, the exception rather than the rule.

NCL was, of course, involved in conversion of many city streetcar systems. But, as discussed more fully in some of the earlier posts in this thread, NCL's activities don't explain the general disappearance of streetcars in the United States, for the simple reason that NCL didn't control anything like the entire national transit industry.  The fact that non-NCL transit operators, including big public agencies like the CTA in Chicago, converted their streetcar systems to busses should show that something more fundamental was going on than can be explained by a "conspiracy" theory.  But, "conspiracy theories" are simple, easy explanations, economics are not. 

[JT22CW]

jockellis

The trolleys and interurbans would have died out if GM, Firestone and the bus company had never gone into any partnership. Why?
1. Americans from the very beginning of the country have been after life, liberty and the choice of transportation. I think that's what John Locke wrote before TJ misinterpreted and wrote it as pursuit of happiness. We have always wanted to try new ways to get around. Now after about 100 years of sitting in traffic, we have decided that commuter rail might not be as bad as we thought 70 years ago when riding public transportation was a signal that you didn't have enough money to own a car. It is quite different to leave your BMW in the MARTA parking lot now than having to walk to the street corner to catch a trolley back in the day.

You've undermined this point when you used the word "choice".  The implication there is that there was no "choice" before the internal combustion engine arrived, which is not the case.  (BTW, 70 years ago brings you back to 1938, which is regarded as a high water mark of rail travel.)

2. The Good Roads Movement back in the early days of the 20th century excited citizens about the possibility of being able to go anywhere they wanted any time they wanted. Now who wouldn't want to do that. Let's see. How do politicians get elected? They do what the voters want. So they quickly began a road construction program for both city streets, rural roads and long distance highways. With that, the private trolley and interurban companies lost any chance to compete with cars. Although National City Lines was contractually prevented from using trolleys, according to the book "Getting There" the company had to go back to the rails in at least once instance because all the new cars jammed traffic to a standstill. NCL still had to move passengers so it get some trolleys back out for a temporary reprieve

There was at least two big wars during the period you describe.  Kinda hard to build new buses when all the steel is going for munitions and war machines instead of engine blocks and bus frames.

Not to mention, buses and trolleys had grown up together pretty much.  You can find trolleybuses that date back to the times in the 19th Century when electric streetcars were really catching on.

3. Politicians made so much hay early in the century by aiding road transportation that they kept at it until at last, the highway industry found it highly lucrative to buy the congressmen, much as Dr. Thomas Durant did for the Union Pacific's Credit Mobilier in the 1860s. Here in Georgia my first cousin twicest (good Southern word) removed, Mayor William B. Hartsfield told the trolleys to get out of town in 1947. Now rarely does a month go by in which the Atlanta Journal-Constitution doesn't run an article about the Georgia DOT members going to a weekend seminar at luxurious island motels, the cost of which is picked up by the highway lobby or its paid third party organizations. And the DOT has told cities and counties that will do so many road projects that the department is about a half billion dollars in debt and probably won't ever get all those things done. Of course, the state senators and representatives have already told their constituents that the new road is on the books and are off the hook. Now they can tell their constituents that they will weed out such inefficiencies if re-elected.
We got $87 million federal seed money for a line to run southward from Atlanta to Lovejoy on Norfolk Southern tracks. The state has already squandered a fourth of that on studies

What does that put the onus on, the voters or the politicians?  Voters, as mentioned, want a choice.  They don't get to dictate via propositions what kind of transportation projects they want, at least not often.

Transportation consultants pitch such grandiose rail line plans that there is no way they can ever pay for themselves. In the teens and twenties, lines were thrown down much like those of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific were 50 years before. The difference is that the interurban lines had to pay for themselves through fare boxes, not government grants. Now in many cases, city fathers wisely reject these expensive plans. Sometimes they scale them back, sometimes they opt for buses and sometimes, they just keep on paving. For them, it is the thing they know best. Kind of like the expression "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." They know voters love roads, so they just keep building them

That does not follow.  Especially when it's supposed to be, as mentioned earlier, about "choice".  Also, voters don't love roads that much during winter weather like a lot of states have just recently been experiencing.  (People over in other industrialized countries also love roads, but they also love saving their cars for important things, not the back-and-forth commute.)  You've also identified a long-standing problem with consultants, that being their focus on the payday instead of actually being responsible with the taxpayer's money.

None of this really identifies whether or not the interurbans would have definitely "died out".  People were still riding them when they were "killed", after all.

[Falcon48]

wallyworld

While there was a determination made that National City Lines was a  entity that was involved in illegal activity of a conspiratorial nature, it would take a line by line finacial analysis to determine which lines were sustainable in the face of the onslaught of the automobile. While this is simply speculation, I think its perhaps reasonable to assume that this conspiracy only moved up the inevitable on the time line..sooner rather than later. On the other hand, if these lines were "doomed"..why invest the considerable energy, money and orginizational resources to accomplish what time would do at no cost? Odd, I have never settled that question in my own mind to my own satisfaction. I think the dedicated bus routing or express bus system will be viable only in terms of having a short shelf life..much like the original interurban lines as much as the availibility and cost of oil as fuel in terms of being viable is equally "doomed" as once again all this is only a matter of time. It is an interim solution and ad hoc. What is the longest light rail route? If you add in planned and funded extensions...which one is closest to being worthy of the name "interurban"?

The "National City Lines", GM, Firestone., etc might have seemed to be quite a scandal in Congressional hearings (which are not always the best source of accurate information), but it is almost entirely a myth.  George Hilton, an eminent tranport historian, debunked it during Congressional hearings in the 1970's (but was ignored by the press)  and published something about it since, which I can't immediately find.  I'm not going to get into the whole thing here, but consider the following points:

(1) The interurbans were in deep trouble long before National City Lines came into the picture, and most of them expired in the 1920's and 1930's without any involvement by NCL. The demon was the automobile and the development of hard paved highways, which took away the interurbans' passenger base.  Most of the post WWII interurban abandonments/conversions were also without any NCL involvement, including major properties like PE, the North Shore Line, and CA&E.

(2) While National City Lines was heavily involved in conversion of city streetcar systems to bus, other properties with no affiliation to NCL were doing exactly the same thing.  As one example, the huge Chicago system - still nearly intact after WWII - was converted to busses by CTA, a public agency with no affiliation to NCL or GM (in fact, most of the busses they bought for the conversion were from GM competitiors). Kansas City and Milwaukee are other midwest examples.  There are many more. In fact, while a few cities retained a handful of streetcar lines (generally those with some rapid transit characteristics), no city in the United States retained anything like a comprehensive streetcar system.  If the NCL/GM "conspiracy theory" were correct, most of the non-NCL properties wouldn't have converted.  The fact that everyone was converting, regardless of whether they were affiliated with NCL, shows that something more fundamental was going on.  And, if you look at ridership figures, there's no trouble seeing what the problem was - transit systems were losing passengers to autos by the droves, first in the 1930's and then in the years immediately after WWII. Kansas City, for example, lost half of its riders in the 1930's, got them back during the war, and then lost them agains after the war. Further, street railway properties were subject to a number of municipal government practices (dating back to the days when the streetcar companies had "monopolies" on local transportation) , such as street maintenance requirements, property tax policies, etc., which futher encouraged conversions.

(3) NCL was not a creation of GM (etc).  It was a stand alone transit holding company. GM (etc) got involved because they gave NCL financial support in the form of preferred stock purchases because NCL was purchasing their products.  You see practices like this in many industries.  A good example of it was in the interurbans, where Sam Insull provided properties like the North Shore, South Shore and CA&E with capital that they could never have raised by themselves.  Why?
A big reason was because Insull's primary business was electric utilities and, at the time, traction companies were some of the biggest users of electricity, providing utilities with the base load they needed.  In other words, he was providing the interurbans with financial support because they were buying his product (electricity).  Sound familiar?

(4) Advocates of the NCL/GM conspiracy theory are fond of pointing to the fact that the companies were ultimately convicted of an antitrust "conspiracy".  That's true.  But it wasn't a conspiracy to convert streetcar systems to busses.  If you have an opportunity, pull up a copy of the appeals court decision affirming the convictions (I believe it's US vs National City Lines), which is instructive.  NCL's streetcar conversions are barely mentioned in the decision - there's one sentence saying that something to the effect that NCL's business plan was to replace obsolete streetcars with modern busses.  The "conspiracy" consisted of what in antitrust language is called an "exclusive dealing arrangement".  Essentially, NCL had made a deal with GM, Firestone, etc under which, in return for these suppliers' finanicial support, NCL would purchase those suppliers' products for all of their properties, which had the effect of freezing other competitors out of these markets.  It had nothing to do with streetcar conversions.

 

[jockellis]

The trolleys and interurbans would have died out if GM, Firestone and the bus company had never gone into any partnership. Why?
1. Americans from the very beginning of the country have been after life, liberty and the choice of transportation. I think that's what John Locke wrote before TJ misinterpreted and wrote it as pursuit of happiness. We have always wanted to try new ways to get around. Now after about 100 years of sitting in traffic, we have decided that commuter rail might not be as bad as we thought 70 years ago when riding public transportation was a signal that you didn't have enough money to own a car. It is quite different to leave your BMW in the MARTA parking lot now than having to walk to the street corner to catch a trolley back in the day.
2. The Good Roads Movement back in the early days of the 20th century excited citizens about the possibility of being able to go anywhere they wanted any time they wanted. Now who wouldn't want to do that. Let's see. How do politicians get elected? They do what the voters want. So they quickly began a road construction program for both city streets, rural roads and long distance highways. With that, the private trolley and interurban companies lost any chance to compete with cars. Although National City Lines was contractually prevented from using trolleys, according to the book "Getting There" the company had to go back to the rails in at least once instance because all the new cars jammed traffic to a standstill. NCL still had to move passengers so it get some trolleys back out for a temporary reprieve.
3. Politicians made so much hay early in the century by aiding road transportation that they kept at it until at last, the highway industry found it highly lucrative to buy the congressmen, much as Dr. Thomas Durant did for the Union Pacific's Credit Mobilier in the 1860s. Here in Georgia my first cousin twicest (good Southern word) removed, Mayor William B. Hartsfield told the trolleys to get out of town in 1947. Now rarely does a month go by in which the Atlanta Journal-Constitution doesn't run an article about the Georgia DOT members going to a weekend seminar at luxurious island motels, the cost of which is picked up by the highway lobby or its paid third party organizations. And the DOT has told cities and counties that will do so many road projects that the department is about a half billion dollars in debt and probably won't ever get all those things done. Of course, the state senators and representatives have already told their constituents that the new road is on the books and are off the hook. Now they can tell their constituents that they will weed out such inefficiencies if re-elected.
We got $87 million federal seed money for a line to run southward from Atlanta to Lovejoy on Norfolk Southern tracks. The state has already squandered a fourth of that on studies.
Transportation consultants pitch such grandiose rail line plans that there is no way they can ever pay for themselves. In the teens and twenties, lines were thrown down much like those of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific were 50 years before. The difference is that the interurban lines had to pay for themselves through fare boxes, not government grants. Now in many cases, city fathers wisely reject these expensive plans. Sometimes they scale them back, sometimes they opt for buses and sometimes, they just keep on paving. For them, it is the thing they know best. Kind of like the expression "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." They know voters love roads, so they just keep building them.

[art11758]

Thanks.   You are right, the "Vernon-Jackson" station it used to be.   Still is or just Vernon?

Vernon-Jackson is still how it is announced. Service to the LIC station is shown in the City Terminal Zone time table as Westbound in the morning with five arrivals, and Eastbound in the evening with five departures.

[henry6]

Thanks.   YOu are right, the "Vernon-Jackson" station it used to be.   Still is or just Vernon?

Also, my experience was that lots of LIRR mainline trains that tie up, start up, or just reverse at the Long Island City Terminal don't show it in the timetable, showing Hunterspoint Avenue as the last stop, but do in fact carry passengers to and from LICity.  Has the new operation of the Wall Street Ferry changed that, so that more trains are shown in the timetable?

 

I believe there are only two trains shown from LIC...the 4:54 Oyster Bay via the Lower Montauk and one Hunterspoint Ave.  But, yes, all Hunterpoint Ave. trains originate in LIC.  Therefore, I don't believe the ferry has had much impact.  But then, I'm not there to see, either.

And the Vernon Ave. station is maybe a block closer to LIC station that Hunterpoint Ave.  At least any walking to catch a train is done in daylight.

[daveklepper]

Thanks.   YOu are right, the "Vernon-Jackson" station it used to be.   Still is or just Vernon?

Also, my experience was that lots of LIRR mainline trains that tie up, start up, or just reverse at the Long Island City Terminal don't show it in the timetable, showing Hunterspoint Avenue as the last stop, but do in fact carry passengers to and from LICity.  Has the new operation of the Wall Street Ferry changed that, so that more trains are shown in the timetable?

[henry6]

To catch the afternoon run, take a ferry from the Wall Street pier around 4pm.   Or ride the 7 Flushing Line to Hunterspoint Avenue Station (do I remember the name correctly?) and simply follow the LIRR tracks west as best as you can.

The LIRR Long Island City terminal is also served a several trains from the mainline that stop at Hunterspoint before going on to LIC  -- and reverse. 

 

What about the freight sidings in Bushwick?   Still there?

 

Seven train to Vernon, walk to the tracks (block and a half) turn right less than one block to LIC terminal;  left two blocks to Hunterpoint Ave.  (7 train to Hunterspoint Ave is for the LIRR Hunterspoint Ave. Sta, a three block walk southwest) 

Was there but once, dusk, could't see everything, just lots of tracks...gonna do it with map in hand next time so I know what I'm looking at!!

[daveklepper]

To catch the afternoon run, take a ferry from the Wall Street pier around 4pm.   Or ride the 7 Flushing Line to Hunterspoint Avenue Station (do I remember the name correctly?) and simply follow the LIRR tracks west as best as you can.

The LIRR Long Island City terminal is also served a several trains from the mainline that stop at Hunterspoint before going on to LIC  -- and reverse. 

 

What about the freight sidings in Bushwick?   Still there?

[henry6]

In sharpening up my memory, I have to modify my "no street running" statement about the LIRR.      For a long time there were two diesel passenger trains west during morning rush hour and east during the evening.  Rode it once.   I think even this line is now freight only.  .

 

Line you are referring to is the "Lower Montauk" or Long Island City branch.  There is one revenue round trip daily from Oyster Bay in just about 8:30 in the morning departing east at 4:54 in the afternoon.  Line also hosts several deadhead moves as well as freight operations.  From a railfan standpoint, the trip is one of the best fan trips in the NYC area: double track, jointed rail maybe 100lbs., hand operated switches and highway gates at LIC by yard switchman, PRR position lights, freight trains, scenery from harbor to industrial to rail yard to tenements to duplexes and a very sylvan city park; a 20-25 minute ride to Jamaica that took place back in the 50's today!  Highly reccommended, if you can find the LIC LIRR terminal.

[daveklepper]

In sharpening up my memory, I have to modify my "no street running" statement about the LIRR.   This certainly applied to all electrified lines and all passenger service.   But in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn, close to the boarder with Queens, there were some industrial freight sidings, always operated by steam and diesel, that had some street running.   Some may still be in use.   They were on the Bushwick branch which came off the seconday Long Island City - Jamaica line through Penny Bridge and Fresh Pond.   For a long time there were two diesel passenger trains west during morning rush hour and east during the evening.  Rode it once.   I think even this line is now freight only.   One of the industrial sidings on a street was used to move the steel 67-foot BMT subway cars to open the partially completed 14th-Street-Canarsie line which was completely isolated from the rest of the system 1926 - 1931 when the Wykoff Avenue connection was completed.   Temporary track was laid to a temporary subway portal on the streets!   I'd be interested in knowing if Penny Bridge and Fresh Pond have passenger service today and if any of these Bushwick freight sidings are still used.

[henry6]

I believe that GM, Standard Oil, et al, made a concerted effort to buy electric lines and then convert them to buses.  Was it just a good business move or a "conspiracy" against society?  Back in 1950 the Senate thought the latter; hindsight today may tend toward the former.  The point is that oil and motor vehicle manufactures and thier ancilliary suppliers, were in control and did what they thougt best for thier interests, and maybe the country's interests at the time, too.  But we have been a nation quick to embrace new technology and invention and throwing the baby out with the bath water; quick to move forward and trash the past at the same time.  Today, we are reexamining what must be done to provide universal transportation for freight and passengers, short and long distances, and with an eye to "rationalizing" the modes as well as the internal owner/operator strucure of each mode.  Perhaps we were too quick to rid ourselves of streetcars, interurbans, even heavy rail lines that carried passengers.  But at the time, it seemed like the proper thing to do as shorted sighted as it was.  Today we must make amends, adapt to what will work for us now and hopefully for the long and short range future.  Apparently we have to go back, find the baby and the bathwater, and start thinking things through all over again.  And it's too late to point blaming fingers except to find out what happened and how it can be changed if need be.

[wallyworld]

While there was a determination made that National City Lines was a  entity that was involved in illegal activity of a conspiratorial nature, it would take a line by line finacial analysis to determine which lines were sustainable in the face of the onslaught of the automobile. While this is simply speculation, I think its perhaps reasonable to assume that this conspiracy only moved up the inevitable on the time line..sooner rather than later. On the other hand, if these lines were "doomed"..why invest the considerable energy, money and orginizational resources to accomplish what time would do at no cost? Odd, I have never settled that question in my own mind to my own satisfaction. I think the dedicated bus routing or express bus system will be viable only in terms of having a short shelf life..much like the original interurban lines as much as the availibility and cost of oil as fuel in terms of being viable is equally "doomed" as once again all this is only a matter of time. It is an interim solution and ad hoc. What is the longest light rail route? If you add in planned and funded extensions...which one is closest to being worthy of the name "interurban"?

There is a tremendous amount of misinformation in railfan circles about National City Lines, GM, Firestone, etc. and the role they played in streetcar conversions.  Suffice it to say that Senate hearings are not good sources for accurate information (then or now).  In fact, at one of the Senate hearings where this conspiracy theory was put forward by a "researcher", George Hilton - an eminent transprotation historian - testified that it was virtually all inaccurate.  But, of course, no one remembers that

Senate hearings are not good sources of accurate information?  We are supposed to buy an anecdote about some supposed "eminent transportation historian", whatever that means?

I'm surmising that you're referring to George Woodman Hilton.  His writings have an "eminent" anti-rail bias, especially what with his background being in economics rather than transporation per se.  A lot of his stuff is full of equivocation and is, frankly, dated.

The basis of the "conspiracy" theory is that GM (et al) were providing financial support through purchase of preferred stock in National City Lines because National City Lines was purchasing their products.  There's nothing wrong with that, in principle (although, as discussed below, the precise structure of the NCL arrangements got NCL and its supporters in trouble). It's no different (from) Sam Insull providing capital to electric railroads that were purchasing the electricity produced by his utilities (the traction load was a very important part of the utility business in the early 20th century)

So you are excusing NCL by pointing out precedent?  That's merely replacing one evil with another.  The evil is price-fixing, if anything.  That does not make any illustration of efficacy of streetcar (or interurban) versus bus.

Now, I know that conspiracy theorists are fond of pointing to the fact that NCL, GM etc were eventually convicted of an antitrust violation in connection with their business arrangements, and that this is somehow proof of the streetcar conspiracy.  The trouble is, no one bothers to go to the court documents to see what they were actually convicted of.  The appeals court decision (which is available in any law library) makes it clear.  They weren't convicted of any conspiracy to get rid of streetcars.  Rather, they were convicted of making unlawful, long term exclusive dealing contracts with NCL for purchases of busses and bus supplies (in other words, in return for GM's financial support, NCL agreed to purchase all of its busses from GM, thus excluding other bus manufacturers from the NCL markets). That has nothing to do with streetcars.

Why is it relevant what they were convicted of?  (See below.)  Nobody claimed that they were convicted of, or charged with, conspiring to "get rid of streetcars" outright.  But that doesn't mean that they didn't engage in it.  They bought the streetcar companies and they could have kept them as streetcar operations.  Unequivocal conversions have nothing to do with whether or not the act itself was legal, because nobody said it wasn't.

Finally, if a GM led "conspiracy" were responsible for the widespread disappearance of streetcars, how does one explain the complete disappearance of streetcars in large cities that had nothing to do with NCL?  Take, for example, Chicago - a huge transit market - where a public authority (CTA) acquired a nearly complete streetcar system in 1947 and completely converted it to busses (most of which weren't even GM products).  If streetcars were a viable form of transportation but for the "conspiracy", the cities that weren't part of the "conspiracy" - like Chicago - would not have converted.  But they all did.  While there are a few cities that retained a handful of lines (usually those with rapid transit characteristics), no U.S. city retained anything like the citywide streetcar systems that once existed.  The simple fact of the matter is that, with the significant falloff in patronage faced by all transit systems before and after WWII, the lower cost of a bus operation (which didn't have pay for maintenance and periodic rebuilding of a railroad entombed in the street or the power system, or pay taxes for all this infr(a)structure) and the improvement in busses particularly after the war, conversion was pretty much a no brainer for any transit sytem worried about the bottom line (remember, this was in a day before vast transit subsidies).

Some of us are familiar with the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, you know (repealed in 2006).  Making streetcar operation unattractive to investors, and subsequently to transit authorities, came right out of Washington DC.  The CTA's focus on conversion would also be influenced by railcar companies exiting the business of making streetcars, thanks to the continuing onslaught of conversion and the bus manufacturing business being more lucrative (note Brill's foray into bus-making in order to stay competitive with GM, Mack, White and the rest). 

New York City's example was certainly no small factor; LaGuardia had an aversion to streetcars and a love of municipalization.  And Chicago's move towards municipalization and bus conversion had no little inspiration in LaGuardia's acts during the 20s.

Not to mention, National City Lines was not the sole involvement of GM in streetcar-to-bus conversion.  Ever hear of United Cities Motor Transit?

Incidentally, what does this really have to do with interurbans?

As I said orginally,I have never reached any conclusion on what if any amount NCL contributed to the demise of electric rail transit to my own satisfaction so I am not sure of what, or whom it is you are rebutting. How many inset boxes can one make sense of? Am I in this thread...am I having a senior moment? Oh yes...NCL...They were found guily and fined one dollar. That much is history whether you concur with the reasoning behind it, has more to do with your interesting views and perspective than my own unsettled question. As I said,and it sounds as though you concur, the demise of these lines was inevitable. I am familiar with the act you cited. What does this have to do with interurbans?It had to do with an earlier turn the conversation took in regard to bus company ownership with interurbans , not "streetcars" per say, which led into my question regarding them. I can see its still a controversial topic. I would like to hear more about United Cities..have you heard the rumor that LaGuardia had some personal issue with that line? Something about his seeking employment with them, or something similar to that...(?)  True? Oh no...more little boxes...

[JT22CW]

While there was a determination made that National City Lines was a  entity that was involved in illegal activity of a conspiratorial nature, it would take a line by line finacial analysis to determine which lines were sustainable in the face of the onslaught of the automobile. While this is simply speculation, I think its perhaps reasonable to assume that this conspiracy only moved up the inevitable on the time line..sooner rather than later. On the other hand, if these lines were "doomed"..why invest the considerable energy, money and orginizational resources to accomplish what time would do at no cost? Odd, I have never settled that question in my own mind to my own satisfaction. I think the dedicated bus routing or express bus system will be viable only in terms of having a short shelf life..much like the original interurban lines as much as the availibility and cost of oil as fuel in terms of being viable is equally "doomed" as once again all this is only a matter of time. It is an interim solution and ad hoc. What is the longest light rail route? If you add in planned and funded extensions...which one is closest to being worthy of the name "interurban"?

There is a tremendous amount of misinformation in railfan circles about National City Lines, GM, Firestone, etc. and the role they played in streetcar conversions.  Suffice it to say that Senate hearings are not good sources for accurate information (then or now).  In fact, at one of the Senate hearings where this conspiracy theory was put forward by a "researcher", George Hilton - an eminent transprotation historian - testified that it was virtually all inaccurate.  But, of course, no one remembers that

Senate hearings are not good sources of accurate information?  We are supposed to buy an anecdote about some supposed "eminent transportation historian", whatever that means?

I'm surmising that you're referring to George Woodman Hilton.  His writings have an "eminent" anti-rail bias, especially what with his background being in economics rather than transporation per se.  A lot of his stuff is full of equivocation and is, frankly, dated.

The basis of the "conspiracy" theory is that GM (et al) were providing financial support through purchase of preferred stock in National City Lines because National City Lines was purchasing their products.  There's nothing wrong with that, in principle (although, as discussed below, the precise structure of the NCL arrangements got NCL and its supporters in trouble). It's no different (from) Sam Insull providing capital to electric railroads that were purchasing the electricity produced by his utilities (the traction load was a very important part of the utility business in the early 20th century)

So you are excusing NCL by pointing out precedent?  That's merely replacing one evil with another.  The evil is price-fixing, if anything.  That does not make any illustration of efficacy of streetcar (or interurban) versus bus.

Now, I know that conspiracy theorists are fond of pointing to the fact that NCL, GM etc were eventually convicted of an antitrust violation in connection with their business arrangements, and that this is somehow proof of the streetcar conspiracy.  The trouble is, no one bothers to go to the court documents to see what they were actually convicted of.  The appeals court decision (which is available in any law library) makes it clear.  They weren't convicted of any conspiracy to get rid of streetcars.  Rather, they were convicted of making unlawful, long term exclusive dealing contracts with NCL for purchases of busses and bus supplies (in other words, in return for GM's financial support, NCL agreed to purchase all of its busses from GM, thus excluding other bus manufacturers from the NCL markets). That has nothing to do with streetcars.

Why is it relevant what they were convicted of?  (See below.)  Nobody claimed that they were convicted of, or charged with, conspiring to "get rid of streetcars" outright.  But that doesn't mean that they didn't engage in it.  They bought the streetcar companies and they could have kept them as streetcar operations.  Unequivocal conversions have nothing to do with whether or not the act itself was legal, because nobody said it wasn't.

Finally, if a GM led "conspiracy" were responsible for the widespread disappearance of streetcars, how does one explain the complete disappearance of streetcars in large cities that had nothing to do with NCL?  Take, for example, Chicago - a huge transit market - where a public authority (CTA) acquired a nearly complete streetcar system in 1947 and completely converted it to busses (most of which weren't even GM products).  If streetcars were a viable form of transportation but for the "conspiracy", the cities that weren't part of the "conspiracy" - like Chicago - would not have converted.  But they all did.  While there are a few cities that retained a handful of lines (usually those with rapid transit characteristics), no U.S. city retained anything like the citywide streetcar systems that once existed.  The simple fact of the matter is that, with the significant falloff in patronage faced by all transit systems before and after WWII, the lower cost of a bus operation (which didn't have pay for maintenance and periodic rebuilding of a railroad entombed in the street or the power system, or pay taxes for all this infr(a)structure) and the improvement in busses particularly after the war, conversion was pretty much a no brainer for any transit sytem worried about the bottom line (remember, this was in a day before vast transit subsidies).

Some of us are familiar with the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, you know (repealed in 2006).  Making streetcar operation unattractive to investors, and subsequently to transit authorities, came right out of Washington DC.  The CTA's focus on conversion would also be influenced by railcar companies exiting the business of making streetcars, thanks to the continuing onslaught of conversion and the bus manufacturing business being more lucrative (note Brill's foray into bus-making in order to stay competitive with GM, Mack, White and the rest). 

New York City's example was certainly no small factor; LaGuardia had an aversion to streetcars and a love of municipalization.  And Chicago's move towards municipalization and bus conversion had no little inspiration in LaGuardia's acts during the 20s.

Not to mention, National City Lines was not the sole involvement of GM in streetcar-to-bus conversion.  Ever hear of United Cities Motor Transit?

Incidentally, what does this really have to do with interurbans?

[daveklepper]

The ICC's definition need not be my definition.   In fact the PATCO Camden - Lindewald Line is defined by the ICC as an interurban (or was when it started operation) even though any fan would define it as simply heavy rapid transit, heavy rail transit, like any subway system.  I have no quarrel in your using your definitions but hope you will respect mine.

The Long Island railroad was built as a steam railroad and had zero on-street operation on its own lines.   There was a subidiary, I think called Ocean Electric, that ran the local streetcars in Far Rockaway and and Rockaway Park that did run both on the street and with 3rd rail on LIRR tracks, but it was a subsidiary and not the LIRR.   And at one time the LIRR did run through service on the Culver Line trolley tracks to Coney Island, tracks at the same time used by open-platform pole equipped third rail elevated cars and open and closed regular streetcars, but these LIRR trains were steam hauled!

No streat running, built first as a steam railroad, not an interurban.

[Falcon48]

The North Shore was a pretty heavy suburban railroad but was classified as an interurban, ditto the Roaren Eglin, and the IT had steam and diesel on frieght, even a gas-electric doodlebug for passenger service on a non-electrified branch, but was still considered an interurban.   When the South Shore stops using the streets of Michigan City, I will stop calling it an interurban.

In the fall of 1949, I was in the Walker Memorial Cafeteria line for breakfast as an MIT Freshman.   Normally I did not buy the morning paper at the cashier stand, but that morning a headline caught my eye:   "The Boston and Albany tries out a new interuruban car!  The car. their first RDC-1!   I bought the paper.

 

Interstingly, the Interstate Commerce Commission classified the North Shore, Chicago Aurora & Elgin, South Shore and Illinois Terminal as parts of the general railroad system, not interurbans, from the 1930's onward.  That became a major issue in the North Shore's ultimate abandonment because it was the basis on which the ICC claimed authroity to approve the abandonment(which was upheld by the courts). The reason was that the ICC looked at function, not the type of equipment utilized.  All three railroad participated in regualr interchange of carload freight with steam railroads and some or all of them had interline ticketing arrangements with steam roads.  The Chicago Tunnel Company (the company that ran the 2-foot guage railroad under the Chicago business district) was also considered part of the general railroad system, because it participated in joint through rates with steam railroads for package freight shipments 

[Falcon48]

While there was a determination made that National City Lines was a  entity that was involved in illegal activity of a conspiratorial nature, it would take a line by line finacial analysis to determine which lines were sustainable in the face of the onslaught of the automobile. While this is simply speculation, I think its perhaps reasonable to assume that this conspiracy only moved up the inevitable on the time line..sooner rather than later. On the other hand, if these lines were "doomed"..why invest the considerable energy, money and orginizational resources to accomplish what time would do at no cost? Odd, I have never settled that question in my own mind to my own satisfaction. I think the dedicated bus routing or express bus system will be viable only in terms of having a short shelf life..much like the original interurban lines as much as the availibility and cost of oil as fuel in terms of being viable is equally "doomed" as once again all this is only a matter of time. It is an interim solution and ad hoc. What is the longest light rail route? If you add in planned and funded extensions...which one is closest to being worthy of the name "interurban"?

There is a tremendous amount of misinformation in railfan circles about National City Lines, GM, Firestone, etc. and the role they played in streetcar conversions.  Suffice it to say that Senate hearings are not good sources for accurate information (then or now).  In fact, at one of the Senate hearings where this conspiracy theory was put forward by a "researcher", George Hilton - an eminent transprotation historian - testified that it was virtually all inaccurate.  But, of course, no one remembers that.

The basis of the "conspiracy" theory is that GM (et al) were providing financial support through purchase of preferred stock in National City Lines because National City Lines was purchasing their products.  There's nothing wrong with that, in principle (although, as discussed below, the precise structure of the NCL arrangements got NCL and its supporters in trouble). It's no different than Sam Insull providing capital to electric railroads that were purchasing the electricity produced by his utilities (the traction load was a very important part of the utility business in the early 20th century). 

Now, I know that conspiracy theorists are fond of pointing to the fact that NCL, GM etc were eventually convicted of an antitrust violation in connection with their business arrangements, and that this is somehow proof of the streetcar conspiracy.  The trouble is, no one bothers to go to the court documents to see what they were actually convicted of.  The appeals court decision (which is available in any law library) makes it clear.  They weren't convicted of any conspiracy to get rid of streetcars.  Rather, they were convicted of making unlawful, long term exclusive dealing contracts with NCL for purchases of busses and bus supplies (in other words, in return for GM's financial support, NCL agreed to purchase all of its busses from GM, thus excluding other bus manufacturers from the NCL markets). That has nothing to do with streetcars.

Finally, if a GM led "conspiracy" were responsible for the widespread disappearance of streetcars, how does one explain the complete disappearance of streetcars in large cities that had nothing to do with NCL?  Take, for example, Chicago - a huge transit market - where a public authority (CTA) acquired a nearly complete streetcar system in 1947 and completely converted it to busses (most of which weren't even GM products).  If streetcars were a viable form of transportation but for the "conspiracy", the cities that weren't part of the "conspiracy" - like Chicago - would not have converted.  But they all did.  While there are a few cities that retained a handful of lines (usually those with rapid transit characteristics), no U.S. city retained anything like the citywide streetcar systems that once existed.  The simple fact of the matter is that, with the significant falloff in patronage faced by all transit systems before and after WWII, the lower cost of a bus operation (which didn't have pay for maintenance and periodic rebuilding of a railroad entombed in the street or the power system, or pay taxes for all this infrstructure) and the improvement in busses particularly after the war, conversion was pretty much a no brainer for any transit sytem worried about the bottom line (remember, this was in a day before vast transit subsidies).      

 

 

 

[JT22CW]

An interurban implies a gap in urban development with intervening rural areas, such as between Chicago and Milwaukee. There are no such gaps between Los Angeles and Long Beach

Chicago and South Bend?

And is such truly implied, or are we trying to insert definitions?

An interurban is generally considered to have had passenger equipment that was smaller and lighter than steam road equipment and had to be able to operate in situations that were beyond the province of a steam road, such as the very-tight-radius turns found on most street railways and some rapid-transit operations. The only thing that South Shore has in common with such operations is an overhead wire. South Shore's MU cars share a body shell with suburban coaches on MARC, not the kind of thing you would expect on an interurban

What do people "expect" on interurbans? Not to mention that "overhead wire" is not necessarily an interurban trait, since many interurbans ran on third-rail and not because of need to run onto subway systems (such as the CNSM and CA&E in Chicago, and of course the P&W in Upper Darby PA).

The Long Island RR once operated MP41 MU cars, which had the same dimensions as IRT subway cars, for the intent of through-running onto IRT tracks (and the IRT has some very tight-radius turns indeed, even today); the cars included steps and trapdoors for boarding at stations with low platforms on Long Island. Would that have qualified the MP41 as "interurbans" based on dimensions?

[daveklepper]

CA&E and Pacific Electric were called interurbans by nearly all fans right up to the end of their passenger operations despite the usefulness being mostly suburban commuting.  And this usefulness was true of many interurbans during the height of interurban trackages.   This includes the cluster around Cleveland except Ohio Electric's line to Toledo.   Look at Denver, the interurbans to Golden primarily brought commuters to Denver.   Salt Lake City had the Bamberger interurban to Ogden, but also the Salt Air interurban out to the beach which served swimmer (beach) and commuter traffic.   The line from Ogden to Preston served mostly as a commuter line for people working Ogden.

I understand your point of view, but mine is that an interurban clearly remains a true interurban until passenger service and electrification are removed or until all street operation is removed.  What the economic purpose is irrelevant in my book.

St. Louis light rail would be an interurban in your book, since there is open country between St. Louis and Bellville, and both are sources of employment.

 

Anyway, do ride it and enjoy it!

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

What might have been considered an interurban route in the past is currently more of a suburban route due to the expansion of the metropolitan era in the intervening years.  CA&E and Pacific Electric are prime examples.  When CA&E was opened in 1902, the Chicago metro area barely got to Elmhurst and most of DuPage County was indeed rural.  Service to Aurora and Elgin could be considered interurban.  By the end of WW2, the metro area was reaching Wheaton and the explosive growth was about to happen.  After WW2, CA&E was less of an interurban and more of a suburban railroad with a longer suburban zone.  After all, CB&Q surburban service ended at Aurora and the MILW surburban service extended to Elgin.  If CA&E was resurrected today, it would strictly be a surburban operation.  Almost all of Pacific Electric's operations were suburban in character with the possible exception of the San Bernadino and Long Beach lines.  Again, the expansion of the Los Angeles metro area has turned the Long Beach line into a long transit route.

An interurban implies a gap in urban development with intervening rural areas, such as between Chicago and Milwaukee.  There are no such gaps between Los Angeles and Long Beach.

An interurban is generally considered to have had passenger equipment that was smaller and lighter than steam road equipment and had to be able to operate in situations that were beyond the province of a steam road, such as the very-tight-radius turns found on most street railways and some rapid-transit operations.  The only thing that South Shore has in common with such operations is an overhead wire.  South Shore's MU cars share a body shell with suburban coaches on MARC, not the kind of thing you would expect on an interurban. 

[daveklepper]

An interuruban that quits passengers service and quits electric operation is then an ex-interuruban and is a freight short line or a branch of a freight railroad.

The South Shore is still an interurban because street running in Michigan City preserves a characteristic of  interurbans, and it still is electric for passengers.   When the street trackage is eliminated, I will no longer be able to call it an interurban.  It will simply then be a modern electric suburban commuter and diesel freight railroad.

 

I could call the NJT River Line a diesel interurban, but it uses almost entirely tracks built for a pioneer steam railroad and so I usually qualify the statement.   The added tracks are almost all street-running, however!

Iowa Terminal is a interesting case.   The original interurban route is intact, it is electric, and it does run occasional charter and special passenger service using a real interurban car, ex-North Shore.   Certainly if rising gas prices cause it to start regular passenger service (possibly they are thinking along these lines), it would again be a true interurban.   

Granted there are steam railroads (diesel railroads) with street trackage.  But none paved and shared lanes with automobiles that are also electrified with frequent passenger serivce.  None in North America.

 

To me, the main line of St. Louis Light Rail and Portland Oregon Light Rail and the Los Angeles Blue Line are all modern interurubans.   You cannot fault  me on the Blue Line since it is almost an exact resurrection of its Pacific Electric predicessor.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Electric traction is still in use for freight service on South Shore.  It just happens to come from AR10 alternators on GP38-2's instead of a NIPSCO power plant. 

Most interurban trackage was too light to support postwar diesels and rolling stock, which is why Illinois Terminal abandoned its own trackage in favor of neighboring trackage rights.  The radii on curves in street trackage is also why ITC built freight bypasses, conventional rolling stock couldn't handle the turns. 

If South Shore is still an interurban, then Illinois Terminal prior to being absorbed by N&W was also an interurban, but without passengers or overhead.

[JT22CW]

The South Shore is NOT an interurban anymore

No, it still is. Electric traction for freight is not a qualifying factor to be an "interurban".

South Shore, Illinois Terminal, several Iowa short lines, and others all survived in part because they evolved from interurbans into conventional railroads

Since when were interurbans not "conventional railroads"? (Now there's a term sans definition, unless you're comparing with maglev or monorail.)

CA&E and CNS&M were abandoned because they could not outgrow their interurban past

What kind of statement is this? That does not explain their abandonment. The reasons are far more complex than an umbrella statement such as that.

The South Shore street trackage is still in use, but funding plans call for eventual removal/relocation

Can't tell if the governor signed off on that, from any current documents or news articles. It passed the IN House, though.

Could the RiverLine be extended into the heart of Trenton? From Google Earth, it looks like there's an old ROW extening from the current terminal into Trenton.

I think you're looking at the former PRR Bel-Del. Much of that was converted into a rail trail, which is its current form through West Trenton and Ewing; it reverts to a dilapidated railroad within Lambertville (rarely used by the Black River & Western RR for steam excursions), becomes a rail trail again until you get to Frenchtown, back to dilapidated railroad into Phillipsburg, then semi-active short line to Belvidere.

If it's not the Bel-Del you're looking at, then it might be maps showing an on-street alignment (planned) to the State House.

one of the beauties of LRT appears to be the availability of underutilized or abandoned rail and interurban rights of way

One of the "beauties"? Not the way NJ Transit has been spending on LRT (goes into nine figures per mile on HBLR and the Newark Subway extension, eight figures per mile elsewhere, even the "River Line"), and most (nay, all) of the old FRA-rail rights-of-way they put LRT on were not abandoned. That kind of spending makes the commuter rail that used to ply those alignments far more palatable.

[gardendance]

Good point about the water taxi, and the metro bus connection in Trenton...how difficult is it to transfer to PATCO in Camden?  Could the RiverLine be extended into the heart of Trenton?  From Google Earth, it looks like there's an old ROW extening from the current terminal into Trenton.

pretty easy transfer to PATCO in Camden. The Riverline platform is probably a lot less than 200 feet away from the PATCO turnstiles. In fact it's easier than a transfer in Trenton, there one must cross a street to transfer to anything, the riverline platform is on the southwest corner, bus stops on the southeast and northeast corners, a few other bus stops in the middle of the block. The Amtrak-NJT Trenton station is across the street, brand new entrance about 50 feet from the corner.

That ROW you see in Google Earth is single track, in order to use it the trains would have to bypass, wye, or back into the current terminus across the street from Amtrak. Immediately north of the junction is a highway crossing, so double track would involve another bridge. After about 2 blocks the railroad crosses State St, which is the downtown main drag, so trains would need to make a 90 degree turn off of the railroad onto State St, which is rather narrow, in order to get anywhere worthwhile.

[paulsafety]

I may be incorrect, but I believe that the P&W was originally charted as an electrically operated "steam road" under ICC control, having active interchanges with the PRR and handling ICC regulated freight until 1970.  Also, the founder's plans called for a much larger system that never materialized (one of the reasons that all the footbridges were four tracks wide --eventual expansion capability).  When the freight interchanges were removed and the system isolated, the ICC "registry" was dropped and it reverted to a transit line by definition. 

The laurel lines running from Scranton to Wilkes Barre certainly looked like an "interurban" -- having trolley freight, heavy cars, mostly private ROW and some street running, connecting two distinct, large municipalities.   Had the line survived (minus freight, and now theoretically operated with LRVs) would we still call it an interurban, or "just a LRV line"? 

I'm not sure that the definition is very clear -- does it consider original charter, design and intent, or merely present operation (ie. "South Shore" was an interurban, but not anymore)

Does the type of equipment matter?  What if the Buffalo metro was never operated with those huge LRV trains, but only ever used refurbished PCC cars?  Would it be a downtown "subway surface streetcar" like the West Philadelphia routes?

SEPTA Route 101 connects Philadelphia with a neighboring county seat (Media, PA - Delaware County).  During the interurban era, that would qualify as an interuban since it would be a vital link for commerce, couriers, and travel for government folks.  Now we just hop in a car -- does that invalidate the line's history or claim to be an interurban?  The line didn't change, we did.

Hmmm.  Tomato, Tah-mah-tah?