Aurora is a city in northeastern Illinois, United States. Located primarily in Kane and DuPage counties along the Fox River, it is the second-most populous city in Illinois, after Chicago, and the 144th-most populous city in the U.S. The population was 180,542 at the 2020 census. Aurora is the largest city in Illinois that is not the county seat of any county that it resides in.
Carpentersville is a village in Kane County, Illinois, United States. The population was 37,983 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Chicago metropolitan area.
The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s. Organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, it connected cities in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County.
The interurban is a type of electric railway, with tram-like electric self-propelled railcars which run within and between cities or towns. The term "interurban" is usually used in North America, with other terms used outside it. They were very prevalent in many parts of the world before the Second World War and were used primarily for passenger travel between cities and their surrounding suburban and rural communities. Interurban as a term encompassed the companies, their infrastructure, their cars that ran on the rails, and their service. In the United States, the early 1900s interurban was a valuable economic institution, when most roads between towns, many town streets were unpaved, and transportation and haulage was by horse-drawn carriages and carts.
The Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad, also known as the North Shore Line, was an interurban railroad that operated passenger and freight service over an 88.9-mile (143.1 km) route between the Chicago Loop and downtown Milwaukee, as well as an 8.6-mile (13.8 km) branch line between the villages of Lake Bluff and Mundelein, Illinois. The North Shore Line also provided streetcar, city bus and motor coach services along its interurban route.
The Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad (CA&E), known colloquially as the "Roarin' Elgin" or the "Great Third Rail", was an interurban railroad that operated passenger and freight service on its line between Chicago and Aurora, Batavia, Geneva, St. Charles, and Elgin, Illinois. The railroad also operated a small branch to Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Hillside and owned a branch line to Westchester.
The Sacramento Northern Railway was a 183-mile (295 km) electric interurban railway that connected Chico in northern California with Oakland via the state capital, Sacramento. In its operation it ran directly on the streets of Oakland, Sacramento, Yuba City, Chico, and Woodland. This involved multiple car trains making sharp turns at street corners and obeying traffic signals. Once in open country, SN's passenger trains ran at fairly fast speeds. With its shorter route and lower fares, the SN provided strong competition to the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific Railroad for passenger business and freight business between those two cities. North of Sacramento, both passenger and freight business was less due to the small town agricultural nature of the region and due to competition from the paralleling Southern Pacific Railroad.
The Fox River Trolley Museum is a railroad museum in South Elgin, Illinois. Incorporated in 1961 as R.E.L.I.C., it opened in 1966 and became the Fox River Trolley Museum in 1984.
The Elgin and Belvidere Electric Company was a 36-mile (58 km) interurban line that connected Belvidere, Illinois and Elgin, Illinois. It was the central link in the interurban network connecting Freeport, Rockford, Elgin, and Chicago which included the Rockford and Interurban Railway to the west and the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin Railroad to the east. The line was operational from 1907 until 1930. In 1927, the line was extended to Rockford over a line of the Rockford and Interurban.
The Indiana Railroad (IR) was the last of the typical Midwestern United States interurban lines. It was formed in 1930–31 by combining the operations of the five major interurban systems in central Indiana into one entity. The predecessor companies came under the control of Midland Utilities, owned by Samuel Insull. His plan was to modernize the profitable routes and abandon the unprofitable ones. With the onset of the Great Depression, the Insull empire collapsed and the Indiana Railroad was left with a decaying infrastructure and little hope of overcoming the growing competition of the automobile for passenger business and the truck for freight business. The IR faced bankruptcy in 1933, and Bowman Elder was designated as the receiver to run the company. Payments on bonded debt were suspended. Elder was able to keep the system virtually intact for four years, and IR operated about 600 miles (970 km) of interurban lines throughout Indiana during this period. During the late 1930s, the routes were abandoned one by one until a 1941 wreck with fatalities south of Indianapolis put an abrupt end to the Indiana Railroad's last passenger operations.
The International Railway Company (IRC) was a transportation company formed in a 1902 merger between several Buffalo-area interurban and street railways. The city railways that merged were the West Side Street Railway, the Crosstown Street Railway and the Buffalo Traction Company. The suburban railroads that merged included the Buffalo & Niagara Electric Street Railway, and its subsidiary the Buffalo, Lockport & Olcott Beach Railway; the Buffalo, Depew & Lancaster Railway; and the Niagara Falls Park & River Railway. Later the IRC acquired the Niagara Gorge Railroad (NGRR) as a subsidiary, which was sold in 1924 to the Niagara Falls Power Company. The NGRR also leased the Lewiston & Youngstown Frontier Railroad.
The Terre Haute, Indianapolis and Eastern Traction Company, or THI&E, was the second largest interurban electric railway in the U.S. state of Indiana during the height of the 1920s "interurban era." This system included over 400 miles (640 km) of track, with lines radiating from Indianapolis to the east, northwest, west and southwest as well as streetcar lines in several major cities. The THI&E was formed in 1907 by the Schoepf-McGowan Syndicate as a combination of several predecessor interurban and street car companies and was operated independently until incorporation into the Indiana Railroad in 1931. The THI&E served a wide range of territory, including farmlands in central Indiana, the mining region around Brazil, and numerous urban centers. Eventually, it slowly succumbed like all the other central Indiana interurban lines, to competition from automobiles, trucks, and improved paralleling highways.
The Jewett Car Company was an early 20th-century American industrial company that manufactured streetcars and interurban cars.
The Fox River Trail is a multi-use path in Illinois along the Fox River. Largely in Kane County, the trail connects the communities of Algonquin, Carpentersville, Dundee, Elgin, South Elgin, St. Charles, Geneva, Batavia, North Aurora, Aurora, Montgomery, and Oswego.
The 6000-series was a series of "L" cars built between 1950 and 1959 by the St. Louis Car Company for the Chicago Transit Authority. A total of 720 cars were produced, and remained in operation on the "L" until 1992.
The Chicago, Aurora and DeKalb Railroad was a 29-mile (47 km) interurban line which operated from 1906 to 1923 and connected the cities of Aurora and DeKalb, Illinois. The line made connections in Aurora with the Aurora, Elgin and Fox River Electric Company, the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin Railroad, and the Aurora, Plainfield and Joliet Railroad. Entry into Aurora was made via streetcar trackage of the Aurora, Elgin and Fox River Electric. Over the course of its history, the railroad used internal combustion, steam, and finally electric traction as motive power.
The Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad was an electric passenger railroad from Chicago west through its suburbs. The western portions were high-speed heavy lines, but access to the downtown area was on an elevated railway, part of Chicago’s “L” system. Because of the electric power and tight loading gauge, the cars were of unusual designs. One other area railroad, the “North Shore Line”, also used the “L” to enter Chicago and had similar cars.
Marshfield was a rapid transit station on the Chicago "L" in service between 1895 and 1954. Constructed by the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad, it was the westernmost station of the Metropolitan's main line, which then diverged into three branches. Marshfield was also served by the Aurora Elgin and Chicago Railway (AE&C) and its descendant the Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad (CA&E), an interurban, between 1905 and 1953.
Elgin was a station on the Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad, where it was the western terminus of the Elgin branch. Throughout the early 20th century, it also connected with the Elgin and Belvidere Railway and Aurora, Elgin and Fox River Electric Company (AE&FRE) interurbans.
