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 Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad (C&LE) was a short-lived electric interurban railway that operated in 1930–1939 Depression-era Ohio and ran between the major cities of Cincinnati, Dayton, Springfield, Columbus, and Toledo. It had a substantial freight business and interchanged with other interurbans to serve Detroit and Cleveland. Its twenty high-speed "Red Devil" interurban passenger cars operated daily between Cincinnati and Cleveland via Toledo, the longest same equipment run by an interurban in the United States. The C&LE failed because of the weak economy and the loss of essential freight interchange partners. It ceased operating in 1939.
The Iowa Interstate Railroad is a Class II regional railroad operating in the central United States. The railroad is owned by Railroad Development Corporation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Iowa Traction Railway Company, formerly the Iowa Traction Railroad Company, is a class III shortline railroad operating in the United States as a common carrier. It was originally founded in 1896 as the Mason City and Clear Lake Railway, a passenger carrier. Since 1937, Business has been exclusively freight. The company's main line connects Mason City and Clear Lake, Iowa. The IATR is notable for being one of two remaining non-passenger railroads in the United States to use electric locomotives.
The Detroit and Toledo Shore Line Railroad is a historic railroad that operated in northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan.
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 Sand Springs Railway is a class III railroad operating in Oklahoma. It was formed in 1911 by industrialist Charles Page to connect his newly formed city of Sand Springs to Tulsa, operating both as a passenger-carrying interurban and a freight carrier. At Sand Springs, the company also served his children's home, and Page directed all railroad profits to support the home's operations.
The Iowa Northern Railway is a Class III shortline railroad operating in the U.S. state of Iowa.
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 Youngstown and Ohio River Railroad, or Y&OR, was one of the smaller interurban railways in the state of Ohio. Along with the Youngstown and Southern Railway, the Y&OR formed a traction link between Youngstown, Ohio and the Ohio River at East Liverpool. It served several coal mines in the area and it was distinguished by the unusual feat of electrifying a section of a steam railroad, the Pittsburgh, Lisbon and Western Railroad, as part of a trackage rights agreement. The Y&OR operated for 24 years.
The Grand Rapids, Grand Haven and Muskegon Railway was an electric interurban railway that operated in west Michigan from 1902 until 1928.
Central Iowa Railway was a 63-mile (101-km) freight railroad that operated during 1974 from Hills, Iowa to Montezuma, Iowa.
The Red Devil was a high-speed interurban streetcar built by the Cincinnati Car Company for the Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad (C&LE) in 1929–1930. They saw service throughout Ohio in the 1930s. After the failure of the C&LE in 1939 they saw service with the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway (CRANDIC) and the Lehigh Valley Transit Company. Several have been preserved.
The Salt Lake, Garfield & Western Railway, nicknamed through most of its history as The Saltair Route, is a short line railroad located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Originally incorporated as a dual passenger and freight railroad, it now provides freight-only railcar switching services to industries in Salt Lake City along its sixteen miles of track.
The Southern California Railway Museum, formerly known as the Orange Empire Railway Museum, is a railroad museum in Perris, California, United States. It was founded in 1956 at Griffith Park in Los Angeles before moving to the former Pinacate Station as the "Orange Empire Trolley Museum" in 1958. It was renamed "Orange Empire Railway Museum" in 1975 after merging with a museum then known as the California Southern Railroad Museum, and adopted its current name in 2019. The museum also operates a heritage railroad on the museum grounds and on a right of way into Downtown Perris, CA.
The Lake Erie and Northern Railway was an interurban electric railway which operated in the Grand River Valley in Ontario, Canada. The railway owned and operated a north–south mainline which ran from Galt in the north to Port Dover on the shore of Lake Erie in the south. Along the way, it ran through rural areas of Waterloo County, Brant County, and Norfolk County, as well as the city of Brantford, where it had an interchange with the Brantford and Hamilton Electric Railway. Construction on the mainline began in 1913. The railway began operations in 1916 as a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), which had purchased the line before construction had finished. In 1931, it was consolidated with the Grand River Railway under a single CPR subsidiary, the Canadian Pacific Electric Lines (CPEL), which managed both interurban railways, though they continued to exist as legally separate entities. Passenger service was discontinued in 1955 but electric freight operations continued until 1961, when the LE&N's electric locomotives were replaced by diesel CPR locomotives and the line was de-electrified. In the same year, service on the mainline from Simcoe to Port Dover was discontinued, but the remainder continued to operate as a branchline which as early as 1975 was known as the CP Simcoe Subdivision. The remainder of the line was officially abandoned in the early 1990s, ending almost seventy-five years of operation.
The Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Northern Railway (WCF&N) was an electric interurban railway that operated in the US state of Iowa.
Iowa City-North Liberty Commuter Rail is a proposed commuter rail project in Johnson County, Iowa, that aims to reintroduce passenger rail service along an 8.2 miles (13.2 km) segment of the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway (CRANDIC) corridor. The service would connect North Liberty, Coralville, and the University of Iowa campus in Iowa City. As of 2025, the preferred alternative calls for a "Pop-Up Metro" pilot service that would utilize British Rail Class 230 battery-electric multiple units (BEMUs) repurposed from former London Underground D78 Stock.
