Toledo is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most-populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according to the 2010 census, the 71st-largest city in the United States. With a population of 274,975, it is the principal city of the Toledo metropolitan area. It also serves as a major trade center for the Midwest; its port is the fifth busiest in the Great Lakes and 54th biggest in the United States. The city was founded in 1833 on the west bank of the Maumee River, and originally incorporated as part of Monroe County, Michigan Territory. It was re-founded in 1837, after the conclusion of the Toledo War, when it was incorporated in Ohio.
Waterville is a city in Lucas County, Ohio, United States, along the Maumee River, a suburb of Toledo. The population was 5,523 at the 2010 census.
The Interurban is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 and 1925 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. Most between town roads and many town streets were unpaved. Transportation and haulage was by horse-drawn carriages and carts. The Interurban provided a new particularly in winter weather reliable transportation link between the town and countryside. In 1915, 15,500 miles (24,900 km) of interurban railways were operating in the United States and, for a few years, interurban railways, including the numerous manufacturers of cars and equipment, were the fifth-largest industry in the country. By 1930, most interurbans in North America were gone with a few surviving into the 1950s. Oliver Jensen, author of American Heritage History of Railroads in America, commented that "...the automobile doomed the interurban whose private tax paying tracks could never compete with the highways that a generous government provided for the motorist."
The Miami and Erie Canal was a 274-mile (441 km) canal that ran from Cincinnati to Toledo, Ohio, creating a water route between the Ohio River and Lake Erie. Construction on the canal began in 1825 and was completed in 1845 at a cost to the state government of $8,062,680.07. At its peak, it included 19 aqueducts, three guard locks, 103 canal locks, multiple feeder canals, and a few man-made water reservoirs. The canal climbed 395 feet (120 m) above Lake Erie and 513 feet (156 m) above the Ohio River to reach a topographical peak called the Loramie Summit, which extended 19 miles (31 km) between New Bremen, Ohio to lock 1-S in Lockington, north of Piqua, Ohio. Boats up to 80 feet long were towed along the canal by mules, horses, and oxen walking on a prepared towpath along the bank, at a rate of four to five miles per hour.
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 Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway (CH&DRy) was an electric interurban railway that existed between 1926 and 1930 in the U.S. state of Ohio. It was absorbed in 1930 into the new Cincinnati and Lake Erie interurban railway. In typical interurban fashion, in open country it had its own right of way, although this was often adjacent and parallel to a road. In cities and towns it operated on city streets. This included two and three car freight/express trains as well as passenger cars.
The Lake Shore Electric Railway (LSE) was an interurban electric railway that ran primarily between Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio by way of Sandusky and Fremont. Through arrangements with connecting interurban lines, it also offered service from Fremont to Fostoria and Lima, Ohio, and at Toledo to Detroit and Cincinnati.
The Cincinnati Car Company or Cincinnati Car Corporation was a subsidiary of the Ohio Traction Company. It designed and constructed interurban cars, streetcars (trams) and buses. It was founded in 1902 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1928, it bought the Versare Car Company.
The Toledo Metropolitan Area, or Greater Toledo, is a metropolitan area centered on the American city of Toledo, Ohio. As of the 2010 census, the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) had a population of 651,429. It is the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the state of Ohio, behind Cincinnati–Northern Kentucky, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Akron.
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. It was Insull's plan to transform the Indiana interurban network into a new Indiana Railroad by modernizing the profitable routes and abandoning 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 for overcoming the growing competition of the automobile for passenger business and the truck for freight business. The IR faced bankruptcy in 1933, and receiver Bowman Elder was designated 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 last operation of interurbans in Indiana.
The Terre Haute, Indianapolis and Eastern Traction Company, or THI&E, was the second largest interurban in the U.S. state of Indiana at the 1920s height of the "interurban era." This system included over 400 miles 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 of the other central Indiana interurban lines, to competition from automobiles and trucks and improved paralleling highways.
The Toledo, Lake Erie and Western Railway is a non-profit 501 (c) (3), and heritage railroad operating on 10 miles (16 km) of railway, ex- Norfolk and Western Railroad, née-Toledo, St. Louis and Western Railroad and crosses the Maumee River on a 901 ft (275 m) bridge, which was constructed in 1916. This bridge is the largest owned by a tourist railroad east of the Mississippi River. The TLEW owns from MP 15 in Waterville to MP 25 in Grand Rapids, Ohio, acquired when NW was filing abandonment on the line south of MP 15. In addition to the purchase of the 10 miles of mainline track, the TLEW had leased from MP 13.2 to MP 15 through Waterville from the Norfolk Western, which later became Norfolk Southern in 1982.
The Detroit United Railway was a transport company which operated numerous streetcar and interurban lines in southeast Michigan. Although many of the lines were originally built by different companies, they were consolidated under the control of the Everett-Moore syndicate, a Cleveland-based group of investors. The company incorporated on December 31, 1900, and continued to expand into the early 1920s through new construction and the acquisition of smaller concerns. After the DUR acquired the Detroit-Jackson line in 1907, it operated more than 400 miles (640 km) of interurban lines and 187 miles (301 km) of street city street railway lines.
Farnsworth Metropark is a regional park located in Waterville, Ohio that is part of the Toledo Metroparks. The long narrow parks sits on the western shore of the Maumee River with a view of several islands, including Missionary, Butler and Indian islands, all of which are owned by the State of Ohio.
The Lehigh Valley Transit Company (LVT) was a regional transport company, headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania, that began operations in 1901 as an urban trolley and interurban rail transport company. It operated successfully into the 1930s, struggled financially during the Depression, and was saved from abandonment by a dramatic ridership increase due to the Second World War. In 1951, the LVT, once again financially struggling, ended its 36-mile (58 km) interurban rail service from Allentown to Philadelphia. In 1952, it ended its Allentown area local trolley service. It operated local bus service in the Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, Pennsylvania, areas until going out of business in 1972.
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 Ohio Electric Railway was an interurban railroad formed in 1907 with the consolidation of 14 smaller interurban railways. It was Ohio's largest interurban, connecting Toledo, Lima, Dayton, Columbus, and Cincinnati. At its peak it operated 617 miles (993 km) of track. Never financially healthy, the company went bankrupt in 1921 and was dissolved into its constituent companies.
The Ohio Southern Railroad operated between Ironton, Ohio, and Lima, Ohio, from 1893 and 1905. Beginning in 1878 as the narrow gauge Springfield, Jackson and Pomeroy Railroad, it ran from Jackson-Wellston, Jackson County to Springfield, Ohio. The line was converted to a standard gauge by 1880 and renamed the Ohio Southern Railroad in 1881. From Jeffersonville, branch lines were started towards Columbus to the northeast and Cincinnati to the southwest, but never completed. By September 1893, the Ohio Southern had reached north to Lima with a bridge over the Great Miami River at Quincy. At Lima, the freight could link to the Lima Northern Railway for points further north. In 1898, the Lima Northern became the Detroit and Lima Northern Railroad (D&LN). Ohio Southern depots continue to stand in St. Johns, Uniopolis, Jackson Center, Quincy, and Rosewood.
