Toledo is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 270,871, making Toledo the fourth-most populous city in Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. Toledo is the 85th-most populous city in the United States. It is the principal city of the Toledo metropolitan area, which had 606,240 residents in 2020. Toledo also serves as a major trade center for the Midwest; its port is the fifth-busiest on the Great Lakes.
Waterville is a city in Lucas County, Ohio, United States, along the Maumee River. A suburb of Toledo, the population was 6,003 at the 2020 census.
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 Ohio Rhineland is a German cultural region of Ohio. It was named by Rhinelanders and other Germans who settled the area in the mid-19th century. They named the canal "the Rhine" in reference to the river Rhine in Germany, and the newly settled area north of the canal as "Over the Rhine".
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&DR) 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, it had its own right of way in open country, although this was often adjacent or 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 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 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 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 in Waterville, Ohio, owned and operated by Metroparks Toledo. 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 that was headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The company began operations in 1901, as an urban trolley and interurban rail transport company. It operated successfully into the 1930s, but struggled financially during the Great Depression, and was saved from abandonment by a dramatic ridership increase during and following World War II.
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.
Public transit has taken numerous forms in Columbus, the largest city and capital of Ohio. Transit has variously used passenger trains, horsecars, streetcars, interurbans, trolley coaches, and buses. Current service is through the Central Ohio Transit Authority's bus system, numerous intercity bus companies, and through bikeshare, rideshare, and electric scooter services.
