Chautauqua is a town and lake resort community in Chautauqua County, New York. The population was 4,017 at the 2020 census. The town is named after Chautauqua Lake. It is the home of the Chautauqua Institution and the birthplace of the Chautauqua movement.
Jamestown is a city in southern Chautauqua County, New York, United States. The population was 28,712 at the 2020 census. Situated between Lake Erie to the north and the Allegheny National Forest to the south, Jamestown is the largest city in the county. Nearby Chautauqua Lake is a freshwater resource used by fishermen, boaters, and naturalists.
Mayville is a village in Chautauqua County, New York, United States. The population was 1,477 at the 2020 census, 13.7% less than in the 2010 census. Mayville is in the town of Chautauqua and is the county seat of Chautauqua County. The village and town offices share a building on Main Street, directly across from the Chautauqua County courthouse.
The Interurban is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars 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 North America between 1900 and 1925 and were used primarily for passenger travel between cities and their surrounding suburban and rural communities. The concept spread to countries such as Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and Poland. 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 roads between towns and many town streets were unpaved. Transportation and haulage was by horse-drawn carriages and carts. The interurban provided reliable transportation, particularly in winter weather, 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.
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 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 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 Toledo, Port Clinton and Lakeside Railway was an interurban electrified railway system serving northwestern Ohio's Marblehead Peninsula.
A box motor, in railroad terminology, was a self-propelled boxcar, normally powered by electricity and running on an interurban railway or a streetcar line. Many box motors were converted from passenger cars on the systems that ran them, with the seats and most of the windows removed and large freight doors fitted. They were generally used for express and less-than-carload freight.
New York State Route 394 (NY 394) is a state highway located within Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties in southwestern New York in the United States. Its western terminus is located on the shore of Lake Erie at an intersection with NY 5 in the Westfield hamlet of Barcelona. The eastern terminus is located at an interchange with the Southern Tier Expressway at the Coldspring hamlet of Steamburg. From Mayville to Jamestown, NY 394 follows the western edge of Chautauqua Lake. East of Jamestown, the route straddles the Southern Tier Expressway and connects to the highway in four different locations, including at its eastern terminus.
New York State Route 430 (NY 430) is a state highway located entirely within Chautauqua County, New York, in the United States. Its western terminus is located at the Pennsylvania state line near the hamlet of Findley Lake in the town of Mina. The eastern terminus is located in the city of Jamestown at a junction with NY 60 and NY 394. NY 430 is ceremoniously designated as the Senator Jess J. Present Memorial Highway in honor of Jess Present, a New York State Senator from Jamestown.
Midway State Park, located in Maple Springs, New York, was established in 1898 by the Jamestown & Lake Erie Railway as a picnic ground. Today, it is recognized as the fifteenth-oldest continually operating amusement park in the United States, and the fifth-oldest remaining trolley park of the thirteen still operating in the United States.
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 National New York Central Railroad Museum is a railroad museum located in Elkhart, Indiana dedicated to the preservation of the New York Central Railroad (NYC).
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 (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 of the other central Indiana interurban lines, to competition from automobiles, trucks, and improved paralleling highways.
The Visalia Electric Railroad, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), began as an electric interurban railroad in Tulare County, in the U.S. State of California. The railroad was incorporated on 22 April 1904. Passenger service was discontinued in 1924, and the electrification was removed in 1944. Subsequent operation was by diesel locomotive. The railroad was closed in 1992.
The Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Railroad (FJ&G) was formerly a 132-mile steam engine and electric interurban railroad that connected its namesake towns in east central New York State to Schenectady, New York. It had a successful and profitable transportation business from 1870 until the 1980s carrying workers, salesmen, and executives of the very large number of glove manufacturing companies in the area to the New York Central (NYC) station at Schenectady. From here they could catch trains south to New York City (NYC) or west to Chicago. It also handled freight and had freight interchange with both the New York Central and the Delaware and Hudson railroads. Passenger business declined starting before the Great Depression and particularly during it. Following a determined and expensive effort to recapture passenger business by acquiring five ultra modern high-speed Brill Bullet interurban cars in 1932, the FJ&G abandoned passenger service in 1938. Freight business continued on for a few more decades, was later taken over by the Delaware and Otsego Railroad management and then eventually abandoned.
Mayville is a historic train station located at Mayville in Chautauqua County, New York. It was constructed in 1925, for the Pennsylvania Railroad and is a 1+1⁄2-story, brick structure with an overhanging hipped roof. The building measures 117 by 29 feet. The station had were Pennsylvania Railroad trains on a route north to Dunkirk and then to Buffalo. To the south, the routed went to Corry and Oil City and then to Pittsburgh. From the station, travelers to resorts along Chautauqua Lake made connections to interurbans and large fleets of steamboats. The Chautauqua Traction Company served the communities on the western side of the lake; and the Jamestown, Westfield and Northwestern Railroad served the eastern side of the lake.
Westfield is a historic train station located at Westfield in Chautauqua County, New York. It was constructed in 1904, for the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. It is a 1+1⁄2-story brick, terra cotta, and sandstone structure in the Romanesque style. It served as the main transfer point for rail passengers destined for the Chautauqua Institution. The Jamestown, Westfield and Northwestern Railroad interurban, serving the eastern part of Chautauqua used the station. The Chautauqua Traction Company, serving the Chautauqua hamlet, used the Nickel Plate Railroad's station in Westfield.
The Rochester and Eastern Rapid Railway (R&ER) was an electric interurban railway in New York State, USA, connecting Rochester, Canandaigua, and Geneva.
