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The interurban is a type of electric railway, with tram-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 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 San Francisco Transbay Terminal was a transportation complex in San Francisco, California, United States, roughly in the center of the rectangle bounded north–south by Mission Street and Howard Street, and east–west by Beale Street and 2nd Street in the South of Market area of the city. It opened on January 14, 1939 as a train station and was converted into a bus depot in 1959. The terminal mainly served San Francisco's downtown and Financial District, as transportation from surrounding communities of the Bay Area terminated there such as: Golden Gate Transit buses from Marin County, AC Transit buses from the East Bay, and SamTrans buses from San Mateo County. Long-distance buses from beyond the Bay Area such as Greyhound and Amtrak Thruway also served the terminal. Several bus lines of the San Francisco Municipal Railway connected with the terminal.
The Illinois Terminal Railroad Company, known as the Illinois Traction System until 1937, was a heavy duty interurban electric railroad with extensive passenger and freight business in central and southern Illinois from 1896 to 1956. When Depression era Illinois Traction was in financial distress and had to reorganize, the Illinois Terminal name was adopted to reflect the line's primary money making role as a freight interchange link to major steam railroads at its terminal ends, Peoria, Danville, and St. Louis. Interurban passenger service slowly was reduced, ending in 1956. Freight operation continued but was hobbled by tight street running in some towns requiring very sharp radius turns. In 1956, ITC was absorbed by a consortium of connecting railroads.
The historic Pacific Electric Building, opened in 1905 in the core of Los Angeles as the main train station for the Pacific Electric Railway, as well as the company's headquarters; Main Street Station served passengers boarding trains for the south and east of Southern California. The building was designed by architect Thornton Fitzhugh. Though not the tallest in Los Angeles, its ten floors enclosed the greatest number of square feet in any building west of Chicago for many decades. Above the train station, covering the lower floors, were five floors of offices; and in the top three was the Jonathan Club, one of the city's leading businessmen's clubs introduced by magnates from the Northeast. After the “Great Merger” of Pacific Electric into Southern Pacific Railroad in 1911, the PE Building became the home of Southern Pacific in Los Angeles. In 1925, a second electric rail hub, the Subway Terminal, was opened near Pershing Square to serve the north and west.
The Western Railway Museum, in Solano County, California is located on Highway 12 between Rio Vista and Suisun. The museum is built along the former mainline of the Sacramento Northern Railway. Their collection focuses on trolleys, as it is primarily a museum of interurban transit equipment.
The Central California Traction Company is a Class III short-line railroad operating in the northern San Joaquin Valley, in San Joaquin County, California. It is owned jointly by the Union Pacific and BNSF Railway.
The East Bay Electric Lines were a unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad that operated electric interurban-type trains in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Beginning in 1862, the SP and its predecessors operated local steam-drawn ferry-train passenger service in the East Bay on an expanding system of lines, but in 1902 the Key System started a competing system of electric lines and ferries. The SP then drew up plans to expand and electrify its system of lines and this new service began in 1911. The trains served the cities of Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville, Oakland, Alameda, and San Leandro transporting commuters to and from the large Oakland Pier and SP Alameda Pier. A fleet of ferry boats ran between these piers and the docks of the Ferry Building on the San Francisco Embarcadero.
The Sacramento Northern Railway was a 183-mile (295 km) electric interurban railway that connected Chico in northern California with Oakland via the California capital, Sacramento. In its operation it ran directly on the streets of Oakland, Sacramento, Yuba City, Chico, and Woodland and ran interurban passenger service until 1941 and freight service into the 1960s.
The Tidewater Southern Railway was a short line railroad in Central California in the United States. For most of its history, it was a subsidiary of the Western Pacific Railroad. It was originally built as an interurban system, connecting to the Central California Traction Company, Western Pacific Railroad, Southern Pacific Railroad and Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in Stockton, California. Its mainline went southeast from Stockton to Escalon, California and thence to Modesto, California before splitting into two branches ending at the towns of Turlock and Hilmar. Until the mid-1930s, there were plans to extend the line to Fresno and even toward the Los Angeles area. Today, much of the line is still operated by the Union Pacific Railroad. Of all the former interurban railroads in California, the former Tidewater Southern retains the highest percentage of still operating trackage.
Sacramento Valley Station is an Amtrak railway station in the city of Sacramento, California, at 401 I Street on the corner of Fifth Street, built in 1926 on the site of China Slough. It is the thirteenth busiest Amtrak station in the country, and the second busiest in the Western United States. It is served by four different Amtrak train routes and connecting Amtrak Thruway motorcoaches. It is also the western terminus for the Gold Line of the Sacramento RT Light Rail system and the Route 30 bus serving California State University, Sacramento.
The Piedmont & Northern Railway was a heavy electric interurban company operating over two disconnected divisions in North and South Carolina. Tracks spanned 128 miles (206 km) total between the two segments, with the northern division running 24 miles (39 km) from Charlotte, to Gastonia, North Carolina, including a three-mile (5 km) spur to Belmont. The southern division main line ran 89 miles (143 km) from Greenwood to Spartanburg, South Carolina, with a 12 mi (19 km) spur to Anderson. Initially the railroad was electrified at 1500 volts DC, however, much of the electrification was abandoned when dieselisation was completed in 1954.
This article lists the railroads and a timeline of railroad history in Solano County, California.
The Pasadena Short Line was a passenger railway line of the Pacific Electric Railway. It ran between Downtown Los Angeles and Downtown Pasadena, California, through Eastside Los Angeles along the foot of the eastern San Rafael Hills to the western San Gabriel Valley. It was in service under the company between 1902 until 1951, though it had operated under different companies back to its beginnings as a horsecar line. The route, designated by the company as line 2, was the key component of the company's Northern Subdivision.
12th & I station is an at-grade light rail station on the Blue Line of the Sacramento RT Light Rail system operated by the Sacramento Regional Transit District. The station is located alongside 12th Street at its intersection with I Street, after which the station is named, in the city of Sacramento, California.
The Upland–San Bernardino Line was an interurban line operated by the Pacific Electric Railway between Downtown Los Angeles and San Bernardino, California. This line also had shorter service that terminated before the end of the line at Baldwin Park, Covina, and San Dimas. Though service along this line in its entirety was discontinued in November 1941, it stands as the fourth-longest rapid transit line in American history, after the Sacramento Northern Railway's Chico and Colusa services, and the Pacific Electric's own Riverside–Rialto Line.
The Sierra Vista Line was a streetcar route mostly operated by the Pacific Electric Railway. It ran from 1895 to 1951 as the short turn making local stops along the Pasadena Short Line on the outside tracks of the Northern Division quadruple-track system.
The Southern Pacific Red Electric Lines, also known simply as the Red Electric, was a network of interurban passenger train services operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad in the Willamette Valley of the U.S. state of Oregon from 1914 to 1929. The service got its name from the bright red color of its cars. Despite its short history, among West Coast interurbans it was unique, and it was considered the finest such system in the Pacific Northwest. It was the only major electric interurban railroad converted from steam to electric passenger use. It was also one of few systems using all-steel equipment, and one of the largest 1500-volt systems in the country.
The North Bank Depot Buildings, in central Portland, Oregon, United States, are a pair of buildings formerly used as a freight warehouse and passenger terminal for the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway (SP&S). Formed in 1905, the SP&S was commonly known as the North Bank Road during the period in which these buildings were in use. The Portland buildings' passenger facilities were also used by the Oregon Electric Railway after that railway was acquired by the SP&S. Located in what is now known as the Pearl District, the buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. They were in use by the SP&S and its successor, Burlington Northern Railroad, from 1908 until the 1980s. Only the east building was used as a passenger station, and this usage lasted from 1908 until 1931.
The Indianapolis Traction Terminal was a major interurban train station in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. It was the largest interurban station in the world and at its peak handled 500 trains per day and seven million passengers per year. The station opened in 1904 and remained in use until 1941, when interurban operation ended. It continued to serve as a bus station until 1968 and was demolished in 1972. The Hilton Indianapolis now stands at its location.
Western Pacific Passenger Depot is a former railway station in Sacramento, California, located at 19th and J Streets. Opened in 1910 by the Western Pacific Railroad as part of the Feather River Route, the station would go on to serve the original California Zephyr until the service was discontinued in 1970. The Old Spaghetti Factory opened in the old building in 1978.
References
- ↑ "Big Throng Cheers First Train Leaving New Union Station". The Sacramento Union. Sacramento, California. September 20, 1925. pp. 1–2 . Retrieved May 24, 2024– via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ "Traction Line Announced New Schedule Of Trains". The Sacramento Bee. Sacramento, California. March 25, 1926. p. 14. Retrieved May 24, 2024– via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ "Transfer Facilities Of New Station To Benefit Public And Rail Lines / Terminal Is Result of Three Years' Planning By Railroad Officials". The Sacramento Bee. Sacramento, California. September 18, 1925. p. 26. Retrieved May 26, 2024– via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ Hilton & Due 1960, p. 70.
- ↑ Hilton & Due 1960, p. 69.
- ↑ Trimble 2005, p. 71.
- ↑ Hilton & Due 1960, p. 64.
Bibliography
- Hilton, George W.; Due, John Fitzgerald (1960). The Electric Interurban Railways in America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-4014-2. OCLC 237973.
- Trimble, Paul C. (2005). Sacramento Northern Railway. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9780738530529.