Dearborn is a city in Buchanan and Platte counties in the U.S. state of Missouri and is part of the Kansas City metropolitan area. The population was 482 at the 2020 census.
The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s. Organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, it connected cities in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County.
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 J. G. Brill Company manufactured streetcars, interurban coaches, motor buses, trolleybuses and railroad cars in the United States for nearly 90 years, hence the longest-lasting trolley and interurban manufacturer. At its height, Brill was the largest manufacturer of streetcars and interurban cars in the US and produced more streetcars, interurbans and gas-electric cars than any other manufacturer, building more than 45,000 streetcars alone.
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.
Established in 1908, the Stockton Terminal and Eastern Railroad provides service to several companies around the Stockton area, in San Joaquin County, California.
The Louisville Railway Company (LRC) was a streetcar and interurban rail operator in Louisville, Kentucky. It began under the name Louisville City Railway in 1859 as a horsecar operator and slowly acquired other rival companies. It was renamed in 1880 following the merger of all Mule operations as the Louisville Railway Company. All tracks were 5 ft gauge.
The Fox River Trolley Museum is a railroad museum in South Elgin, Illinois. Incorporated in 1961 as R.E.L.I.C., it opened in 1966 and became the Fox River Trolley Museum in 1984.
The Kansas City, Clay County and St. Joseph Railway was an electrified interurban railway that ran between Kansas City, Missouri, and St. Joseph, Missouri, from the early 1900s until 1933. It was the longest of the various interurbans serving Kansas City running nearly 60 miles (97 km) and extended another 10 miles (16 km) to Savannah, Missouri.
The Beaumont, Sour Lake and Western Railway was an 85-mile (137 km) railroad that ran from Beaumont, Texas to Gulf Coast Junction in Houston. It passed through small southeast Texas communities such as Hull, Kenefick, and Huffman. As part of the Gulf Coast Lines system, the road was eventually merged into the Missouri Pacific Railroad in 1956, which in turn was merged into the Union Pacific Railroad in 1982. The Union Pacific still makes heavy use of the route.
The East St. Louis and Suburban Railway was an interurban railroad that operated in Illinois.
The Arkansas Valley Interurban Railway (AVI) was an interurban railway that operated in Kansas, United States, from 1910 to 1938 for passengers and to 1942 for freight, running between Wichita, Newton, and Hutchinson. It operated a small fleet of electrically powered passenger and freight equipment. Service was suspended during World War II and never resumed, except on a small portion owned the Hutchinson and Northern Railroad which is still in operation. (2020)
The V&S Railway is a shortline railroad that operates two disconnected lines in the U.S. state of Kansas. It is affiliated with A&K Railroad Materials. The company acquired its first line, a former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway line between Medicine Lodge and a BNSF Railway junction at Attica, from the Central Kansas Railway in 2000. In 2006 it expanded its operations by acquiring from the Hutchinson and Northern Railway a short segment of former interurban in eastern Hutchinson, where it interchanges with the BNSF Railway, Union Pacific Railroad, and Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad. Other railroads under common control with the V&S are the out-of-service Kern Valley Railroad in Colorado, the Gloster Southern Railroad in Louisiana and Mississippi, the Grenada Railway and Natchez Railway in Mississippi, a portion of the former Rock Island from St. Louis to Union, Missouri operated by the Missouri Central and the Southern Manitoba Railway in Manitoba.
The following is a brief history of the North American rail system, mainly through major changes to Class I railroads, the largest class by operating revenue.
The Illinois Traction Building, located at 41 E. University Ave. in Champaign, Illinois, was the headquarters of the Illinois Traction System, an interurban railroad serving Central Illinois. Built in 1913, the building held the railway's offices and served as the Champaign interurban station until 1936; it later housed the offices of the Illinois Power Company, which descended from the Illinois Traction System. Architect Joseph Royer planned the building in a contemporary commercial design. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 20, 2006.
