Great story about the restoration of an original Scioto Valley Traction Company interurban streetcar depot.  Story also has some great maps that show just how far-reaching Ohio's interurban system was.

 

Depot's day, 80 years later

Siblings recall Canal Winchester rail stop as it gets historical marker

Saturday,  May 22, 2010 2:51 AM

By Elizabeth Gibson

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

Eighty years ago, George and Dorothy Boving came home from school and were told by their father to go straight to the depot.

 

"We didn't hesitate to do what our dad told us to do," Mr. Boving said yesterday. "We really just sat there on the train, but I think our dad kind of realized it was historic."

 

What their father realized - and they didn't - was that it was the last ride on the Scioto Valley Traction Line for the interurban, an electric passenger railroad that was the light-rail system of its time.

 

Full story at: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/05/22/depots-day-80-years-later.html?sid=101

That map of Ohio's and Central Ohio's interurban rail lines was pretty amazing.  As was the article.  Below is a link to the interurban rail network map included with the article. 

 

MAP OF OHIO INTERURBAN LINES

I'd expect by now that they'd understand the difference between light rail and intercity rail. Well, no, I wouldn't; it's the Dispatch. I probably should be pleased that the writer didn't refer to the electric trains as "chugging down the tracks."

 

Incidentally, the line shown on the map as running northwest out of Lima was one of five lines that converged on Fort Wayne, and there was a direct connection between Dayton and Indianapolis, too. At their peak, the interurban systems created an interconnecting web that spread across most of the midwest and beyond. Some of the longest routes had available sleeping car, dining car, and parlor service providing comfort, convenience, and frequency comparable to or better than the steam railroads, especially for small towns, and without soot and cinders.

 

 

True, although once you factor out the distances traveled and look at from a purely technical point of view, modern-day light rail trains probably have more in common with traditional interurbans than with any other form of rail transit.

The interurbans were an interesting and short-lived animal in the transportation universe.  The fact that only one survives to this day in any capacity even remotely similar to when it was constructed (the Chicago, South Shore and South Bend, and then only the outer portions east of Gary really bear any resemblance to its original setup) shows just how vulnerable they were to the automobile and the truck.  Many that paralleled railroads siphoned off the least profitable short-haul passenger traffic.  They made very frequent stops, but that was somewhat compensated for by the quick acceleration and braking capabilities of electric cars compared to steam trains.  Nonetheless, they were still only 2/3 as fast as steam trains, with about 2/3 the fare.  What really made them attractive was their frequency, generally one train per hour during the daytime.  Steam trains couldn't dream of getting anywhere near that. 

 

Here's a more extensive map of the midwest system from Hilton & Due's book on the industry.

 

 

Larger version:  http://jjakucyk.com/urbanohio2/interurbanmaplarge.jpg

 

Note that while the extensive Ohio and Indiana systems were fairly well connected, long trips via interurban were very rare due to the many transfers and slow running that was necessary.  Most interurbans had a schedule speed of around 20 mph, and even one of the fastest around, the Cincinnati & Lake Erie, barely managed to eek out a 33 mph average speed for their Cincinnati to Toledo run. 

 

While the distinction between today's streetcars and light rail is a bit different, there certainly are some similarities.  Like light rail, the interurbans used heavier and faster cars, and they tried to avoid street running where possible.  Here in the midwest, most interurbans in the country used a right of way at the side of the road, whereas in New England they tended to just stay in the middle of the street even out in the country.  Today's light rail is much more heavily built though, and it tends to be a more city/suburban service while the interurbans were much more about linking farms and small towns with each other and nearby population centers.  While they did provide suburban and city service (they had to go through those areas to get downtown after all) it was usually only done begrudgingly. 

 

For anyone who's interested in the Cincinnati area interurbans, you should definitely check out my website.  There's a brief history of each interurban line and a much more comprehensive map of southwest Ohio that includes all railroads and connecting streetcar tracks, among other things.  Here's a small preview that shows the extent of the map.

 

One of the people quoted in the Dispatch piece runs a website called Columbus Railroads....a very good source for old photos of interurbans, streetcars and the trains that once served Columbus and Central Ohio.  He's got some great photos in particular of the old Columbus, Delaware & Marion Interurban line.

 

http://www.columbusrailroads.com/

By the 1930s some of the midwestern lines ran pretty fast in the open country, but what killed the running times was the growing automobile interference on the street-running over city streetcar tracks to reach their downtown stations. There's a very excellent video titled Singing Wire 2 - Indiana Railroad, by Herron Rail, comprised of 8mm and 16mm film shot in 1938 just a few years before the 1941 end of the service from Fort Wayne through Indianapolis to Louisville, and in some of its scenes the problem is very evident. Also evident are the fast speeds that the trains achieved in open country.

 

In 1925 utilities magnate Samuel Insull acquired many of the Indiana systems, consolidated some of them under Indiana Railroad, and invested a lot of money in new cars, track improvements, and better power distribution systems. An older gentleman who had been a long-time friend of my grandfather used to visit us when I was a teenager. He had been a motorman on the Indiana Railroad and he said that the new cars that Insull bought in 1928, advertised as able to reach 70mph, were easily capable of 80mph and often were operated that way. Although a scheduled local between Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, with numerous stops, took 4 hours, he said that with good planning and dispatching a chartered special with the "Indiana High-Speeds" could make the run in just over 2 hours, for an average speed of about almost 60mph, barring any encounters with buggies, wagons, autos, or livestock.

jjakucyk, what year is your map?  I see that the town of Willard, Ohio is referred to as Chicago Junction-- it's original name.   

The map from Hilton & Due's book dates from the original 1960 printing.  A second printing in 1964 adds a few sentences on the disposition of the Pacific Electric's Long Beach line and the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee, which were abandoned in 1961 and 1963 respectively.  It was reprinted in paperback in 2000 and is readily available.  I actually kind of wish I had this in a hard cover.  I've dogeared so many pages, smashed up the binding, and it looks like I dropped it in the bathtub, so it's just completely worn out, but that's because it's really such a fascinating read and a great general resource.  Anyway, they do acknowledge that the town is now Willard in the text, but for most of the Sandusky, Norwalk & Mansfield's operations it was Chicago Junction, so I guess that's why they marked it as such on the map. 

The interurbans were an interesting and short-lived animal in the transportation universe.

 

In the U.S., that's true. But they are still very common in Europe, Russia and the Pacific Rim.

 

And, actually, the Shaker Rapid was built as an interurban. It was intended to be a four-track electrified railroad from Cleveland to Youngstown, hence its early name -- Cleveland & Youngstown Railroad. Note that the underpasses between East 93rd and Shaker Square have four portals but only two are active. The other two are either partially covered by a slope or completely sealed with brick.

 

The interubans were done in by three things:  publicly paved roads, the Great Depression and the U.S. Supreme Court. Many interurbans could compete fine with automobiles as long as they ran on dirt/mud/snow etc. In transportation, it's all about the quality of infrastructure and who pays for it.

 

As for the U.S. Supreme Court, the interurbans were the victims of anti-corporate trust-busting, as well as rural interests who lamented their lack of electric utility service. The electric utilities, interurbans and real estate developers were often one in the same in the late 1800s and early 1900s. When these trusts were broken up by the U.S. Supreme Court in about 1930, the interurbans became the odd one out, especially as paved roads proliferated. The interurbans often weren't money-makers but were necessary loss-leaders to provide access to new developments in outlying towns and cities. When they were separated from the electric utility and real estate activities, they became easy pickings for companies like National City Lines, Pacific City Lines and in Ohio, Yellow Motor Coach -- all of which were financed by GM, Firestone Tires, Standard Oil, Phillips Petroleum, Mack Track (they made buses back then, as did GM) and others.

 

None of those things happened in Europe or the Pacific Rim, which also never produced much of their own oil unlike the U.S. which was the world's largest oil producer for 100 years -- though we're still desperately trying to hold on to that oil-fueled lifestyle!

Chicago's Skokie Swift (Yellow Line) is also a vestige of the North Shore Line interurban service to Wisconsin. In addition, right-of-way was preserved in the Eisenhower Expressway median for the Elgin Joliet & Eastern interurban that was temporarily shut down when the former elevated line was demolished to make way for the expressway, but the EJ&E didn't survive and the temporary shutdown became permanent. The ROW still exists, though, as do two unused tunnel portals where the Dearborn Street Subway emerges into the freeway median. There is occasional talk of using that ROW for express 'L' service to O'Hare and Midway.

 

Not directly Ohio-related, of course, but more-or-less in our back yard.

The North Shore Line was an anomaly, as were the other Chicago interurbans, and most of the Pacific Electric.  They were very heavily built, fairly sophisticated systems that had more in common with heavy rapid transit than much of the rest of the industry.  The Skokie Valley route of the NSL was even more so, a high-speed route built in the mid 1920s to bypass the slow and congested Shore Line.  Some routes became more like that over time, but overall they were a very lightweight affair in a lot of ways.  Most were single-track with passing sidings and very rudimentary signaling, if there was any signaling at all.  They rarely used anything heavier than 70 lb rail, and grading was usually pretty minimal (though not always). 

 

This shot of the Cincinnati, Milford & Blanchester illustrates some of what I'm talking about.  Look at the steep grades, and very abrupt transition to the wooden trestle.  It's a very narrow right-of-way too, but the significant ups and downs and the tight curves would horrify any steam railroad operator.  This was one of the weaker Cincinnati roads, but it's not at all atypical.

 

 

Anyone who's ever biked or walked the Fairfax/Murray Avenue trail knows it's anything but flat.  That was the same interurban line.  Google map.

 

Also, the requirement of utility companies to divest themselves of their railroad interests was more of a straw that broke the camel's back than any real problem.  Many interurbans went under or were in receivership even before the Great Depression.  For instance, of Cincinnati's nine separate interurban lines, only two of them were still in operation after 1930, not counting a few miles of two lines that were bought by the street railway company. 

 

Paved roads really were the main killer of the industry, but aside from the Pacific Electric, I don't think the GM conspiracy really did much to the interurbans.  Yes, they did buy up many streetcar systems, but the interurbans were already self destructing to such an extent that they didn't need any help from GM.  National City Lines for example didn't really become a puppet of GM until the late 1930s, by which time there were virtually no interurbans left, but most streetcar systems were at their peak.  The more typical situation saw local power companies and energy syndicates buying up the interurbans just to get their power distribution lines and customers.  They had no interest in the railroad operations, and they abandoned them as soon as they could. 

Paved roads really were the main killer of the industry, but aside from the Pacific Electric, I don't think the GM conspiracy really did much to the interurbans. Yes, they did buy up many streetcar systems, but the interurbans were already self destructing to such an extent that they didn't need any help from GM.

 

True that they were destroyer of far more streetcar systems than interurban systems.

One more bit of interurban history was lost last night.  The Cincinnati & Columbus Traction Company's station (and electrical substation) in Marathon in Clermont County was gutted by a major fire.  Only the C&C's similar station in Madeira remains intact, and actually very lovingly restored too.

 

http://www.local12.com/news/local/story/Historic-Train-Station-Destroyed-By-Fire/CVrBwNW2K0S_stDg9Hz_CQ.cspx 

 

Here's some photos I took of it a few years ago:

 

 

Sad to see such a piece of history go up in smoke.

 

On another note, note the message on the side of this Columbus-Zanesville interurban... they clearly knew who and what they were up against.  Funny how that message still resonates today...

Nice! A five-year-old playing, apparently unattended, in a room with a lit candle. The mom probably is wondering why she has such bad luck.

 

Pretty good luck, I think, that no one died.

^

yeah!

 

BTW, I think some of those substation buildings are still standing around Dayton.  I can think of two, one on US 35 west of town and another near the old Salem Mall.

 

(good shot of that Zanesville interurban).

 

For me the great Ohio Interurban what-if is what if the CL&E empahsised their Cincy/Dayton service (double tracking and moving to private ROW, maybe the old canal bed) the way the North Shore did in Chicago?  And if the subway opened, allowing CL&E service downtown. 

 

I'd bet the line would have survived into the postwar era.

 

 

Interesting "what if".  Too bad they didn't have the foresight (or funding) to make that happen.

Harry Christiansen wrote a nicely illustrated series of books on Ohio interurban railroads.  These books are in the Cuyahoga County Library system.  You can probably order them from anywhere in the state.

 

Lake Shore Electric Railway, 1893-1938; fast interurban service; Cleveland-Toledo, via Lorain, Sandusky, Fremont, Vermilion, Huron, Norwalk, Bellevue and intermediate stations.

 

New Lake Shore Electric 

 

New Northern Ohio's interurbans and rapid transit railways 

 

Northern Ohio's interurbans and rapid transit railways

 

Trolley trails through Greater Cleveland and northern Ohio

 

Look under:

Christiansen, Harry  - 388.4 C462l

Too bad Harry Christiansen went over to the Dark Side after he left the Cleveland News. Hare Krishna, as his critics called him, became the public information officer for Cuyahoga County Engineer Albert Porter -- you know, the guy who wanted to pave our little corner of paradise and put up a parking lot....

Drove through Bettsville and Fostoria, Ohio over the weekend. I saw one old trolley poll in each of the downtowns. I was surprised that they're still standing. Did those cities have streetcar service, or are they from the interurbans?

 

Next time I'm up there, I will take a picture of them.

^The two maps upthread show an interurban line from Defiance to Lima, Ohio.

 

One of those Christiansen volumes had an odd attack on the management of the RTA.  He wrote a harsh critique (on what issue I could not figure out) and then crossed out the faces of their pictures all on one page.  I guess the book did not have an editor.

I have that book, too. Harry was an angry curmudgeon in his final years. He slept with the governmental enemies who killed his beloved private streetcars and interurbans, then blasted the transit agency for joining those same governmental ranks in order to play in the same public sandbox as them. I know he wanted more transit professionals and fewer political hacks running RTA back then, but his own boss (Porter) was the biggest hack of them all.

On a nerdier note: The Wisconsin ice sheet dropped a ten foot high column of glacial till onto Geauga county, forming a layer called "yellow Mahoning clay".  Unpaved roads were awful for wagons or cars, the region was a mucky mess.  Rail was the only transportation that worked during the mud season in poorly-drained Geauga County.  The soil is awful for farming, too.  Seeds won't germinate in clods of plowed clay.  Thus, Geauga County was barely developed by the twentieth century. 

 

The only thing that clay soil is good for is pasture or orchards.  The interurban line crossed Sperry Road in Novelty, Ohio.  There was a large dairy farm in operation there, and the farmer transported the milk to Cleveland using the interurban rail line. 

 

I liked to ride my bicycle in that area and tracked down all of the signs of the interurban.  There is a huge rack of rail next to the alignment at Fowler's Mill Golf Course.  There is no sign of the dairy operation at Sperry.  It must have been obsoleted in the era of truck transportation and disappeared a long while ago.

 

(Ever notice how many apple orchards there are around Chesterland?)

well, at least young men are wearing stylish hats again... :|

 

 

On a nerdier note: The Wisconsin ice sheet dropped a ten foot high column of glacial till onto Geauga county, forming a layer called "yellow Mahoning clay". .....

 

 

Nerdier still: I've used historicaerials.com to track specifically where the interurbans ran in the area (including in Geauga County), and plotted those routes in detail on my Delorme maps. While the earliest historicaerials.com maps in Greater Cleveland date from 1952, that is only two decades after the interurbans were abandoned so their rights of way were still very visible. I highly recommend that site to follow these routes.

Just found this site with news articles about Geauga County interurbans and the county's two railroads -- the B&O RR from Fairport Harbor - Chardon - Warren and the Erie RR from Cleveland - Aurora - Warren - Youngstown. But most of it has the full text of articles about the interurbans. Terrific reading!!!

 

http://www.trainweb.org/ceihsm/circa.html

The former Ashville (Ohio) Depot for the Scioto Valley Traction Company.... now a tanning salon.  The buidling to the immediate left of it is the old power station for the SVTC.

fun site: http://www.american-rails.com/ohio-interurbans.html

 

I recall that it was a host at the South Euclid Historical Society who told me about the dairy on Sperry (the dairy farm in Novelty, Ohio).  That conversation was about 17 years ago.

This pretty much speaks for itself. From 117 years ago....

 

Not Ohio -- but Indiana and Ohio were two states with the most interurban railway mileage. All were electrically powered, ran cross-country on their own rights of way at up to 80 mph, and entered cities on streetcar tracks, often owned by the local streetcar companies. And yes, it was all privately owned and financed, which is why it couldn't compete with the subsidized, paved highway...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxlEn8XLl2k

What a great video.  It breaks my heart that I never got to experience this day and age.  It does show how crowded with cars and trucks the streets were getting.  I bet most people can't imagine that even in very large cities before about 1905 or so the streets were virtually empty 24/7 with the exception of the core of downtown.  Even there the number of actual "vehicles" was minimal compared to just people milling about, so streetcars and interurbans could pretty much just go about their business without the need for signals, crossing gates, traffic cops, or even stop signs.  Once automobiles came on the scene the interurbans started to have to sound their whistles at crossings, further annoying neighbors, or install railroad-type signals at great expense. 

 

I fixed the broken image links in my posts above for anyone who's new to this discussion. 

So these were like streetcars that went between cities?

Yes, and in cities they used streetcar company tracks.

 

This is all the Ohio interurban companies:

http://www.chicagorailfan.com/interoh.html

So these were like streetcars that went between cities?

 

Be nice JJ. See my answer on the prior page.

I am nice, but that's exactly why I bothered to fix the links in my old posts, the write-up on interurbans explains it all. 

Piccarded! Well those links and everything upthread does explain it. My only defense is it's usually not so useful going through posts a few years old on this site- but I guess historical info like this doesn't change.

Streetcar plunges into Grand River over St. Clair Street bridge connecting Painesville to Fairport Harbor, 1918--Can't find too much on this, but I believe several people died, needless to say--

^ Yikes! I've never heard of that one before

Looks like it derailed at speed and sliced into part of the bridge truss. Interurbans were all privately owned but horribly undercapitalized. But as more rutted, muddy roads were paved by governments, the interurban companies felt the need run as fast as possible over their tracks to which they deferred maintenance. As the 1920s wore on, interurban riders often remarked at how they were worried their life insurance policies would expire as they bounced at 80 mph down neglected tracks. Accidents like the one above weren't uncommon at any time, but they occurred with greater frequency toward the end of service on many lines.

 

EDIT:

 

Here's what happened in that photo, according to the New Northern Ohio's Interurbans, published in 1983:

 

"On August 7, 1918, car 35, Fairport-bound, struck a horse-drawn van of the Highway Motors Co. on the St. Clair Street bridge in Fairport Harbor. The wagon was knocked against a steel girder, breaking it, and the bridge fell 25 feet to the level of Grand River and held there. Ten of the trolley's 15 passengers were injured, but they all managed to scamper away when they realized there was still 20 feet of water below. The bridge was rebuilt, service was resumed, only to be abandoned in 1924."

Looks like it derailed at speed and sliced into part of the bridge truss. Interurbans were all privately owned but horribly undercapitalized. But as more rutted, muddy roads were paved by governments, the interurban companies felt the need run as fast as possible over their tracks to which they deferred maintenance. As the 1920s wore on, interurban riders often remarked at how they were worried their life insurance policies would expire as they bounced at 80 mph down neglected tracks. Accidents like the one above weren't uncommon at any time, but they occurred with greater frequency toward the end of service on many lines.

 

EDIT:

 

Here's what happened in that photo, according to the New Northern Ohio's Interurbans, published in 1983:

 

"On August 7, 1918, car 35, Fairport-bound, struck a horse-drawn van of the Highway Motors Co. on the St. Clair Street bridge in Fairport Harbor. The wagon was knocked against a steel girder, breaking it, and the bridge fell 25 feet to the level of Grand River and held there. Ten of the trolley's 15 passengers were injured, but they all managed to scamper away when they realized there was still 20 feet of water below. The bridge was rebuilt, service was resumed, only to be abandoned in 1924."

I guess I was wrong about fatalities. It was a long time ago I read an account of this (not sure of the source). Below is a picture from apparently another crossing over the Grand River. It looks like a still-standing trestle (in the background) crossing eastward (I think). I don't know how extensive the network was in Painesville--

the reverse view-

Flickr

Looks like it derailed at speed and sliced into part of the bridge truss. Interurbans were all privately owned but horribly undercapitalized. But as more rutted, muddy roads were paved by governments, the interurban companies felt the need run as fast as possible over their tracks to which they deferred maintenance. As the 1920s wore on, interurban riders often remarked at how they were worried their life insurance policies would expire as they bounced at 80 mph down neglected tracks. Accidents like the one above weren't uncommon at any time, but they occurred with greater frequency toward the end of service on many lines.

 

EDIT:

 

Here's what happened in that photo, according to the New Northern Ohio's Interurbans, published in 1983:

 

"On August 7, 1918, car 35, Fairport-bound, struck a horse-drawn van of the Highway Motors Co. on the St. Clair Street bridge in Fairport Harbor. The wagon was knocked against a steel girder, breaking it, and the bridge fell 25 feet to the level of Grand River and held there. Ten of the trolley's 15 passengers were injured, but they all managed to scamper away when they realized there was still 20 feet of water below. The bridge was rebuilt, service was resumed, only to be abandoned in 1924."

I guess I was wrong about fatalities. It was a long time ago I read an account of this (not sure of the source). Below is a picture from apparently another crossing over the Grand River. It looks like a still-standing trestle (in the background) crossing eastward (I think). I don't know how extensive the network was in Painesville--

the reverse view-

Flickr

 

Interesting to note that the New York Central looks to have replaced the stone arch bridge with a new concrete structure!

They did that a lot in this area in the early 20th century. The New York Central replaced the two-track stone bridge over the Rocky River-East Branch in Berea with a four-track multiple-arch concrete bridge of the same design as above. And they realigned the curve at Berea for higher train speeds. Interestingly, the old stone bridge still stands at Berea. I wonder what's left of the old Grand River bridge at Painesville??

They did that a lot in this area in the early 20th century. The New York Central replaced the two-track stone bridge over the Rocky River-East Branch in Berea with a four-track multiple-arch concrete bridge of the same design as above. And they realigned the curve at Berea for higher train speeds. Interestingly, the old stone bridge still stands at Berea. I wonder what's left of the old Grand River bridge at Painesville??

I believe this is the same spot, so yes, it's concrete, but not recent. I remember this bridge in the 60's, crossing the Grand River to the east near E. Erie St. (Rt 20)--

 

 

well, this certainly is creative--

Yep. Those are all early-20th century bridges. Here's the same railroad company's bridge at Berea -- the "new" bridge in the foreground, built circa 1910 (NYC, now NS RR), the old LSMS bridge beyond it (now unused) and the Big Four (now CSX) beyond it. CSX rebuilt the far bridge about 15 years ago when it acquired that line as part of the Conrail split.

 

^that stone bridge looks beautiful

 

I'd like a one-way ticket on the 6:00 am to Nursery--