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Trains Album of Photographs #7 Electric Railways Spiral Bound 1944
Trains Album of Photographs #7 Electric Railways Spiral Bound 1944 20 single side pages of photos. Measures approx. 10 X 14 inches.
The electric railway is a dual personality. It is a distinct institution of social and economic importance which attained its zenith some 30 years ago when interurban lines networked most of the well-populated areas of the United States. And it is also an engineering tool, a type of motive power used not only by the so-called "electric railways" but by the "steam" roads.
The interurban was no doubt overdeveloped, for with characteristic American optimism lines were built everywhere with little attention to whether the traffic potential would make them profitable. But it also came at just the wrong time, for it was the original form of improved highway, and it wasn't long before highways were paved with concrete instead of steel and gasoline supplanted juice for most local transportation.
Twenty years ago a sight to see was Traction Terminal, Indianapolis, with cars continually coming and going under its huge train shed. Limits for Dayton, 0., locals for Fort Wayne, sleeping-car trains for Louisville, locals for Terre Haute-12 lines radiated like spokes in a wheel. With connections these reached 800 cities and towns on 5000 miles of track in six states. All that is gone, but in return we have heavier traffic than ever handled out of Chicago by the Illinois Central suburban, the North Shore Line, the South Shore Line and the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin. The Lake Shore Electric no longer dispatches its heavy steel limiteds between Cleveland and Toledo, but the Cleveland Rapid Transit now handles more passengers on private right of way in and out of the terminal on Public Square than the old Lake Shore ever moved over the west side streets of Cleveland.
The electric railway as an institution still exists, but it is much more specialized, doing jobs to which it is best suited instead of trying everything. Lines which could not realize the economies of trainload operation were running not much more than steel-tired buses and trucks, and so they died, unable to keep up the track and power systems. But the lines with traffic enough for train operation grew, because trains are the most efficient way of moving people and goods in quantity. The romantic interest of hundreds of separate small companies has been lost, and so has the fun of planning cross-country jaunts of hundreds of miles by interurban. But on the rides which are left things happen so thick and fast that one has trouble keeping up. Sixty or seventy trains in a rush hour, signal systems which even include automatic speed control, trains of 10 or more cars operated by multiple-unit control, freight trains of up to 90 or 100 cars, speeds up to 100 miles an hour-all these are for the electric fan.
As an engineering tool, however, the electric railway has far outgrown itself, for here it has been adopted as the means for
efficiently operating already great and busy railroad divisions, as diverse as the 656 miles of Milwaukee Road across the Rockies and Cascades and the eastern lines of the Pennsylvania, where electric power makes possible the handling of the world's heaviest railroad traffic on an existing four tracks instead of on six tracks as would be required if steam had been continued.
In this book we give a picture, both in photos and captions, of both types of electric railway. The selection is representative rather than exhaustive. As in our other Trains Albums of Railroad Photographs, the paper and ink are specially designed for the highest type of photographic reproduction, with sharp, clear detail. We've printed on only one side so you can frame the pictures or use them in scrapbooks.
For those who wish to find out more about electric railways we suggest membership in the two electric fan organizations, Electric Railroaders' Association, 51 W. 35th Street, New York City, and Central Electric Rai!fans' Association, 1240 Edison Building, Chicago.
All pictures are of the actual item. If this is a railroad item, this material is obsolete and no longer in use by the railroad. Please email with questions. Publishers of Train Shed Cyclopedias and Stephans Railroad Directories. Large inventory of railroad books and magazines. Thank you for buying from us.
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