Interurban Railway 1931-1937

Interurban Railway 1931-1937, also known as Lake Shore Electric Railway. Mentions Rocky River and Bay Village, Ohio. Low resolution ripped from DVD.

[@synthfreakify]

The Express cars- the ones with a couple of baggage doors, and no windows- carried small packages and freight, the way UPS and FedEx do now. It was profitable business.

[@wallflower15875]

If only this had never died. My county had a thorough system with 5 separate lines going to nearly every community center. It closed in 1941 and was lost forever. Luckily, service has returned partially on the main line as an inter-county commuter train system, which started service in 2016, which I can say myself works quite well and is as great transportation method. But all that's left of the original interurbans are a few reused depot buildings, a few boarded up tunnels, and a partially demolished drawbridge.

[@southernman5839]

See there you can learn from the past. We should have never got away from street car transportation. What a great way to get around town. I believe a lot people would still be jumping on trolleys around town today if they had it.

[@deezynar]

What's wrong with the bus?

[@BroWCarey]

@@deezynar pollutes, rattles, more expensive to operate and maintain.

[@BroWCarey]

100 years ago, 81 towns/cities in southeast Michigan, northwest Ohio and western Ontario were accessible by rail: either train or interurban. Today? 14 of those are accessible by bus. That's not my idea of progress. And for people like me who cannot drive, the lack of useful, affordable, reliable public transit is a real problem.

[@deezynar]

@@BroWCarey Buses use existing roads and do not require special, expensive, rail lines and electrical lines. In short, the extreme costs there are needed to install the rails and electrical for trams takes many years to be paid back in any lower operating costs. Rattily? You haven't ridden any old trams in New York, etc. If there's a problem with a rail line, the trams stop. If there's a problem with a street, the buses detour to other streets. It's strange that so many people have a fetish for trams, but a loathing of buses, while they are exactly the same things, public transportation. It must be related to the choo choo train toys most children played with.

[@BroWCarey]

@@deezynar Streetcars cost less to operate. Heavy ridership? Attach another car, no need for another driver. Streetcars, on average, last decades longer than buses and require less maintenance. I've ridden streetcars in several places. Enjoyable rides. I also grew up in NYC, and rode buses that rattled and shook so hard I thought they would fall apart, and nearly always caused motion sickness. Studies consistently show that people prefer rail to bus. In areas where both are available, those studies have shown that people will actually go out of their way to ride rail transit rather than bus. Bus fumes smell. Streetcars can also use existing roads if they are wide enough. Some places have dedicated lanes that were zoned for streetcar tracks. (Example: M1 in Michigan. It originally had a streetcar line running from Detroit to Pontiac. From the point where the cars left Detroit, pretty much all the way to Pontiac, M1, which is Woodward Ave, has a center median. It originally held two streetcar tracks for bidirectional traffic. Although now just a grassy median with trees, etc., it is still zoned for rail transit. Were it not for obstruction from certain factions I won't mention, it would be used for rail today. The best we've been able to do is a light rail line on Woodward in Detroit, but it doesn't go far enough, not even to 8 Mile Rd, where Detroit/Wayne County connect with Ferndale/Oakland County. Instead of the reliable trolley lines we had a century ago, we have unreliable, overpriced bus service that isn't worth wasting time on. (I moved to this area in 1997, and gave up on the buses within a month.) Look at photos of downtown Detroit from the 1920s: You will see a fair number of street cars: some going to different parts of the city, as well as interurbans going to the suburbs and to Pontiac and other cities. Today, you'd be lucky to see even one bus. Same for Woodward Ave. in Oakland County. Bus service here is garbage. It's unreliable, overpriced, and doesn't go to even a fraction of the places the streetcars did. Public transit is useless if it doesn't take people where they want to go, if they can't afford it, if it isn't reliable, etc. I've lived in the Capital District of New York State, Omaha, and NYC. In all three places, people were better served by the streetcar lines than they are by contemporary bus lines. In all three places, streetcar lines were affordable, reliable, and went where people needed to go. Streetcar lines may cost more to install initially, but investing in infrastructure that will last is a smart thing to do. In many cities that no longer have streetcar service, you can still see rails poking up through asphalt, still in pretty good shape, considering disuse for half a century or more. Once built, a streetcar line costs significantly less to operate and maintain, and the cars last much longer than buses. Financially, it just makes more sense in the long run. I researched this about ten years ago when certain factions were trying to push a "bus rapid transit" system on Oakland County. Their presentation was full of lies and distortions. My research showed that people don't like BRT, and would use almost any available alternative. For example, in southern CA, both light rail and BRT are available in the same area. People consistently use the rail and not the BRT. A few more facts re: rail vs. BRT - BRT invariably goes over budget, isn't completed in time, and invariably attracts fewer riders than expected. Light rail is the opposite: It usually is completed under budget, on time, and attracts more riders than projected.

[@Mike-tg7dj]

Our city had an Interurban. All that's left are the arched underpasses that stand as oddities next to CSX's inbound yard which obviously came much later.

[@MarkHenstridge]

What a pity it's all gone now.Thank for sharing

[@WesternOhioInterurbanHistory]

Mark Henstridge My cousin Paul rode this as a kid. He was amazed how it went 75 mph. Thanks for the Meomories, LSE!

[@denysowen1681]

I agree. The overloud music is awful

[@MarkHenstridge]

@@WesternOhioInterurbanHistory Wow, I envy your cousin,I often feel I was born too late because I love old-time public transport. I look around today where I live and I see how everything from the past has gone or reduced to bike and walking trails.

[@WesternOhioInterurbanHistory]

@@MarkHenstridge He's up there now with the Lake Shore Electric.

[@nielspemberton59]

The Lake Shore and the Cincinnati & Lake Erie should never have been closed down. The politicians should have realized what a precious resource these interurbans were and moved to subsidize them and in time take them under state ownership as Ohio Railway Corporation. In time the voltage would have been converted from 600 Volt DC to 25KV 60HZ AC catenary and tracks in cities and towns moved onto private right of way paralleling steam railroads.

[@ffjsb]

NO. We don't need subsidized passenger rail. HIGH overhead, ZERO profit.

[@ffjsb]

@Bengt Handlebars Oil IS cheap and plentiful... You clearly don't know much about railroads.

[@northshoreline6704]

@@ffjsb The high overhead and lack of profit are precisely why public services are subsidized and not left to the whims of the market.

[@patriceacolin1093]

"AMEN😎😎👍👍"

[@matthewmiller9526]

That’s how the Dodgers got their name, they were trolley dodgers in Brooklyn.

[@Captain_Char]

According to my grandfather, the was a Trolly system in Niagara, the only remains ive found of it was a 1919 rail bridge

[@deedeesteele1801]

Thank you so much for sharing this priceless video. I had never seen the interurban so seeing it running is a treat indeed. God Bless.

[@hartmutlorentzen9659]

This video is a wonderful document! Thanks, from Germany

[@petermaxey814]

You can give credit to the auto, tire and gasoline industries for the demise of this rail system!

[@eottoe2001]

Also, the steam rail companies wouldn't let the interurbans handle their rolling stock which was the hope of the owners here in Ohio.

[@normansilver905]

We used to ride the Cincinnati and Lake Erie in the mid 40's.

[@merccadoosis8847]

very nice video - please post the rest of it

[@barbaraedgley2634]

At its heyday in Bethlehem & Allentown, a trolley went by every minute & a half-- no waiting at all!

[@ElmerCat]

Music is "Low Bridge" - the Erie Canal song!

[@barbaraedgley2634]

Rode a train from Wellington to Cleveland with mom for a day of shopping & then back.

[@pilsudski36]

I believe a few of these cars got a reprieve, and finished out heir service life in Iowa at the Fort Dodge Des Moines and Southern.

[@40intrepid]

Detroit's got sold to Mexico, i think some of them are still sitting in junkyards down there.

[@HSMiyamoto]

It's amazing how fast these cars ran on such lightly built tracks. How did they stay upright? The film suggests they bounced around a lot.

[@ffjsb]

Most of the weight is in the lower 4'. The frame, trucks, wheels, and motors made up a lot of the weight, so they had a low center of gravity. They were very light compared to a steam locomotive, or even heavyweight passenger coach.

[@amusementsnark8183]

Hey I love the footage! Do you mind if I use part of it in a video I am making? I would fully credit you.

[@gabrielerosa665]

Does exists any picture from today of the places shown in the film? (Beatiful film, I remember the old uruguayan suburban tramway services )

[@abelcossani5523]

Gabriel, Ud. seguro se refiere en particular al llamado "Tranvía de La Barra" que unía casi el centro de Montevideo con Santiago Vázquez. Si es Ud. uruguayo seguro lamentará la supresión de esa línea así como el resto de la vasta red tranvíaria que tuvo esa hermosa ciudad. En particular esa línea suburbana tenía todas las condiciones como para ser una base de los modernos light-rail que han proliferado en todos los países del llamado primer mundo y que han comenzado a instalarse en América Latina (Brasil, Bolivia, Chile, etc.). El despropósito de esas eliminaciones, así como la que se hizo aquí, en Buenos Aires, es de tales proporciones que ya ni se discute. Es de esperar que en nuestras queridas ciudades, Buenos Aires y Montevideo, más temprano que tarde, vuelvan los tranvías, el mejor transporte urbano de pasajeros que se conoce y entonces, reingresemos a la modernidad. Saludos. [e-mail].

[@sanjeevpereira6765]

Great vedio. Thanks for sharing such great piece of American History of street cars. Brgds from mumbai india

[@paintnamer6403]

Cleveland to Chagrin Falls and Burton had an interurban.

[@tony1961chl]

Guau! creo que la gente de aquel entonces ni siquiera estaba consciente de lo moderno y rápido de ese sistema de transporte aun cuando no se oía hablar de conciencia ecológica.

[@davewallace8219]

Well done!

[@menguardingtheirownwallets6791]

Here is the main problem with commuter rail lines or bus routes: When you go to a store and you have 8 bags of groceries to get back home, it is easy to load a shopping cart of food into the trunk of a car, but almost impossible to carry them all onto a bus/rail car.

[@northshoreline6704]

Fair point, but bear with me for a moment, and consider the possibility of people leaving their homes for reasons other than grocery shopping in bulk?

[@MrJstorm4]

You can take eight bags of groceries onto the bus but you don't have to. You can just go to the store once or twice a week. Besides if you only a card for groceries delivery or taking a taxi would be so much cheaper then insurance on a 20-year-old truck

[@granskare]

I went once from Chicago to South Bend, Indiana.

[@chonga6442]

That line is a survivor to this day. I believe it is considered the last of the old interurban lines, however it was also a freight line which helped. Today it gets help from Indiana State government (my taxes) to stay alive.

[@screwdriver5181]

Interesting footage. Pity that the music drowns the speech

[@JOYOUSONEX]

When was this line established and when did it finally end? Great old film.

[@mateuszmattias]

It opened in stages by several different companies in the 1890s, was organized as Lake Shore Electric Railway in 1901, had its heyday from then and roughly up until the mid-20s when things started to go bad (already before the great depression mind you). But they ran up losses throughout the 30s and it was put in recievership in January of 1938 and finally abandoned in May that year. So in all it ran for a bit less than 40 years.

[@MartyLJ57]

We need to bring electric interurban

[@ffjsb]

No. Just NO.

[@ffjsb]

@Bengt Handlebars NO. We'd convert to nearly 100% electric vehicles first. There's NO need to put in new and EXPENSIVE infrastructure that way.

[@SuperiorSandbox]

@@ffjsb Yes, just yes. Electric cars exist to save the car industry, not the planet.

[@ffjsb]

It would be IMPOSSIBLE to have 100% electric vehicles. Even Elon Musk says we need more oil.

[@ffjsb]

@@SuperiorSandbox Electric cars have limits, and will NEVER replace all gas or diesel vehicles.

[@dominiquedescottes8314]

Chers chemins de fer Y compris ces pittoresque inter-cités, ni train,ni tram' Mais si sympathique

[@theepicjack0543]

Ours also closed in 1938

[@russellgreco3720]

Hey people , what a Cool video of these street cars from way back . Too bad it's too short and the music that goes with it Sucks becuz it's too loud to where you can Just Barely hear the guy talking about the facts involving these rail cars just like someone else had mentioned in this comment section . My female elderly neighbor when she was still alive used to tell me stories about riding the street car from West 73rd North to downtown Cleveland and back when she was a kid , a teen , and then as an adult until they stopped running them becuz they were replaced by buses . Also , several of the street cars and i do believe a maintenance car from this period of time were bought by and used for many years down in the Olmsted Township , Ohio area at a large retirement home / trailer park called Colombian Park ( i think ) where the people who lived there would ride these old street cars around the park area that circled it and also take the cars onto a separate track that would take the people up to the small shopping plaza that was right along Colombian Road ( aka Ohio State Route 252 ) that had a grocery store plus a few other stores and one bar & grill . Saddly the trailer park was sold several years ago and the company that now owns it had the street cars and the tracks removed... Idiots ! The street cars and the tracks are now setup somewhere else in Ohio but i don't know where... Sorry wish i knew ! 😞

[@NiceNToasty768]

We gotta bring back interurbans

[@losh330]

Gosh, why did busses have to replace such amazing train systems around the US?

[@fairportrails107]

because gm is a scam

[@oluhamilton2121]

Corruption.

[@robertnielsen2461]

GM also Ford and Chrysler bought up controlling interest and then let the co.wear out in many of these railroads,replaced the service with buses.

[@Confederalist]

Because they are faster 99 percent of the time

[@robertheinkel6225]

More flexibility. Buses can change routes as necessary. Trains can't adapt as well.

[@mikedrown2721]

I was born too late 😢

[@Chickenpatty878]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/e5qthpymi7Knd68 Longer version

[@fairportrails107]

gm is a scamm because i would be cheaper to use the inter urban then getting a car and trollies are not interfering with trafic that much unlike busses and busses have trouble in the snow

[@MrDorbel]

An urban myth still running 80 years later!

[@MG-ge5xq]

How stupid to tear down the US-Railways. Happy that here in continental Europe we have great PT-Systems - urban as well as interurban.

[@jamesearp6396]

Yes, it was very shortsighted. We're paying the price now.

[@ffjsb]

It wasn't stupid as it was broke from competition from Model A Ford's and two lane highways. A car can take you door to door anywhere in Ohio WAY faster than ANY train could. A train can only take you station to station.

[@class87srule]

@Bengt Handlebars Ford and the other manufacturers leaning on the Govt have a lot to answer for in destroying the U.S. rail system.

[@samanli-tw3id]

James Earp well, in 50s, they were seen as slow, uncomfortably and obsolete. Gasoline was cheap as water and most people were rich enough to buy cars. And no means of transport can give the comfort and flexibility of a car.

[@samanli-tw3id]

Ivan Chernyshev Many US cities have now light rail systems.

[@ericb9426]

Great footage. Marginally put in context. Absolutely horrible sound quality.

[@badbobbybadbobbyb5889]

Lived in Cleveland from 1973 through early 1980. I never knew this old line existed. Nice video but the music is not the best choice for it.

[@chonga6442]

Cool, rare footage...terrible music! Still an up vote for me. This is the third rail-related video I've watched this morning and each had a single down vote. Who is this train hater?!?

[@MichaelAndersxq28guy]

The music starting at 3:45, although too loud, is appropriate. It's Low Bridge, the Erie Canal song. I live in northern Ohio, and the Erie Canal was once everything to us.

[@chonga6442]

@@MichaelAndersxq28guy I am a Hoosier, and as your neighbor I am appalled that I may have offended a Buckeye! I will give it another listen with the historical perspective...so sorry!

[@harryworth4824]

Electric cars also destroy the environment through resource mining, manufacturing processes and ultimately going to the landfill in mass droves. The pollution they cause is simply unnecessary as is the amount of urban space squandered on parking and other paved over autocentric wastes. They also perpetuate urban sprawl, the food deserts that come from that invariably, along with cities that are not navigable as a pedestrian or bicyclist and are, in fact, inhospitable to humanity. They add to traffic congestion. Putting the financial burden of transportation inefficiently and directly on the individual citizen is simply not wise or fair and hasn’t been the norm for even 80 years. We need to invest in commuter rail that’s properly implemented as it typically is overseas. The American people are apathetic through decades of disenfranchisement and a lot of that marginalization (eg Robert Moses’s racist urban renewal) is through divestment of public infrastructure, utilities and programs to help the American people. Public works improving life for the taxpaying citizenry materially will bolster civic pride. We need to know we have a future and an equitable shot at thriving. Transcontinental High Speed Rail should integrate seamlessly with commuter rail networks so it can evenly function as one cohesive system and this will convert flyover country back into a thriving heartland by functioning as an artery of commute and commerce which will reduce clustering on the coasts. Similarly, wholly integrated circuits of commuter rail blended with interurban routes, light rail lines, street car networks, subways, and even trolleys would prevent people from having to live on top of each other in city centers in order to have quick access to urban cores and downtown areas so this would stimulate our local economies and prevent gentrification from demolishing cherished heirlooms of our historicity, destroying our classic neighborhoods, shredding the fabric of our communities and toppling our civic landmarks and architectural heirlooms along with other social capital such as venerable culture generating venues. Numerous studies show that homogenously bleak and bland duplitecture that profiteering developers build for the profits of themselves and corporate slumlords not only causes homelessness from being financially inaccessible to most Americans, but also causes depression from creating such a devastatingly depressing, unloving urban habitat that’s too congested and overcrowded to work properly as a correctly engineered built environment. Our roadways are overcrowded and no amount of widening them and adding lanes will do anything to help it because it just leads to induced demand that inevitably grinds to a halt at snags and bottlenecks down the road. Shouldn’t American cities be thriving centers of culture and character rather than austere and chintzy morasses of mediocrity? I believe that we can build back better and that we also must for America to have any sort of a bright future ahead of it. Right now we are mired in the destruction of our cities from the inward attacking neocolonial oppressors who weaponize their clout of wealth against the nation for their own off-shore un-American gains of privileged, parasitic, private profits. This greed fueled anti-social exploitation is present day feudalism driving us into another gilded age. Tons of new petrochemical building “luxury living” housing units remain empty serving only as financial assets in investment portfolios of hedge fund and permanent capital firm cretins instead of as direly needed shelter for humans. We deserve a landscape we can be proud of and country should come first before corporate looting and exploitation. Legacies are important and live on forever. With space opened up in our cities we could rebuild beloved structures gone from economic and environmental disaster utilizing new technologies such as hempcrete and 3-D printing. We could create vertical farms etc. on spots currently now just serving as paved over squares and nothing more. We can extend democracy into offering the taxpayer residents democratic say in what their city consists of, how it looks and how it operates promoting civic engagement and participation. We need a new day rising!

[@anaplat45]

Shit can that crappy, intrusive music; it interferes with the muffled sounding narration.

[@ElmerCat]

It's perfect music for a video about canal boats.

[@MichaelAndersxq28guy]

The music starting at 3:45, although too loud, is appropriate. It's Low Bridge, the Erie Canal song. I live in northern Ohio, and the Erie Canal was once everything to us.