One of the most colorful yet neglected eras in American transportation history is re-created in this definitive history of the electric interurbans. Built with the idea of attracting short-distance passenger traffic and light freight, the interurbans were largely constructed in the early 1900s. The rise of the automobile and motor transport caused the industry to decline after World War I, and the depression virtually annihilated the industry by the middle 1930s.Part I describes interurban construction, technology, passenger and freight traffic, financial history, and final decline and abandonment. Part II presents individual histories (with route maps) of the more than 300 companies of the interurban industry.Reviews"A first-rate work of such detail and discernment that it might well serve as a model for all corporate biographies. . . . A wonderfully capable job of distillation."Trains"Few economic, social, and business historians can afford to miss this definitive study."Mississippi Valley Historical Review"All seekers after nostalgia will be interested in this encyclopedic volume on the days when the clang, clang of the trolley was the most exciting travel sound the suburbs knew."Harper's Magazine"A fascinating and instructive chapter in the history of American transportation."Journal of Economic History"The hint that behind the grand facade of scholarship lies an expanse of boyish enthusiasm is strengthened by a lovingly amassed and beautifully reproduced collection of 37 photographs."The Nation

The Electric Interurban Railways in America

Engineering & Transportation

George W. Hilton

John F. Due

Automotive

Stanford Univ Pr

At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, before good roads were common and everbody owned an automobile, northwestern Ohio was home of the Toledo, Port Clinton and Lakeside Railway, an electric line that began operating in 1905 and didn't entirely close down until 1958, decades after other railways like it were gone. George W. Hilton wrote The Toledo, Port Clinton and Lakeside Railway, his concise history of the TPC&L, in 1964. Since then, the book has been out of print but widely sought after as one of the best and most interesting books evered offered about northwestern Ohio. Here is your chance to own a true classic by one of America's foremost transportation authorities--no railroad or history buff should be without it.

The Toledo, Port Clinton and Lakeside Railway

Montevallo Historical Press

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Books by George W. Hilton