The promising new technology of electric traction prompted investors to build dozens of interurban lines linking small market towns to their trade areas and to each other. As a form of cheap “light rail” transport, this created a regional network partially paralleling the heavy railroads. Within two decades, most of the interurbans succumbed to competition from autos and from faster steam railroads forced by state regulations to lower their fares. Three lines radiating from downtown Chicago became major commuter lines, but they faced the dismal economics of commuter transport earlier than the steam railroads, which had other operations to subsidize them. Only the South Shore Line to South Bend, which moved substantial freight traffic through northwestern Indiana, survived until public subsidy for commuter operations became commonplace.

Author: Dennis McClendon
Source: Newberry Library