Interurban

Notable systems exist in the Low Countries, Poland and Japan, where populations are densely packed around large conurbations such as the Randstad, Upper Silesia, Greater Tokyo Area and Keihanshin.

Other interurban lines effectively became light rail systems with no street running whatsoever, or they became primarily freight-hauling railroads because of a progressive loss of their initial passenger service over the years.

[citation needed] In 1905, the United States Census Bureau defined an interurban as "a street railway having more than half its trackage outside municipal limits."

[4] The development of interurbans in the late nineteenth century resulted from the convergence of two trends: improvements in electric traction, and an untapped demand for transportation in rural areas, particularly in the Midwestern United States.

Most of these built on the pioneering work of Frank J. Sprague, who developed an improved method for mounting an electric traction motor and using a trolley pole for pickup.

[6] The late nineteenth-century United States witnessed a boom in agriculture which lasted through the First World War, but transportation in rural areas was inadequate.

[7] The increased capacity and profitability of the city street railroads offered the possibility of extending them into the countryside to reach new markets, even linking to other towns.

[15][16] In Belgium, a sprawling, nation-wide system of narrow-gauge vicinal tramways have been built by the NMVB / SNCV to provide transport to smaller towns across the country; the first section opened in 1885.

These lines were either electrically operated or run with diesel tramcars, included numerous street-running sections, and inter-operated with local tram networks in the larger cities.

[18] After World War I and the Silesian Uprisings, in 1922 the region (and the tram network) was divided between newly independent Poland and Germany, and international services appeared (the last one ran until 1937).

As laws of that time did not allow parallel railways to be built, the line was legally defined as a tramway and included street running at the two ends, but was based on American interurbans and operated with large tramcars on mostly private right-of-way.

In the same year, the Keihin Express Railway, or Keikyu, completed a section of what is today part of the Keikyū Main Line between Shinagawa, Tokyo and Kanagawa, Yokohama.

In 1913, the first section of what will become the Keiō Line opened connecting Chōfu to just outside Shinjuku with street running on what is today the Kōshū Kaidō or National Route 20.

The large and heavy interurbans, some weighing as much as 65 tons, caused damage to city streets which led to endless disputes over who should bear the repair costs.

Some companies exited the passenger business altogether to focus on freight, while others sought to buttress their finances by selling surplus electricity in local communities.

Several interurbans that attempted to exit the rail business altogether ran afoul of state commissions which required that trains remain running "for the public good", even at a loss.

[27] The 130-mile (210 km) long Sacramento Northern Railway stopped carrying passengers in 1940 but continued hauling freight into the 1960s by using heavy electric locomotives.

Oliver Jensen, author of American Heritage History of Railroads in America, commented that "...the automobile doomed the interurban whose private tax paying tracks could never compete with the highways that a generous government provided for the motorist.

"Interurban business increased during World War II due to fuel oil rationing and large wartime employment.

The West Penn was the largest interurban to operate in the east at 339 miles (546 km) and had provided Pittsburgh-area coal country towns with hourly transportation since 1888.

Instigated by the oil crisis in the 1970s, the remaining interurban tramways have enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance in the form of the Sneltram, a modern light rail system that uses high floor, metro-style vehicles and could interoperate into metro networks.

Private railway companies that started out as interurbans such as Tokyu, Seibu, Odakyu, Hankyu and Tobu; rail transportation now tends to form only a small part of their extensive business empires, which often include real estate, hotels and resorts, and tourist attractions.

But instead of demolishing their trackage in the 1930s, many Japanese interurbans companies upgraded their networks to heavy rail standards, becoming today's large private railways.

Many Japanese private railway companies compete with each other for passengers, operate department stores at their city termini, develop suburban properties adjacent to stations they own, and run special tourist attractions with admission included in package deals with rail tickets; similar to operations of large interurban companies in the US during their heyday.

While most interurbans in Japan have been upgraded beyond recognition to high-capacity urban railways, a handful have remained relatively untouched, with street running and using 'lighter-rail' stock.

[44] While street running limited acquisition costs, it also required sharp turns and made interurban operations susceptible to traffic congestion.

Later companies regauged or outright built lines to 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge for better interoperability and consistency with the Japanese mainline standards.

A 2400 V DC third-rail system was installed on the Michigan United Railways's Western Division between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids in 1915, but was abandoned because of the electrocution potential safety hazard.

In order to save money, many companies constructed these in their shops using retired or semi-wrecked passenger cars for the frame and the traction motor mounted trucks.

[60][page needed] In Raymond Chandler's short story The Man who liked Dogs, the narrator trails a suspect in the Los Angeles area: Similarly in Mandarin's Jade: In E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime, a character rides on interurban systems from New York to Boston.