A century ago, this photo was taken in Haubstadt, #Indiana. This town had both a #train station and #electric#interurban service, with a population of less than 700.
Now it has over 1,600 people, but has no service of any kind. The station and several of the buildings in this photo are now gone or empty.
Even major cities with populations in the hundreds of thousands sometimes lack basic #rail service. It's painful how much we've lost.
I found an old photograph online that I think is kinda cool from June 1895 of an #interurban line being built in the middle of the street. I believe this is from #Westerville, #Ohio on South State Street.
I found an interesting article from the 1920s discussing #interurban service in a town of 5,000.
"The new train schedule of the [interurban] has given [citizens] something to think about ... The schedule provides everything that anyone could ask for in [convenience] ... With service that is almost half hourly during certain portions of the day, there leaves but little if any room for the necessity of a bus line over the route..."
There was once 2,798 miles of fully #electric#interurban#track in #Ohio. That's more miles than than the current interstate highways in Ohio, and more miles than any other state had.
Not a single town with a population over 10,000 (and many even smaller towns) did not have an interurban line, and many were also served by traditional #rail.