Trolley Tuesday 6/9/20 - The Texas Electric Railway

For Today's Trolley Tuesday post, I'd first off like to thank the Interurban Railway Museum of Plano, Texas, for their wonderful geniality and massive archive collection. Working with railroad museums like this is great because I get to utilize the nichest of niche information while the museum gets embarrassingly-fanboyish levels of free advertising. Today, the IRM will be helping me tell the brief (but long-lived) history of one of the last independent interurban lines in the state of Texas, and how this Lone Star shone so bright yet faded like a falling star into obscurity. Find the rest of the story after the break!

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A Texas Traction Company car stops over at the Van Alstyne station, 16 miles south of Sherman.
(Texas State Historical Association)

The story of the Texas Electric Railway (TER) begins in 1901, when the Denison & Sherman (D&S) Railway opened the first interurban line in the state between their respective cities, some 65 miles from Dallas. The Texas Traction Company (TTC) connected through to Sherman from Dallas in 1908, spanning some sixty-five miles, and added the Denison section to their system by 1911. The TTC then expanded south through to Waxahachie and established the Dallas Southern Traction Company (STC). Under the leadership of real estate and electric power magnate J. F. Strickland, his associates, and associates of Boston transit operator Stone & Webster (who formed the Dallas Southern with Strickland), oversaw the merger formed between the TTC and the STC on July 15, 1916.

J.F. Strickland, Real Estate and Interurban
Magnate, (1856-1924)

The reasons for the merger were all due to consolidation. Strickland and Stone & Webster formed the STC when they realized both their plans for a Dallas-Fort Worth line would result in redundant services, and joining it with the existing TTC system seemed like the best idea. This lashing of systems stretching from Dallas to Denison, Ennis, and Waco at its extremes resulted in 226 miles of electrified interurban track. Much of the system stayed within Dallas city limits, so plenty of streetrunning was expected as one got closer to the Interurban Building at 1500 Jackson Street, Dallas. The new Texas Electric Railway (TER) began operating on January 1, 1917, quite late for a major interurban west of the Mississippi, and inevitably this caused issues. 

A contemporary account from the Fort Worth
Star-Telegram, March 11, 1918
(Interurban Railway Museum)

Just over one year later, on March 11, 1918, the Amalgamated Street Railway Employee's Union striked in Waco, Texas against the TER for non-recognition. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Only ten streetcars, one-tenth of the scheduled number, operated in Waco Sunday as a Result of the strike Saturday night. [...] Cars in operation Sunday were largely run by officials of the company, including General Manager Burr Martin and Vice President H. I. Gahagan of Dallas." Around the same time, the National War Labor Board was drafted and formed, so of course the recognition of labor unions was a hard sell, especially for a union without any clear demands. This strike came and went.

The rolling stock for the Texas Electric mostly comprised of pre-merger stock ordered from St. Louis Car and American Car Co. between 1907 and 1920. STC's originally rolling stock were ordinary Stone And Webster "turtlebacks" discussed last week, but they were soon displaced by St. Louis Car Order 990, which brought new steel-bodied, arch-windowed interurban cars to the system. These were single-ended cars, only possessing a rear entrance and a single pole, and all were rebuilt to single-man operation by 1934. Southern Traction also invested in an order to American Car in 1913 for four "box motor" trolley cars for their freight operations The TTC's rolling stock came from American Car Co primarily as Order 988, with a healthy mix of trailers to go with the motor interurbans.

TER Interurban car No. 371, built by St. Louis Car Co. in 1920.
(Flashback Dallas)

An undated postcard showing a Texas Electric Railway car
between Fort Worth and Dallas.
(Coltera) 

The next period of expansion came in 1923, when Strickland, Calder and Hobson acquired the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad branch between Dallas and Denton, a route of 33 miles. The idea was first proposed by Mr. Strickland himself in 1906, but just before his death in 1924 his company decided to go through after selling the Dallas Light & Power Company to General Electric. (One fun stipulation about the sale was that GE had to build a 30-mile interurban guaranteed to a bond of $500,000. They would eventually open the 29-mile Dallas-Terrell interurban on January 24, 1923).  Landowners along the line fought the Dallas-Denton interurban in court over unfair land values, but the railroad still opened on September 30, 1924. This line was confusingly named the "Texas Interurban Railroad" and ran until 1932, somehow separate from the main TER system.

Box motor No. 500, with boxcar in tow, meets car 302 at
Ferris Plaza, 1964.
(Flashback Dallas)

Another problem the Texas Electric Railway faced (along with the looming expansion of car ownership and bus services) was dealing with its freight operations. As stated before, much of the line through Dallas was along city streets and for an interurban to run freight cars through proved to be a massive challenge. The freight motors operating on a "Less than Carload" service worked out fine, but longer freight trains utilizing less-agile boxcars and other freight equipment led the city to curtail any freight car service on city streets. This hampering, and the dire financial straits of the turn of the decade, meant that the Texas Electric Railway began to close little by little. The "Texas Interurban Railroad" closed in 1932, followed by the Corsicana Branch in 1941.

A headline proclaiming the second day of strikes in 1945, The Courier-Gazette.
(Interurban Railroad Museum)

A Pullman-Standard advertisement from 1945,
showing off the new Dallas PCCs with their
short-lived PE-patterned scheme.
(Pullman Museum)

At the advent of WWII, the Texas Electric Railway maintained an odd distinction as the only independent traction operation left in the state. National City Lines had eaten its rivals in other cities by 1940. The increased wartime traffic helped bring more business to the system, but this momentum could not even make the TER last into the 1950s. Another crippling, multiple-day labor strike following the end of conflict in 1945 put the interurban company in even more dire straits, as employees striked for better wages and working conditions with the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees of America from June 29 to July 4. During this time, many workers walked out and effectively brought the interurban to a halt, but negotiations by August 12 brought an end to the strikes. This left over 400 workers without jobs and 125,000 passengers angered by their transit company.

The next three years were spent with the Texas Electric Railway in a nosedive. Huge losses from increased automobile and truck traffic meant the passenger and freight services offered were no longer profitable and the company was running at a loss. Not even a new order of Type P1 double-ended PCC cars (patterened after Pacific Electric's) for Dallas' local operations could stem the profit bleeding. The hard decision was then made to abandon the company by the end of 1948, with the last services being run from Dallas to Waco and Denison. On the stroke of midnight, December 31, 1948, the Texas Electric Railway was no more. Most of its rolling stock were retired by 1949 and sent for scrap.

Homebrew steeplecab No. 903 amongst a pile of scrap at the Waco Carhouse, 1944.
(Flashback Dallas) 

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Thank you for reading today's Trolley Tuesday! If you were expecting a second part to the El Paso Streetcar Saga, don't fret! I'll have that out this Thursday. This little episode will be a 2-parter as well, with the second part discussing more niche information and the formation of the Interurban Railroad Museum in Plano. Again, I would like to thank the Interurban Railroad Museum and their archives collection and you can follow their blog and Twitter in the links provided for more information. As usual, you can follow myself or my editor on twitter if you wanna support us, and maybe buy a shirt as well! Ride safe!