INTERURBAN ELECTRICS: Why Railroaders hated busses!

Never before seen material from our movie "MIDWEST ELECTRIC RAILS" DVD now available at www.cspmovies.com
They have gone from diesel to LPG for fuel and may even need to go all-electric. Ironically, we all had a better solution over 120 years ago. But poor maintenance and a lack of modernization caused the adoption of buses almost everywhere. We are proud to release "Midwest Electric Rails", our most ambitious production to date. This extensive presentation will paint the transportation picture that once wrapped around the lower part of the Lake Michigan-from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, down through Chicago, Illinois and ending in South Bend Indiana. The Chicago street car lines were claimed to be the largest system of its kind at one time. From 1858 it grew from a number of small lines using horse drawn trolleys that ran on tracks in the street.The scenes you are about to view are nearly all from the 1950 period to the early 1960's. Most of these electric interurban lines are gone with one exception. Plus, we have a few other surprises of how people commuted and traveled in these areas. This program has a wealth of color movie film mainly from 1950's, thru the changes into the 1960's.

[@bennetfox]

One of the biggest mistakes we made in this country was getting rid of the streetcar systems in the cities.

[@reelreeler8778]

I like streetcars too but the biggest mistake we made was letting large cities get out of control with crime....where I live we have light rail system that in a different setting could be wonderful, but no one wants to ride on it because of the robberies, unprovoked assaults and homicides that are a common occurrence on them.

[@everettthepetractionguy4222]

Awesome!!! I LOVE traction!!! ❤️

[@louisianahighball4705]

Shreveport Louisiana was one of the first to adopt trolleys. When the trolleys were gone they switched to busses BUT they put pantographs on the busses and used the same trolley sheds. This lasted until the 60s or 70s.

[@Qrail]

As an ex Greyhound driver, the cities could have saved some high volume routes, by prohibiting car traffic on certain streets. The red cars in LA come to mind.

[@stickynorth]

Streetcars really are the future of transit if I have my way... Especially those which operate on a hybrid Battery-Electric set up.. Electrify what makes economic sense, fast charge at station stops or end termini. The battery tech is improving so fast that even London's next version of electric double-decker buses by BYD have amazing range... And buses are notoriously inefficient compared to trains... So I can only imagine where the industry will be in 10 years...

[@MartinSBrown-tp9ji]

This was a great video and and the photography and sound was perfect.