The Dallas Special is now on permanent display at the museum
More than one hundred years ago, train cars were chugging across Texas powered not by the oil for which the state is famous, or even by the coal that provides that storybook puff of exhaust billowing from the smoke stack. No, these trains were runnin’ on electricity. That electric trains in the United States have such a lengthy history was news to me, but at the Interurban Railway Museum in Plano, Texas that’s just part of the story.
My tour guide, Judith Oldham was as proud of the jaunty renovated red and yellow rail car on display as if she’d built and run it herself. I think perhaps she could have, judging from her knowledgeable explanation of how high voltage alternating current was bumped down to direct current at the electric sub station behind the passenger depot.
Museum tour guide Judith Oldham
On a sunny afternoon this fall, Judith walked me through the multifunctional rail car, stopping first at the little mobile post office in the back end where letters in big canvas bags were sorted and delivered as the train made its way along the 130 miles of track between Dennison and Waco.
The post office at the back of the train circa 1908
Through the narrow glass door and into the passenger section, a hinged sign on the wall reading “white” was a jarring reminder of the days of racial segregation. The cushy seats farther forward suggests there was economic segregation as well.
Inside the Texas Electric Railway Interurban Car
They’ve packed a whole lot of information about trains, innovative engineering and their impact on the east Texas economy into the adorable wood frame station house/museum at one end of Plano’s little “old town“. A placard on the station door reminds visitors that trains were eclipsed in the 1940s by Americans’ new love, the automobile.
What goes around comes around - the Dallas DART
Now here we are with too many automobiles and not enough trains and the trend in autos is right back to electric power, as if the past 100 years has shown us that the original idea wasn’t so wacky after all.
I’m enjoying the irony of all this when the electric-powered Dallas Area Rapid Transit train known as the Dart, goes flying by me in a blur. It has a purty yellow paint scheme and a promise to be green and it is a cheery reminder that what goes around comes around and that’s okay with me.
Author of The New York Times bestseller, The Crash Detectives, I am also a journalist, public speaker and broadcaster specializing in aviation and travel.
I am a tour guide with Judith at the Museum and Judith and I alternate Saturdays.
You have certainly written a wonderful article about the Interurbans that up until 1948 ran all over North Texas.
I jhave just one small comment- – – – – – the blacks and the whites had exactly the same comfortable seating – they just had to sit in separate sections.
With that exception, a very nice arrticle! All the best! Bill
I also have a love for the electric trains. I am a transplant to Ohio from Western Kentucky.
I have read my history lesson well and found that Ohio had many interurban railways. Many of these were quite fast. and as you said the automobile killed them all.
I live in Dayton, Ohio and we still use the trolly buses but I can see that they are being replaced by diesels every day.
My hope is that they return in one form or another. Maybe Dayton will get a DART!