At the turn of the 20th century, innovations in railroad technology spurred the development of new kinds of railroad networks centered around urban areas. These short-line railroads continued to depend on wooden crossties treated and preserved with creosote. And while many of these early 20th-century rail lines fell into disuse, their short-line successors continue to serve an important role in transportation and economic prosperity.
The 20th Century: A Wider Variety of Trains on Creosote-Treated Tracks
As the 20th century evolved, treating wood railroad crossties with creosote became an increasingly standard practice. The use of creosote to treat wooden crossties grew every decade until nearly all were pressure treated with this preservative by 1960; according to historical data, 42% in 1921, 78% in 1930, 85% in 1940, 96% in 1950, and 99% in 1960. (1)
Simultaneously, a wave of technological innovation in transportation resulted in new types of railways designed to serve the growing populations of metropolitan areas. Two types of “short-line” trains, trains with shorter routes, cropped up across America to help workers commute to urban centers for work and amenities:
- “Interurbans,” which connected urban areas with the neighboring countryside and followed tracks generally no more than 75 miles long, and
- “streetcars” or “trolleys” that traversed shorter tracks generally no more than 15 miles within an urban center. Interurbans competed with steam railroads by being more frequent and were popular in metros with concentrated population corridors like Chicago-Milwaukee or far-flung suburbs like Los Angeles. (2) Streetcars, on the other hand, were more efficient than horse-drawn carriages at carrying city dwellers and workers from one end of a city to the other.
At the turn of the century, breakthroughs in electrification meant that many of these short-line railroads were powered by electricity. Electrified rail cars—which utilized third rails and overhead catenary wiring systems—did not need to refuel, were cleaner, and required less maintenance. Both interurbans and streetcars ballooned in popularity from 1900 to 1920 and helped the nation’s major cities grow into the large metropolises we know today.
Interurbans grew more than fivefold in 15 years, from 3,122 miles of track in 1901 to a peak of 15,580 in 1916. These short, electrified railways competed with existing steam-powered rail cars very effectively: by 1920 they carried 98% of passenger traffic and 77% of freight traffic. (3)(4)
Competition and Economic Disruptions Challenge Passenger Rail
However, before long the new competition faced its own competition. In 1903, the Wright Brothers proved flight was possible (5) and by 1926 the first fixed-route passenger service on a commercial airliner was established. (6) In 1908, just 5 years after the Wright Brothers’ discovery, Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Company released the Model T at $300 apiece, selling millions of private automobiles throughout the coming decade despite the nation’s poor road conditions. (7)
The twentieth century also brought a number of economic shocks which challenged the railroad industry’s model. In 1917, just one year after the peak track mileage of Interurban trains—likely the reason why they stopped expanding—the U.S. entered World War I and the U.S. government nationalized the entire railroad industry to support the war effort. From 1917 to 1920 the railroads were used more heavily than ever but did not receive the maintenance they needed. (8) After only 9 years of recovery from nationalization, the stock market crashed, ushering in the Great Depression during which many railroad companies folded.
The arrival of World War II in 1945 seemed to deal the final blow to the entire private passenger rail industry. Nearly all privately owned passenger railroads ceased service by the 1960s, with interurbans serving as an illustrative example; they started to decline in 1918 and steadily dropped until there were nearly none of these short-line passenger routes in operation by 1940. (9)
Since creosote-treated ties last for many decades and require minimal maintenance, most railroads which closed their commuter services used their existing tracks in new ways, rather than pulling up old routes and laying down new ones. The country’s urban or “short-line” railroads which had carried commuters stayed in place and were absorbed by long-range freight lines.
For instance, the Piedmont and Northern Railway, constructed in 1909 by James Duke from the wealthy family of Duke Electric, connected dozens of communities throughout North and South Carolina but was not allowed to expand its passenger service and essentially forced to pivot to freight in 1928. These short-line railroads from the early 1900s served a valuable purpose: they connected the country’s transcontinental routes to more local urban centers.
By pivoting to freight, these short-line tracks provided “last-mile” connections; commercial goods crossed the country on its Class I railroads, but then relied on its short-line routes to get into the stores and homes of millions of people in the nation’s bustling cities. (10)
The Exception: Cities’ Elevated Railroads Stay In Place
American railroads’ pivot to freight experienced a notable exception: the elevated rail systems which emerged in urban centers early in the 20th century. These urban railroads traversed creosote-treated crossties, but elevated onto bridge-like structures that snaked through downtowns of the country’s largest cities. While short-line passenger railroads outside of the urban core struggled to survive, the urban trains of Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston became permanent fixtures of the urban landscape, and with time and technological innovation evolved into the subway systems we know today.
The country’s oldest subway systems all followed an elevated train design, including Boston’s “T” system which dates to 1897, (11) New York’s subway system (which had four lines by 1881 (12) and added its first underground subway in 1904 (13)) and Chicago’s “L” network already resembled its current design in 1921. (14) In fact, Chicago’s “L” is actually a shortened version of the term “El” which itself was a shortened version of “Elevated”.
Much of the tracks in these urban train systems date back to the turn of the 20th century. For instance, the C Branch of the Boston T’s Green Line train still follows tracks from the city’s first electric streetcar which ran from the Allston Railroad Depot to Coolidge Corner and Park Square (now Park St. station on the Red Line). (15)
Creosote-Treated Crossties Laid the Foundation for Freight and City Trains
During the latter half of the 20th century, the federal government did more to support the industry’s specialization in freight. In 1971, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, or Amtrak, was formed to take over long-range passenger rail, and in 1980 Congress passed the Staggers Rail Act, which relaxed regulations and helped short-lines compete with other commercial transportation like trucking. By 1990, the number of short-line railroads—classified as Class II or III railroads—more than doubled. (16)
Today, there are more than 600 short-line freight railroads, which are represented by the American Short Line and Regional Rail Association (ASLRRA), that traverse creosote-treated tracks with long histories: from steam-powered regional trains that carried people and the first refrigerated goods, to electrified interurban lines that whisked commuters to middle-class jobs in the city, and now to freight which powers the national economy.
The US freight railroad system is considered the world’s safest and most productive freight rail system, with 140,000 miles of privately owned and operated tracks. (17) Their urban counterparts—streetcars and interurban trains that traversed elevated railways in the nation’s largest downtowns—have grown into iconic transportation systems that continue to this day.
Note: This article was originally published in the January/February 2024 issue of Crossties Magazine, a publication of Railway Tie Association.
Endnotes
1. Railway Tie Association (RTA). Frequently Asked Questions. “History of Class 1 crosstie insertions.” Data since 1921; https://www.rta.org/faq
2. Burns, Adam. “‘Interurbans’, Classic American Streetcars.” October 10, 2023. American-Rails.com; https://www.american-rails.com/interurbans.html.
3. Burns, Adam. “‘Interurbans’, Classic American Streetcars.” October 10, 2023. American-Rails.com; https://www.american-rails.com/interurbans.html.
4. Burns, Adam. “Railroads In The 20th Century, The 1900s.” June 7, 2023. American-Rails.com; https://www.american-rails.com/1900s.html.
5. National Park Service. Wright Brothers National Memorial. “The Road to the First Flight.” April 2, 2022. https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm.
6. Birth of Aviation. “First U.S. Commercial Airline Passenger.” http://www.birthofaviation.org/first-commercial-airline-passenger/.
7. Burns, Adam. “Railroads In The 20th Century, The 1900s.” June 7, 2023. American-Rails.com; https://www.american-rails.com/1900s.html.
8. Constitution Daily Blog, National Constitution Center. “On this day, Woodrow Wilson seizes the nation’s railroads.” December 26, 2021. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-woodrow-wilson-seizes-the-nations-railroads
9. Burns, Adam. “Railroads In The 20th Century, The 1900s.” June 7, 2023. American-Rails.com; https://www.american-rails.com/1900s.html
10. Burns, Adam. “Piedmont and Northern Railway: ‘The Great Electrified System Of The South’.” October 11, 2023. American-Rails.com; https://www.american-rails.com/piedmont.html.
11. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. “The History of the T.” https://www.mbta.com/history.
12. Library of Congress. Map and guide of the elevated railroads of New York City. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3804n.rr004540/?r=0.1,0.315,0.618,0.372,0.
13. Kahn, Sonia. Worlds Revealed, Library of Congress Blog. “What Goes Up Must Come Down: A brief history of New York City’s elevated rail and subway lines.” May 19, 2022. https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2022/05/what-goes-up-must-come-down-a-brief-history-of-new-york-citys-elevated-rail-and-subway-lines/.
14. Chicago Loop Alliance. “Then and Now: A Brief History of the Chicago ‘L’.” July, 2022. https://loopchicago.com/in-the-loop/then-and-now-a-brief-history-of-the-chicago-l/
15. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. “The History of the T.” https://www.mbta.com/history.
16. Seminole Gulf Railway, www.FloridaRail.com. A Brief History of Short Line Railroads in America. https://www.floridarail.com/news/a-brief-history-of-short-line-railroads-in-america/.
17. Association of American Railroads. “Overview of America’s Freight Railroads.” March 2020. https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Overview-of-Americas-Freight-RRs.pdf.