Originally Posted by
Doohickie
They had interurban service between Dallas, Fort Worth, and outlying cities. Apparently what really killed the Fort Worth portion was anti-trust laws that prevented the electricity generating companies from owning and operating electrically driven trains. Not long after the power companies divested their train operations, the train companies failed. Apparently it was a small incremental cost to a power company to maintain rail lines along with the power lines (which ran in the same easements), but for a rail-only company it was too much overhead to take care of the rails.
In New York City, the Mayor pratically put the tolleys out of business by requiring them to convert over to motorcoach. Other towns made the trolleys pay for snow removal and road repair! Incredible when you think about it because those same towns now have to subsidize the buses.
The interuban had a very short life span of less than 50 years before most were destroyed.