Rockford & Interurban Railway

Images of Rail

by Mike Schafer

With today's America dominated by the automobile, it is difficult to believe that until the 1920s nearly 100 percent of the US population traveled via rail. Conventional passenger-train service spread rapidly by the 1850s, but another form of rail transportation did not emerge until the turn of the 20th the interurban. Almost always electric, interurbans linked cities with burghs. Rockford, one of Illinois's three largest urban centers during the 20th century, enjoyed a system appropriately named the Rockford & Interurban, dating from the city's horse-drawn streetcars of the 1880s. By World War I, the Rockford & Interurban ran from downtown Rockford to Cherry Valley and Belvidere; Winnebago, Pecatonica, and Freeport; Roscoe and Rockton; and Beloit and Janesville, Wisconsin. The Rockford & Interurban enjoyed a supernova of success, rising quickly in popularity before slowly dying when the automobile became widespread in the 1920s; the Great Depression finished the job in 1936.

128 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 23, 2015

Reviews

[Jay French · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read a number of these Arcadia Publishing books with the sepia tone photographs on the cover that consists of many historic photographs. This one fits the bill. But compared to most, I found the number and the variety of historic photos to be a truly outstanding collection. The authors have found dozens of photos of the interurban of Rockford, as well as it's subsidiary electric trolley, most all from it's very short life, mostly in the first 25 years of the last century. If you want to get an idea of life in Rockford, Freeport, Beloit, and neighboring towns from that time period, this gives you a good background. I have read a number of train books recently, including photograph-heavy books, and this one has by far the largest percentage of photos of smiling conductors wearing spotless uniforms in front of their machinery. The pride shines through. Interesting read, especially if you are interested in the area.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent overview of a long-gone line

The text is a bit stiff, as often happens with traction books, but the main issue is that the photos are often rather blurry and difficult to look at — which I don’t think is an issue of the vintage.

Enjoyed it, overall, as this was yet another Interurban/streetcar system I knew nothing about. Like so many others it’s story ended in the 1930s, a mistake we’re only now rectifying.