The 1930s were grim years, bringing the nation’s worst economic depression, and with it, unemployment, hunger, drought, and financial panic. The depression struck the country’s business centers like a plague, paralyzing whole industries. And the interurbans of Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio suffered its fury to a greater degree than did most other industries in America. A handful of the large traction companies put up a desperate fight to survive. The Cincinnati & Lake Erie Railroad was one of them.

The Cincinnati & Lake Erie (C&LE) is best known for its Red Devils—the lightweight interurban cars with the quick acceleration, plush seating, and lightning speed. The C&LE introduced the cars to the riding public with a staged airplane race, which the interurban predictably won. The line’s management used its new high speeds to provide local and limited service over its Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo divisions. It even carded daily, 275-mile parlor-car trips between Detroit and Cincinnati for what would become the longest passenger interurban runs in the history of the industry.

Less well known is the fact that the C&LE transformed a slow-moving, badly managed, trolley-freight operation into an efficient, high-speed, regional-freight carrier. With the cooperation of neighboring interurbans, it guaranteed first-morning delivery to major cities throughout Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. The C&LE’s nightly forays between Cincinnati and Cleveland made it the longest, and probably the fastest, regional interurban freight carrier in America.

This essay looks at the high speeds—their design, structure, operation—and the road’s freight system, more specifically, its door-to-door, overnight delivery service and will try to assess the effectiveness of both. The C&LE hoped, above all, that its new passenger cars along with its modernized freight system would shield it from the ravages of the Great Depression. First a look at the C&LE’s beginnings.

In 1925 the Cincinnati & Dayton Traction Company (C&D), a fifty-four-mile line tucked away in the southwest corner of Ohio, was in receivership and barely able to cover its operating costs. After scrutinizing the books with his accountants, Thomas Conway, Jr., a Wharton School professor, recognized that the region’s high population density and its vast manufacturing base made the C&D a potentially valuable property. Conway reasoned that if he modernized the C&D, he could stabilize its existing passenger business, while adding significantly to the company’s freight revenues. He was intrigued by the line’s freight connections at Cincinnati with steam railroads and riverboats. He was also struck by the possibility of developing interchange freight at Dayton, where C&D connected with five thousand miles of interurban railway that spread like a mass of tangled vines across the landscape of Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. (Fig. 1 shows a map published by the Central Electric Railway Association [CERA]). Conway and his investors bought the line in 1926 and renamed it the Cincinnati Hamilton & Dayton Railway (CH&D). In order for the line to realize its potential, Conway financed new rolling stock, a revamped power supply, freight handling systems, and the rehabilitation of the line’s track and roadbed.
The CH&D started off with a real problem—its Cincinnati terminus was at Cumminsville, a suburb of Cincinnati, about five miles north of the city’s business district. Because Cincinnati’s streetcars were wide-gauged and the CH&D was standard gauge, the CH&D had no rail access to the downtown area, a situation that somewhat limited its ability to sell its passenger and freight service. Although Conway was unable to enhance passenger receipts, he was able to take measures to increase the CH&D’s freight revenues.

Conway opened a freight station and warehouse in downtown Cincinnati, where he trucked his customers’ shipments five miles to the railhead in Cumminsville just to get the business. He needed more than just a downtown freight office, however. The carloading and freight-handling facilities at the railhead in Cumminsville were an embarrassment, and the whole complex had to be modernized. The CH&D operated with a single team track served by a narrow open platform. It had no freight house, no yard tracks, and no freight handling equipment.1 Conway decided to build a new two-track freight house. By the end of 1926 the structure was up and the tracks were in place, and he rebuilt the old team track and platform at Cumminsville and gave it to Universal Carloading and Distributing Company, a freight forwarder owned by the New York Central System (see Fig. 2). Universal made its money by consolidating small freight shipments large enough to fill a single boxcar, taking advantage of the lower tariff rates offered by railroads—both steam and interurban—for mixed carload shipments. And while designed to sell the freight services of the New York Central System, Universal also shipped with qualified interurban freight carriers. Universal booked six to nine carloads of freight per day in and out of Cincinnati. During 1928 and 1929 Universal loaded about forty cars a month to Cleveland alone.2 With freight revenues increasing, the CH&D ordered new boxcars and began booking interline freight for all of the major cities in the central-states area. The increased billings forced Conway and his associates to expand the Cumminsville facilities once again.

Conway did not limit the CH&D’s modernization program to Cincinnati alone. Farther north on the main line the town of Mount Healthy forced the CH&D to move its track into the center of the road. Figure 3 shows the new, much heavier rail, fully blocked and lined, ready for concrete. This is probably 101# T rail. Note the absence of rail joints—the rails are continuously welded using the Thermit welding technique. This was very costly track work but necessary to handle loaded freight trains. The CH&D tackled the problem of steep grades at Symmes Hill, where southbound freight trains of three or more cars needed a boost to make it over the hump. A new cut through the hill early in 1929 reduced the grade and eliminated the need for a helper motor. Conway also rebuilt sections of the main line between Hamilton and Middletown. (Fig. 4 illustrates the work at Elk Creek. Notice the curve with its elevated outside rail—and the high-speed, inside guardrail. This stretch of track was part of the Trenton Bypass, the CH&D’s fast, well-constructed main line between Middletown and Hamilton.)

After inspecting the CH&D’s obsolete repair shop, constructed in 1910 just south of Dayton at O’Neils siding, Conway decided that the road needed new facilities. He moved the car repair and storage operation to a building two miles south at Moraine City next to the site occupied by the General Motors Delco Frigidaire plant (see Fig. 5). The new complex boasted an eight-track storage yard and a modern erecting shop and repair facility. (Fig. 6 shows the CH&D’s interior loading docks at the General Motors Delco Frigidaire plant at Moraine City.) Conway convinced General Motors to ship by interurban, and General Motors gave the CH&D its own siding and interior loading facility. In February 1927 the CH&D constructed a mile-long branch from the main line near O’Neils to the western end of the Frigidaire building. This arrangement with the CH&D was decidedly unique. General Motors, a truck and auto manufacturer, was no particular friend of the streetcar industry. Nevertheless, it busily shipped refrigeration equipment every day by trolley freight. It is probable, based on the data available, that Frigidaire’s shipping department loaded an average of six outbound interurban freight cars every day—billed usually for the big cities in the region. During 1929 the plant dispatched twenty-five to thirty cars a month for Cleveland alone.3
Figure 7 depicts a freight train that derailed trying to turn the corner at Fifth and Main Streets in downtown Dayton. This intersection had a tight radius curve, and the switch points and frogs were probably worn. Derailments and collisions with motorists were the pitfalls of dispatching freight trains through city streets. The CH&D ran fifteen to twenty freights a day through this busy intersection. The trains were three to six cars in length.4 A derailment of this sort caused real problems between the traction company and city officials. Congestion was a serious problem for the CH&D’s Dayton freight house, shared with the Indiana Columbus & Eastern Traction Company (see Fig. 8). Because there was no room to expand, Conway installed improved freight-handling procedures inside the warehouse building. But it was a major achievement to keep freight moving through this facility twenty-four hours a day.

Conway rebuilt the CH&D’s plant, equipment, and facilities between 1926 and 1929, hoping to make his new railway an important freight carrier. Did he succeed? Some numbers may provide the answer. Table 1 (Fig. 9) shows freight forwarded and received at Cincinnati. Note that in 1926, the CH&D customers shipped (forwarded) 57,000 tons of freight by interurban from Cincinnati to cities in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. By 1929, however, they were shipping about 83,000 tons over the CH&D, an increase of 45 percent. Table 1 also shows the tonnage received at Cincinnati during Conway’s management of the road. There is no figure for 1926, but by comparing 1927 with 1929, one finds a 41 percent increase, which means that shippers in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana were routing more of their freight to Cincinnati by interurban.5 They were doing so because they could get a guarantee of a two-day delivery instead of the steam railroad’s usual three to four days.
Cleveland, Ohio, represented one of the largest markets in the CERA region. The Lake Shore Electric Railway (LSE) served this important Lake Erie industrial center, and data is available that reflects the quantity of freight billed to the LSE during the years 1928 and 1929. The totals for two months in Table 2 (Fig. 10) reveal that the CH&D sent better than two million pounds of freight a month to the LSE in 1928 and increased the amount substantially in 1929.

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