Site of Fort Worth-Dallas Interurban

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Back in 1901, the Texas Legislature authorized the Northern Texas Traction Company of Fort Worth to extend rail service all the way to Dallas. Now, that might not sound like much today; you can blow down that stretch of highway before your coffee gets cold, but back then, connecting those two cities by rail was something worth authorizing an act of the legislature over.

And so they did. The Northern Texas Traction Company got to work, and they didn't dawdle about it either. The interurban system, powered by overhead electrical lines, was completed just one year later.

Thirty-five miles of track humming with electricity, ready to roll. The trip took just over an hour. Just over an hour, folks.

Fort Worth to Dallas, electric, smooth, and reliable. Now here's the part I like best about this whole operation: you didn't need a station. You didn't need a platform, a ticket booth, or a brass-buttoned attendant checking your papers.

You stood by the route, you flagged the train, and you got on. Simple as that. Up to forty travelers could ride in a single car, flagged down from wherever they happened to be standing along those thirty-five miles.

For three decades, the interurban did its job. Then came the 1930s, and with them came paved roads between the two cities. Once the roads went down, the rail traffic started to decline; and once something like that starts sliding, it tends not to stop.

The last train made the interurban run on Christmas Eve, 1934. Christmas Eve. There's something about that detail that sticks with you: the final ride rolling quiet through the winter dark, delivering its last passengers somewhere between Fort Worth and Dallas, before the line went still for good.

What the marker says

In 1901 the Texas Legislature authorized the Northern Texas Traction Company of Fort Worth to extend rail service to Dallas. The interurban system, powered by overhead electrical lines, was completed one year later. The thirty-five mile trip took just over an hour. Passengers could flag the train and board at any point on the route. Each car held up to forty travelers. Rail traffic began to decline in the 1930s when paved roads were constructed between the two cities, and the last train made the interurban run on Christmas Eve, 1934. (1980)