Texas Interurban Railway Museum in Plano

Before the DART Light rail, there was the Texas Interurban Railway. In Plano on 15th Street (901 E. 15th Street), right next to the downtown Plano station, there's a museum that tells you all about it. I had no idea this museum was there. And its FREE! 

They are open Tues - Fri 11-5 and Sat 1-5.

This is Texas Electric Railway Car 360, manufactured in 1911 by the American Car Company of St. Louis. Originally  it was numbered car 11. The car measures 56 feet 10 inches long by 9 feet wide by 12 feet 9 inches high. Car 11 weighed 85,180 pounds, accommodated 62 passengers and was outfitted with 4GE73 Motors and 27MCB3X Brill trucks. In 1913, car 11 was renumbered to 360. In 1932, the car was modified to a rail postal office under specifications provided by the United States Post Office and is the last remaining example of a Texas Electric RPO. This car remined in service until the system ceased operation on December 31, 1948. I was told that this car was sitting on a farm being used for hay storage before it was donated to the museum and fully restored.

The Texas Electric Railway Company was formed in 1917 by John Strickland as a result of mergers and acquisitions of various lines beginning as early as 1901. The Texas Electric Railway operated three routes from Dallas: One to Denison, one to Corsicana and one to Waco. With a length of 226 miles, the Texas electric Railway was the longest interurban system between the Mississippi River and California.

Texas Electric Railway Station: Built in 1908 by the Texas Traction Company (Texas Electric Railway after a merger in 1917), this station served passengers and freight customers of the company's North Texas routes. The wood frame passenger depot and the attached brick freight / electric transformer section remained in use until 1948 when the rail system declined in favor of automobile travel. It is one of the few early reminders of Plano's early 20th century transportation history. There are still a few of these depots left. Some of them are being used for other things but at least they weren't torn down.

Inside the depot, is the original wooden roll top desk used by DW Milan, Treasurer, Texas Electric Railway. The desk includes a clock insert. It's behind the ticket counter. The man sitting there is Tom. I think he's the curator of the museum and, according my tour guide, knows everything about the history of the railway. He's the one that told me about which depots were still around in some form.

Plano's own interurban substation was opened in June of 1908 in Downtown Plano by the Texas Traction Company. This building served two main purposes: Converting alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) to power the interurban train cars and functioning as a ticket station for passengers and staff. While the original brick structure remains today, the wooden ticket station has been reconstructed several times over the years.

The exciting new world of interurban trains would be nothing without the motormen who drove them. Originally, each interurban car had a two-man crew. The conductor managed passenger boarding, punched tickets, and kept the train on schedule. The motorman drove the trains, taking extra care in crowded city traffic that included horse-drawn wagons, early automobiles, and pedestrians. Once outside of the busy cities, the control handle allowed the motorman to accelerate the car up to 60 miles per hour.  Eventually, due to budget cuts, the role of conductor was discontinued and his duties were taken over by the motorman, making his job all the more important. A motorman’s four primary responsibilities became driving the trains, helping passengers board, checking tickets and keeping on schedule.

The Texas Electric Railway Cars connect to an overhead electric line by a trolley pole to provide power to the motors, lights and heaters inside the car. These poles have a swivel base and are spring loaded to keep a constant contact with the overhead wire to accommodate for curves in the track, extra height while crossing other rail lines, and passing under a lowered line in a tunnel or underpass.  The Trolley Pole Rope is connected to the far end of the pole and allows the motorman to disengage or engage the electric wire without being electrocuted. Something in the car holds the rope taut to allow for easy access to the trolley pole.

I thought this was cool. This is a ticket for the train. The conductor would punch the ticket at the location at which you boarded and then punch it again when you got off. The difference between the fares stated at each location would be what you'd pay for your ride. The little map to the right shows the various stops. On that red line, you could go from Denison to Waco!

After touring the museum itself, Mitchell, my personal tour guide, took me onto the actual train. This section of the car is the mail car. Postal clerks – The Rail Post Office was staffed by highly trained Railway Mail Service postal clerks and for security reasons was off-limits to anyone else. Postal clerks sorted mail and performed other duties to assure proper handling of the mail, meeting the expectation of processing 600 pieces of mail per hour with at least 96% accuracy. This was phenomenal, given the cramped conditions on moving trains. Mail clerks carried a regulation pistol and were subjected to ongoing training and testing. Letters cancelled on the Rail Post Office bore a stamp indicating the route’s endpoints, the train number, the date and “RPO”.

Texas Electric’s earnings fell by almost $500,000 between 1925 and 1927. In further efforts to offset the loss of passenger revenue, the Texas Electric Railway entered the freight business in 1928, constructing a small fleet of electric freight locomotives and carrying anything from newspapers to cotton bales. These adaptations likely saved the Texas Electric from early abandonment. This section of the car was cleared to demonstrate the ability to carry freight.

The car was also segregated as required by the times. You can see the sign on the left designating this cabin as "colored".

Regardless of which cabin you were in, these were the seats. They look pretty comfy. Note the advertising along the top of the windows. This was another source of revenue for the railway. There's an ad up there for the Adolphus Hotel.

Another ad for Spearmint and Doublemint gum from Wrigley!

The very front of the car is where the motorman was. It's from here that he would drive the train. There was a lever that determined speed as well as one that was a hand brake. There were very precise schedules that the motorman had to keep so a certain level of skill was required to know how fast to go, when to begin reducing speed and when to start breaking. In addition to the schedules, the motormen had to stop in a precise location at the depot so passengers could disembark. While the car could go in reverse, it was quite cumbersome so he didn't want to miss his mark. Usually when the cars got to the end of the line, there was a platform that would turn 180 degrees turning the car completely around.

There were "facilities" on board the train. However, there was no "bowl" to accept the waste. It went straight out into the wilderness. Because of this, there was a sign in the bathroom that forbade the use of the facilities while the train was stationary.  The little water fountain you see outside the door was not for handwashing. It was for drinking. 

The downtown Plano DART rail station. One of the murals is of the Texas Electric Railcar.

Sadly, there were accidents. Automobile collisions with interurban cars were common in the early years of the electric railway system in Texas. Drivers often ignored warnings, attempting to cross the tracks before the train passed through. On October 6, 1912, Barney Cornelius and his family were driving home from Fort Worth when they collided with an interurban train car about a mile west of Arlington. Cornelius did not heed the oncoming train, which hit the car and sent it flying 30 feet. Cornelius, his wife, sister, two daughters and nephew all died instantly, according to a gruesome report from the Wichita Daily Times.

And there were robberies like when W. L. Sasser, the cashier for the Galveston-Houston Electric Company’s Interurban ticket office in Houston, heard a noise while counting the cash after the station had closed. Upon checking the noise, Sasser came face to face with two armed robbers who then locked him in the vault and stole $2,100. Sasser was trapped for half an hour before the dispatcher heard him and freed him. The robbers fled the scene and were never found.

On Fridays, they have story hour where a librarian will come read stories and one of the staff members will tell stories about the train and the railway like the ones above. 

One of the other rooms in the museum that is cool for kids and adults, is where they show you how the power was generated. There are exhibits that you can touch and play with to help you understand how it all worked. 

And finally, there are guys like Mitchell who will take you through the train and tell you how it used to be.

I'm so glad that I found this place! It's definitely well worth a visit.