The Philadelphia and Western Railroad was a high-speed, third rail-equipped, commuter-hauling interurban electric railroad operating in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is now SEPTA's Norristown High Speed Line, though the Strafford spur has been abandoned. Part of the abandoned line within Radnor Township is now the Radnor Trail, a multi-use path or rail trail.
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Philadelphia and Western Railroad in the context of Interurban
The interurban (or radial railway in Canada) is a type of electric railway, with tram-like electric self-propelled railcars which run within and between cities or towns. The term interurban is usually used in North America, with other terms used outside it. They were very prevalent in many parts of the world before the Second World War and were used primarily for passenger travel between cities and their surrounding suburban and rural communities. Interurban as a term encompassed the companies, their infrastructure, their cars that ran on the rails, and their service. In the United States, the early 1900s interurban was a valuable economic institution when most roads between towns, many town streets were unpaved, and transportation and haulage was by horse-drawn carriages and carts.
The interurban provided reliable transportation, particularly in winter weather, between towns and countryside. In 1915, 15,500 miles (24,900 km) of interurban railways were operating in the United States and, for a few years, interurban railways, including the numerous manufacturers of cars and equipment, were the fifth-largest industry in the country. With the widespread use of automobiles, most interurbans in North America had stopped operating by 1930. A few survived into the 1950s.