The Red Devil was a high-speed

interurban The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 a ...

streetcar built by the

Cincinnati Car Company The Cincinnati Car Company or ''Cincinnati Car Corporation'' was a subsidiary of the Ohio Traction Company. It designed and constructed interurban cars, streetcars (trams) and (in smaller scale) buses. It was founded in 1902 in Cincinnati, Ohio. I ...

for the

Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad The Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad (C&LE) was a short-lived electric interurban railway that operated in 1930–1939 Depression-era Ohio and ran between the major cities of Cincinnati, Dayton, Springfield, Columbus, and Toledo. It had a s ...

(C&LE) in 1929–1930. They saw service throughout

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

in the 1930s. After the failure of the C&LE in 1939 they saw service with the

Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway The Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway , also known as the CRANDIC, is a Class III railroad operating in the US state of Iowa. The CRANDIC currently operates of main line and more than of yard trackage in four east central Iowa counties. The ...

(CRANDIC) and the

Lehigh Valley Transit Company The Lehigh Valley Transit Company (LVT) was a regional transport company, headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania, that began operations in 1901 as an urban trolley and interurban rail transport company. It operated successfully into the 1930s, ...

. Several have been preserved.

Design

The management of the 1929 newly formed interurban Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad wanted to replace its heavy and aging interurban coaches with new ones that would be lighter, lower, passenger comfortable, and power efficient. C&LE staff worked with the Cincinnati Car Company to design what came to be called "The Red Devils." These interurban cars were among the first to be constructed partially with aluminum. The frame was steel and the body panels aluminum. They had leather bucket seats, a luggage compartment, toilet, subdued lighting, and up to 44 seats depending upon format. This construction ultimately proved to have some weaknesses. The riveting of aluminum plates to a steel frame produced an

electrolytic An electrolyte is a medium containing ions that is electrically conducting through the movement of those ions, but not conducting electrons. This includes most soluble salts, acids, and bases dissolved in a polar solvent, such as water. Upon dis ...

reaction that gave rise to corrosion in the side panels and the front and rear dashers. The C&LE eventually replaced some of the aluminum panels with steel. The cars featured

Art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

styling and a distinctive bright red paint scheme. Half of the cars were delivered as

parlor car A parlor car (or parlour car outside the United States of America) is a type of passenger coach that provides superior comforts and amenities compared to a standard coach. History Parlor cars came about on United States railroads to address the ...

s with first class living room style lighting and seating in the rear.

Service

The Red Devil's top design speed was . but in scheduled operation with frequent stops, side of road track location, and rough track, it did not run this fast. Not only was it the fastest interurban car design of its time, it outpaced even the fastest conventional train in commercial traffic, the

Cheltenham Spa Express The ''Cheltenham Spa Express'' is a British List of named passenger trains, named passenger train service from London Paddington station, Paddington station, in London, to Cheltenham Spa railway station, Cheltenham Spa, in Gloucestershire, via R ...

and was almost as fast as the German

Fliegender Hamburger The DRG Class SVT 877 Hamburg Flyer – sometimes also Flying Hamburger or in German ''Fliegender Hamburger'' – was Germany's first fast diesel train, and is credited with establishing the fastest regular railway connection in the world in its ti ...

, which was inaugurated in 1933. (see Land speed record for rail vehicles#Scheduled trains). The Red Devils ran Cincinnati to Dayton, then to Toledo, and finally to Detroit, a trip close to 270 miles in length. In 1930, a race was organized between a Red Devil and an airplane. The publicity stunt's result was that the interurban car ran at – and won. Competition with the growing population of automobiles riding on a constantly expanding paved state highway system plus the devastating negative financial impact of the Depression led to a decline in C&LE passenger business starting in the early 1930s and continuing through the rest of the decade. The C&LE's freight business, which eventually was supporting the C&LE, collapsed when its last interchange partner, the Toledo to Cleveland Lake Shore Electric interurban, went out of business in 1938. The C&LE ceased operation in 1939. and the innovative Red Devils were sold after abandonment: six to the

(CRANDIC) and thirteen to the

Notes

References

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External links

{{commonscat, Red Devil (interurban)
Ohio Railway Museum
Vehicles introduced in 1930 Streetcars of the United States Cincinnati Car Company