FROM DENISON TO WACO ON THE ELECTRIC LINE

Between 1908 and 1948, Plano served as one of several stations for the Texas Electric Railway, an all-electric transport rail system that ran from Denison to Waco on the hour, every day from 6 a.m. to midnight. Passengers would catch an “interurban” car, similar to a trolley car, and ride from their downtown Plano location to neighboring towns across the Blackland prairie region, including big city Dallas. The Interurban Railway Museum in Plano archives all the details of this regional transportation history, housed in the line’s last surviving electric sub-station. The sub-station served to convert electricity from an alternating current to a direct current in order to power the railway line. The Plano substation was registered as a Texas Historical Landmark in 1991, also the year the repurposed substation opened as the museum, over forty years after the last interurban car made its final run along the electric railway line. Perhaps, with the rise of interest in alternative and non-polluting transportation systems, a new, clean-energy rail system similar to this historic line is in Plano’s future.