Iowa Trolleys -CERA Bulletin #114 is about the history of how Iowa trolleys provided local transportation to Iowa with electric street railways and interurban lines. These electric railways were often built, financed, and managed by local people.  As a result, the “electrics” became personalities in the local culture. The book includes separate maps of the interurban lines in the different Iowa cities.

The book is about how streetcars and interurbans connected city neighborhoods and rural communities. The street railways and interurbans operated in the traditional manner until the very end.  While the companies were always striving to standardize with streamlined equipment, they retained their conventional streetcars operations.  Most of the equipment was built before World War I.

The interurban lines described in Iowa Trolleys -CERA Bulletin #114, became well known due to their longevity.  Because the lines were built to steam railroad standards, they were able to interchange freight with the main line railroads that crossed through the state.  In fact, freight revenues sustained the passenger services and the very existence of the railroads.  Portions of most of the interurban lines remain as dieselized freight service when this book was written in 1974. 

The publisher of Iowa Trolleys -CERA Bulletin #114 is the Central Electric Railfan’s Association (CERA) was formed 1938.   The CERA encourages the study of the history, equipment, and operations of urban, suburban, interurban, and main line electric railways.  This book is published by the organization.  A number of those publications are available on this site.  Meetings are also held monthly by the organization in Chicago, IL.  More information about the CERA is available at www.cera-chicago.org/.   

Iowa Trolleys -CERA Bulletin #114 is a step into the past. This book is a nostalgic return to those electric railways of yesteryear that connected the cities of Iowa and the rural communities of Iowa. 

Historians, rail enthusiasts and the general public alike, will delight in the pictures and information in this volume and the other CERA Bulletins.