interurban electric railway

the characteristics of street or suburban railways persisted in these interurban lines. They also were chiefly devoted to passenger traffic and operated single or series self-propelled cars. Many of them carried package freight, some also transported mail, and still fewer carload freight picked up along the line or received for local delivery from connecting steam railroads. It is clear that the phrase 'interurban electric railway' was not, in 1920, commonly used to designate a carrier whose major activity was the transportation of interstate freight in trains of standard freight cars.