Dallas, Texas has a well-established history with interurbans, whose electric lines stretched between Denison to the north and Waco to the south. It included an assortment of operations, from local streetcars on short routes only a few city blocks long, to express-style interurban runs between city centers dozens of miles apart, not to mention steam-powered freights that could be seen toward the end of Dallas' traction era. The first bastion of streetcar activity can be found as early as 1901 with the Denison and Sherman Railway; soon an interconnected network of disparate systems all came under the umbrella of the Texas Electric Railway moniker, including:
- Dallas Southern Traction Company
- Denison & Sherman Railway
- Southern Traction Company
- Texas Traction Company
Even as other interurban systems in the United States had faltered before the onset of World War II, The Texas Electric Railway soldiered on (probably due to the additional revenue from the aforementioned freight operations), but it too succumbed to the same fate as had the others: increasing competition from the automobile.
Dallas' sprawling interurban system, probably considered the last testament to this fabled transport method, met its demise in 1948.
(The map at left depicts only the tracks within Dallas proper. All lines will eventually be shown, including those to Waco, Corsicana, Denison, and others.)