VanDepoele's first electric railway was laid in Chicago early in 1883, and he exhibited another at an exposition in that city later in the same year.
A prolific inventor, VanDepoele was granted at least 243 United States patents between 1881 and 1894 for various electric inventions including railway systems, lights, generators, motors, current regulators, pumps, telpher systems, batteries, hammers, rock drills, brakes, a gearless locomotive, a coal-mining machine, and a pile-driver.
VanDepoele died at 46 years of age in Lynn, Massachusetts, leaving a wife and several children.
Charles J. vanDepoele demonstrated an electric train at the Chicago State Fair in 1883.
VanDepoele used an overhead contact wire with running-rail return, however, the system that was to prevail except on rapid-transit systems in tunnels and viaducts, where third-rail could be used.
Of these, 6 were by vanDepoele, 3 by Daft, including the Asbury Park line, 1 by Fisher, 1 by Short (probably the experimental series-supply Denver line), 1 by Henry, and 1 by Sprague, the St. Joseph line.
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