Pacific Electric

Pacific Electric Railway

Overview
Headquarters	Los Angeles, CA
Reporting mark	PE
Locale	Greater Los Angeles Area
Dates of operation	1901–1961

Pacific Electric Railway
Main depot circa 1910.
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Minimum radius	?

The Pacific Electric Railway (reporting mark PE), also known as the Red Car system, was a mass transit system in Southern California using streetcars, light rail, and buses. The largest electric railway in the world at its greatest extent, around 1925, the system interconnected cities in Los Angeles County and Orange County, as well as in San Bernardino County and Riverside County.

The service was organized around two nexuses located in the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, which were each connected in 1914 by the 1200-volt San Bernardino Line.

The system shared some dual gauge track with the 42 narrow gauge Los Angeles Railway, "Yellow Car" or "LARy" system. These were on Main Street in downtown Los Angeles (directly in front of the busy 6th and Main terminal), on 4th Street and along Hawthorne Boulevard south of downtown LA toward the cities of Hawthorne, Gardena, and Torrance.

Districts

The system was divided into three districts:

• Northern District: San Gabriel Valley (including Pasadena, Alhambra, El Monte, Glendora, Pomona,and Monrovia), as well as San Bernardino, Riverside, and Redlands in the Inland Empire.

• Southern District: Long Beach, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, San Pedro via Dominguez, Santa Ana, El Segundo, Redondo Beach via Gardena, San Pedro Via Torrance.

• Western District: Hollywood, Burbank/Glendale, San Fernando Valley, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Manhattan/Redondo/Hermosa Beaches, Venice, Playa Del Rey.

Originally, there was an Eastern District, but this was incorporated into the Northern District early in the company's existence.

History

Origins

Electric trolleys first traveled in Los Angeles in 1887. In 1895 The Pasadena and Pacific Railway was created from a merger of the Pasadena and Los Angeles Railway and the Los Angeles Pacific Railway (to Santa Monica.) The Pasadena and Pacific Railway boosted Southern California tourism, living up to its motto "from the mountains to the sea."

Early years

A streetcar of the Pacific Electric Railway makes a stop at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel (just outside the city of Los Angeles), circa 1905.

File:Pioneer And South Street Historical Photo.jpg

Pacific Electric Railway car approaching intersection of Pioneer Blvd. and South Street in Cerritos, California, circa 1915

Three tickets for passage on the PE. The top two (front and back views) between downtown LA and Santa Monica, the bottom for a transfer from Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley.

Real estate tycoon Henry Huntington established The Pacific Electric Railway in 1901 by the consolidation of many smaller railroads. Henry Huntington also tried but failed to gain control of Southern Pacific Railroad which his uncle, Collis P. Huntington, had founded. Only a few years after the company's formation, most of Pacific Electric stock was purchased by the Southern Pacific Railroad, which, in what was called the "Great Merger" of 1911, Southern Pacific Railroad bought out most of Huntington's railways except for the Los Angeles Railway, a the narrow gauge street car system known locally as "Yellow Cars" and also the Pasadena and Pacific Railway.

Following these acquisitions Pacific Electric was the largest operator of interurban electric railway passenger service in the world with over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of track. The system ran to destinations all over Southern California, particularly to the south and east.

During the Roaring Twenties profits were good and the lines were extended to the Pasadena area, to the beaches at Santa Monica, Del Rey, Manhattan/Redondo/Hermosa Beach, Long Beach in Los Angeles County and to Newport Beach and Huntington Beach in Orange County. Extra service beyond the normal schedules was provided on weekends, particularly in the late afternoon when everyone wanted to return at the same time. Comedian Harold Lloyd highlighted the popularity and utility of the system in an extended sequence in his 1924 film, Girl Shy, where, after finding one Red Car too crowded, he commandeers another and drives at breakneck speed through the streets of Culver City and Los Angeles.

The Pacific Electric operated frequent freight trains under electric power throughout its extensive service area (as far as 55 mile distant San Bernardino and 50 mile distant Redlands, near Riverside), including operating electrically powered Railway Post Office routes, one of the few U.S. interurbans to do so. This provided important revenue. The PE was responsible for an innovation in a grade crossing safety device that was quickly adopted by other railroads which was the fully automatic electromechanical grade crossing signal nicknamed the "wigwag". A few wigwags continued operation as of 2006.

During this period the Los Angeles Railway provided local streetcar service in central Los Angeles and to nearby communities. These trolleys were known as the "Yellow Cars" and actually carried more passengers than the PE's "Red Cars" since they ran in the most densely populated portions of Los Angeles, including south to Hawthorne and along Pico Boulevard to near West Los Angeles to terminate at the huge Sears Roebuck store and distribution center (which was the L.A Railway's most popular line, the "P" line). The Yellow Cars' unusual narrow gauge PCC cars, by now painted MTA two-tone green, continued to operate until the end of rail service in 1963 to the Sears complex on Pico Boulevard.

Large profits from land development were generated along the routes of the new lines. Huntington Beach was incorporated in 1909 and developed by the Huntington Beach Company, a real-estate development firm owned by Henry Huntington, which still owns both land in the city and most of the mineral rights.

There are other local 'streetcar suburbs'. Angelino Heights was built around the Temple Street horsecar, which was later upgraded to electric streetcar as part of the Los Angeles Railway Yellow Car system. Highland Park was developed along the Figueroa Street trolley lines and railroads linking downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena. Huntington owned nearly all the stock in the 'Pacific Electric Land Company'. West Hollywood was established by Moses Sherman and his partners of the Los Angeles and Pacific Railway. Moses Sherman, Harry Chandler, Hobart Johnstone Whitley, and others bought the entire southern San Fernando Valley in 1910. The electric railway and a "$500,000" boulevard called Sherman Way connected the 3 townsites they were selling. These included Van Nuys, Marion (now Reseda), and Owensmouth (now Canoga Park). Parts of Sherman Way are now called Chandler Bl and Van Nuys Bl.

The railway company "connected all the dots on the map and was a leading player itself in developing all the real estate that lay in between the dots".

Decline

Map of the Pacific Electric Railway routes, 1920.

Huntington's involvement with urban rail was intimately tied to his real estate development operations. Real estate development was so lucrative for Huntington and Southern Pacific that they could use the Red Car as a loss leader, however when most of the company's holdings had been developed by 1920 their major income source began to deplete. Many rural passenger lines were unprofitable, with losses offset by revenue generated from passenger lines in populated corridors and from freight operations. The least-used Red Car lines were converted to cheaper buses as early as 1925.

In the pre-automobile era, electric interurban rail was the only way to connect outlying suburban and exurban parcels to central cities.

Although the railway owned extensive private rights-of-way, usually between urban areas, much of the Pacific Electric trackage in urban areas such as downtown Los Angeles west of the Los Angeles River was in streets shared with automobiles and trucks. Virtually all street crossings were at-grade, and increasing automobile traffic led to decreasing Red Car speeds on much of its trackage. At its nadir, the busy Santa Monica Boulevard line, which connected Los Angeles to Hollywood and on to Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, had an average speed of 13 miles per hour (20.9 km/h)

Traffic congestion was of such great concern by the late 1930s that the influential Automobile Club of Southern California engineered an elaborate plan to create an elevated freeway-type "Motorway System," a key aspect of which was the dismantling of the streetcar lines, replacing it with buses that could run on both local streets and on the new express roads.

When the freeway system was planned in the 1930s the city planners planned to include light rail tracks in the center margin of each freeway but the plan was never implemented.

The Whittier and Fullerton was cut in 1938. Redondo Beach, Newport Beach, Sawtelle via San Vicente, and Riverside in 1940. When the San Bernardino Freeway opened in 1941 but was not yet connected to the Hollywood Freeway, while the "Four Way" overpass was being constructed, westbound car traffic from the SB freeway poured onto downtown streets near the present Union Station. Pacific Electric's multiple car trains coming and going from Pasadena, Sierra Madre, and Monrovia/Glendora used those same streets the final few miles to the 6th and Main PE terminal and were totally bogged down within this jammed traffic. Schedules could not be met, plus former patrons were now driving. The San Bernardino line, Pomona branch, Temple City branch via Alhambra's Main St., San Bernardino's Mountain View local to 34th St., Santa Monica Blvd. via Beverly Hills, and all remaining Pasadena local service were all cut in 1941.

Pacific Electric carried increased passenger loads during World War II, when Los Angeles County's population nearly doubled as war industries concentrated in the region attracting millions of workers. There were several years when the company's income statement showed a profit, most notably during World War II, when gasoline was rationed and much of the populace depended on mass transit. At peak operation toward the end of World War II, the PE dispatched over 1000 trains daily and was a major employer in Southern California.

The nation's last interurban RPO (Railroad Post Office) service was operated by PE on its San Bernardino Line. This RPO service was inaugurated comparatively late, being started on September 2, 1947. It left LA's Union Station interurban yard on the west side of the terminal turning north onto Alameda Street at 12:45 pm and San Bernardino at 4:40 pm, taking three hours for the trip. It did not operate on Sundays or holidays. This last RPO was pulled off May 6, 1950.

Aware that most new arrivals planned to stay in the region after the war, local municipal governments, Los Angeles County and the State agreed that a massive infrastructure improvement program was necessary. At that time politicians agreed to construct a web of freeways across the region. This was seen as a better solution than a new mass transit system or an upgrade of the Pacific Electric.

The coming of the freeways

Pacific Electric 1299 "Business Car"

Large-scale land acquisition and destruction of neighborhoods for new freeway construction began in earnest in 1951. The original four freeways of the area, the Hollywood, Pasadena, Harbor, and San Bernardino, were in use or being completed. Partial completion of the San Bernardino Freeway to Aliso Street near downtown Los Angeles led to traffic chaos.

In the Southern District, passenger service to Santa Ana, Baldwin Park, Pasadena's Oak Knoll line, and Sierra Madre closed in 1950 as did in the Western District the last line to Venice and Santa Monica. The Pasadena and Monrovia/Glendora lines quit in 1951 due to the new LA freeways which were being constructed and opened in sections.

The various public agencies—City, County, and State—agreed with the PE that abandoning service was the thing to do, and the PE happily complied. PE management had earlier compared costs of refurbishing the Northern District interurban lines to Pasadena, Monrovia/Glendora, and Baldwin Park versus the alternative of converting to buses, and found in favor of the latter. Now they could do it.

Remaining Pacific Electric passenger service was sold off in 1953 to a company known as Metropolitan Coach Lines, whose intention was to convert all rail service to bus service as quickly as possible. Jesse Haugh, of Metropolitan Coach Lines was a former executive of Pacific City Lines which together with National City Lines and General Motors acquired local streetcar systems across the country with the intention of shutting them down and converting them to bus operation in what became known as the Great American Streetcar Scandal.

Several lines operating to the north and the west which used the Belmont Tunnel from the Subway Terminal Building downtown ceased operation - The Hollywood Boulevard and Beverly Hills lines were shut down in 1954 and service to the San Fernando Valley, Burbank and Glendale using newly acquired PCC streetcars lasted only to 1955. The Bellflower line to the south also closed in 1955 as the Golden State/Santa Ana (Interstate 5) neared completion.

Public ownership

The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority had been formed in 1951. It was known as the MTA but is unrelated to the current MTA. This agency had been founded to study the possibility of establishing a publicly owned monorail line running north from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles and then west to Panorama City in the San Fernando Valley. In 1954, the agency's powers were expanded to allow it to propose a more extensive regional mass-transit system and in 1957, its powers were again expanded, this time to allow it to operate transit lines.

In 1958 the California state government, through its Public Utility Commission took over the remaining and most popular lines from Metropolitan Coach Lines. The MTA also purchased the remaining streetcar "Yellow Car" lines of the successor of the Los Angeles Railway, then called Los Angeles Transit Lines. LARy/LATL had been purchased from the Huntington estate by National City Lines in 1945. The MTA started operating all lines as a single system on March 3, 1958.

The interurban Los Angeles to Long Beach passenger rail line served the longest - from July 4, 1903 until April 9, 1961. It was the both the first and last interurban passenger line of the former Pacific Electric. It still had long stretches of open country running on private right-of-way. With the closure of the Long Beach line the final rail link in the system was eliminated - replaced by the interurban Motor Coach 36f ("F" representing Freeway Flyer) route. This former PE route was the first of the new MTA light rail lines - rebuilt as the dual track Metro Blue Line.

The few remaining trolley-coach routes and narrow-gauge streetcar routes of the former Los Angeles Railway "Yellow Cars" were removed in early 1963. The public transportation system continued to operate under the name MTA until the agency was reorganized and relaunched as the Southern California Rapid Transit District in September 1964.

PE's lucrative freight service was continued operation through 1964 under the Pacific Electric name by the Southern Pacific Railroad using Diesel-Electric Locomotives on the heavy-duty PE rail-bed and rails and tripping the iconic "Wig-Wag" crossing signals of the former PE. A Christmas tree lot was operated in the small stub yard at the northwest corner of Willow and Long Beach Blvd. - the stock arrived in and was stored in a steel sided box car until the Christmas trees were prepared for sale - the busy intersection was where dual trackage departed Long Beach Blvd. and joined the private right-of-way from Huntington Beach and Seal Beach towards Los Angeles. The crossing signal there was the first installation of the final design of the Magnetic Watchman wigwag crossing signal and crossbucks. Oil tank cars were still shuttled to Signal Hill even as the surface street tracks were torn up from the center of Long Beach Blvd. long after the copper overhead catenary supply wires had been removed. Southern Pacific (now part of Union Pacific) continues to operate freight service utilizing former PE right-of-way.

Revival

Main article: Metro Rail (Los Angeles County)

1970 - Present

During in the 1970s, there was serious discussion about the need for additional mass transit systems based on environmental concerns, increasing population and the 1973 oil crisis. A 1974 inquiry in the Senate heard allegations about the role that General Motors and other companies, including Pacific City Lines, played in the dismantlement of streetcar systems across the USA and in particular in Los Angeles in what became known as the Great American Streetcar Scandal. The plot of the 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit is loosely modeled on the alleged conspiracy to dismantle the streetcar lines in Los Angeles.

In 1976 the State of California formed the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission to coordinate the Southern California Rapid Transit District's (SCRTD, advertised and known locally by Angelinos as the "RTD") efforts with those of various municipal transit systems in the area and to take over planning of countywide transportation systems. The SCRTD continued planning of the Metro Rail (Los Angeles County) Subway (the Red Line), while the LACTC developed plans for the light rail system. Construction began in 1985. In 1988, the two agencies formed a third entity under which all rail construction would be consolidated, and in 1993, the SCRTD and the LACTC were merged into the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA).

When the Metro Blue Line commenced commuter service in 1990, electric rail passenger train service once again returned to Los Angeles with the opening of the route from downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach using much of the same right-of-way as the original Pacific Electric line that ceased in 1961. Since then, the LACMTA has opened more lines.

Metro Red Line opened next in three parts, first from Union Station in central Los Angeles. connecting with the very short subway which forms the northern terminus of Metro Blue Line at 7th/Figuroa station, and then west under Wilshire Blvd. onward to Western Ave. Construction halted due to an unrelated explosion of petroleum fumes in an underground portion of a store along the proposed route turning north at Fairfax Ave. to Hollywood, which was to service the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum Row and the La Brea Tar Pits. The second portion was the diversion north under Vermont Ave. to Hollywood Blvd. turning west to Highland Avenue. When the Hollywood Freeway was built, two Pacific Electric tracks remained in the center, entering the canyon to Cahuenga Pass under the freeway at what is now the northbound Highland Ave. onramp. The PE tracks continued to provide mass transit efficiently until the line was closed and the right-of-way became additional lanes to widen the 101 freeway, thereby reducing automotive congestion on the world's heaviest traveled road. RTD bus service replaced the rail service and remained the highest daily passenger volume corridor. When the third expansion of Metro Red Line subway opened, most long distance commuter bus routes from Downtown Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley were trimmed to connect with the new subway stations, reducing Diesel fumes and motor vehicle congestion. It tunnels deep under that corridor and far - the next station, Universal, boasts the world's longest continuous underground escalator. At the northern most Metro Red Line terminal, North Hollywood, connections can be made to several MTA bus routes of the San Fernando Valley, including several routes along the private right-of-way Metro Rapidway Metro Orange Line (route 901) dedicated exclusively for MTA vehicles that replicates many PE thru lines by transferring buses.

Metro Green Line opened in 1995. Its right-of-way was planned from conception to be entirely isolated and protected, running in the median of Interstate 105, the Century Freeway west from Norwalk, connecting at Rosa Parks Station with Metro Blue Line, then further west to Los Angeles International Airport, and then south on elevated tracks to Redondo Beach. The Century Freeway, named for Century Blvd. the equivalent of 100th St., was the world first freeway built to bypass and relieve traffic congestion from another freeway - the 91, Artesia Freeway.

Metro Gold Line is the latest light rail line. Connecting downtown Los Angeles to Pasadena mostly at-grade along former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (AT&SF) historic Super Chief right-of-way converted to dual track overhead electric light rail - incorporating California's oldest surviving iron railroad bridge built across the Arroyo Seco (1895) in the conversion. The next extension was then east from Pasadena, again utilizing the former ATSF right-of-way in the median of Interstate 210, the Foothill Freeway. The Gold Line Eastside Extension now connects Union Station, Downtown Los Angeles to East Los Angeles.

Metrolink (Southern California) provides weekday interurban commuters with high speed reversible trains - consisting of Diesel Locomotives hauling double-deck high capacity passenger cars servicing much of Los Angeles County and operating to connections in Ventura County, San Bernardino County, Riverside County, Orange County, and San Diego County as well.

Waterfront Red Car in San Pedro, California. No. #501 PE "Huntington" type wooden streetcar is a replica operated on heritage tracks

Waterfront Red Car 1.5-mile (2 km) streetcar line connecting the World Cruise Center south to Ports O' Call and the 22nd St. terminal, where a shuttle bus connects other attractions along the San Pedro waterfront. Two newly constructed Red Car replicas, #500 & #501, provide service along the line on cruise ship arrival/departure days as well as weekends - Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In addition, a restored 1907-vintage Pacific Electric car, No. #1508 originally rebuilt from two wrecks as a unique motor coach, is available for special rail excursions. It began operation as a tourist attraction on July 19, 2003. The Port of Los Angeles financed, constructed and operates the replica equipment on heritage PE track, one of many of its waterfront revival projects. A new pedestrian esplanade featuring public art and fountains, sculpture and fountains has been built alongside the track from the World Cruise Center to the Maritime Museum and Fire Boat Station. Connections to the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium and other San Pedro attractions when using the Waterfront Red Car trolley/shuttle. There are plans to extend the Waterfront Red Car line approximately two more miles south to the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium and the tidepools of Cabrillo Beach. Current plans for an extension of the line north into Wilmington to Avalon Blvd. along existing trackage is in effect as a part of the waterfront improvement plan. Trackage is in place, but funding for additional improvements has not yet been identified. Some transit advocates have proposed linking this line to the Metro Blue Line Long Beach terminus, a very intensive and expensive expansion. The Port of Los Angeles, Recreation, Waterfront Red Car Line

Proposed developments

More rail lines are in the planning and building stages. Light rail is being designed to connect the city center of San Bernardino with the University of Redlands via the Redlands Subdivision by 2016.

If construction funds are identified, the "Foothill Extension" of the Gold Line will extend the service to Montclair, or possibly all the way to LA/Ontario International Airport by 2015.

There are several proposals for connecting the congested West Los Angeles area with rail service. Construction has begun on the Expo Line, a light-rail line. A color has not yet been assigned to this line. Surveying activities began in May 2006, and construction commenced in October 2006. Service is scheduled to begin as far as Culver City by 2011, and by 2014-2015 continue to Santa Monica.

Other groups are lobbying to extend the renamed Purple Line to the west on Wilshire Boulevard, the city's most densely populated corridor, as was originally planned in mass transit plans designed as early as the late 1960s. In 2005, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made as one of his most publicized campaign promises a pledge to set the wheels in motion for eventual construction of the "Subway to the Sea" as he called it.

Also under consideration is a new passenger rail line on the abandoned Harbor Subdivision railway corridor, connecting Carson to downtown Los Angeles via Torrance and the LA west side. Connections to the Harbor Subdivision from the World Cruise Center cruise ship terminal in the San Pedro District of Los Angeles Harbor to the Long Beach Transit Mall and the Metro Blue Line are also under evaluation.

Heritage and popular culture

The 'Pacific Electric Trail', is a 21 mile Rail Trail under development for cyclists and walkers which is being constructed along the former San Bernardino Line. The city Rancho Cucamonga is acting as lead agency with the Bernardino Associated Governments (SANBAG) and surrounding cities. The first sections were completed in 2006 and further sections in 2009. When completed the trail will run from Claremont to Rialto and also connect to a 6.9-mile rail trail project being planned from Claremont to San Dimas. On San Bernardino's Electric Av., a grassroots group wants to develop a linear greenbelt heritage park on the Arrowhead Springs Pacific Electric right of way between Hillside Elementary School & 40th St.

The 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit is loosely modeled on the alleged conspiracy to dismantle the streetcar lines in Los Angeles.

In The Simpsons episode titled "Postcards from the Wedge" that aired 14 March 2010 on Fox, the film shown at the beginning of the episode is based on GM's promo films from the 1950s; in addition, the cars from the abandoned Springfield Subway are modeled after the PE cars.

A transportation attraction based on the Pacific Electric Railway, the Red Car Trolley, is under construction at Disney California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim. The attraction, which is set to open in 2012, will feature replicas of Pacific Electric Railway rolling stock and will be the first attraction in the park to provide transportation. Construction began on January 4, 2010.

Streetcars of the Pacific Electric Railway are featured as atmospheric elements in L.A. Noire.

Routes and Facilities

See also: List of Pacific Electric Railway lines

• West Hollywood Car Barn and Yard
• Ocean Park Car Barn and Yard
• Torrance Shops
• Pacific Electric Building (6th & Main Station)
• Subway Terminal Building (4th and Hill St. Station)
• Belmont Tunnel (Hollywood Subway)

Fleet

San Francisco Municipal Railway #1061, a rebuilt PCC streetcar painted in honor of the Pacific Electric Railway, is seen in service on the F Market heritage line in December, 2004. This single-ended car was originally built for the city of Philadelphia in 1946 (Pacific Electric only operated double-ended PCC's).

Pacific Electric 1001

Pacific Electric 1624 "Juice Jack"

Interurban cars

• Blimp MU (61 – Pullmans)
  • St Louis Car Co Blimp MU 1930–1959
  • Pullman Car Co Blimp MU coach 1913–1961
  • Pullman Car Co Blimp MU baggage coach 1913–1959
• St Louis Car Co MU coach 1907–1950
• Jewett Car Co. 1000 "Business Car" 1913–1947
• Jewett Car Co. 1000-class MU interurban 1913–1954
• American Car Co trailer coach 1908–1934
• American Car Co trailer coach 1908–1934
• Pullman Car Co officer's car 1912–1958
• J.G. Brill Portland RPO-baggage 1913–1959
• 500-class interurban cars
• American Car Co 800 class interurban
• Standard Steel Car Co. 1100-class interurban car – Hammond, Indiana
• Pressed Steel Car Co. 1200-class Berdoo MU interurban 1915
• Pullman Car Co. 1222-class Long Beach MU interurban 1921
• Pullman Car Co. 1252-class Portland MU interurban 1912
• Pullman Car Co. 1299 "Business Car" 1912, converted from Portland trailer 1929

City and suburban cars

• St Louis Car Co double-truck Birney 1925–1941
• Pullman Car Co Submarine 1912–1928
• J. G. Brill Birney 1918–1941 (69)
• St Louis Car Co baby five MU coach 1901–1934
• St Louis Car Co medium five MU coach 1909–1934
• St Louis Car Co Hollywood car MU 1922–1959 (160)
• St Louis Car Co Hollywood car 1922 (50) numbered 600–649
• St Louis Car Co Hollywood car 1923 (50) numbered 650–699
• J. G. Brill Hollywood car 192x (50) numbered 700–749
• St Louis Car Co Hollywood car 1924 (10) numbered 750–759
• Pullman Standard PCC 1939 (30) numbered 5000–5029. Sold to Argentina in 1959
• St. Louis Car Co. 500 class DE streetcars

Work cars

• LAP trolley wire greaser 1898–1957
• PE tower car 1915–1957

Locomotives

• 1600 class electric locomotives

Freight cars

• LA&R flat-top caboose 1896
• PE flat-top caboose PE 1939
• LS&MS caboose 1915
• LV caboose 1926
• RF&P caboose 1905
• SSC box car 1924

Buses

• GM yellow coach

See also

• Pacific Electric Building
• Pacific Electric Railroad Bridge
• San Diego Electric Railway
• Subway Terminal Building
• Belmont Tunnel

Bibliography

• Bail, Eli (1984). From Railway to Freeway Pacific Electric and the Motor Coach. Interurban Press. ISBN 0-916374-61-0.
• Bottles, Scott (1991). Los Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of the Modern City. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07395-9.
• Crump, Spencer (1977). Ride The Big Red Cars: How Trolleys Helped Build Southern California, 256 pages. Trans-Anglo Books, Corona Del Mar, CA. ISBN 0870460471. {{cite book}}: Text "Dewey 388.4/6" ignored (help)
• Crump, Spencer (1978). Henry Huntington and the Pacific Electric Railway: A Pictorial Album, 112 pages. Trans-Anglo Books, Corona Del Mar, CA. ISBN 0870460448. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help); Text "Dewey 388.4/6" ignored (help)
• Thompson, Gregory Lee (1993). The Passenger Train in the Motor Age: California's Rail and Bus Industries, 1910–1941. Ohio State University Press, Columbus, OH. ISBN 0-814-20-609-3.
• Swett, Ira L. (1943 to 1988). Lines of Pacific Electric, Northern District; Southern District; Eastern District, plus addendums, Interurbans Press Special #16 and #60; Pacific Electric All Time Roster, Specials #3 and #13; Cars of Pacific Electric, Specials #28 and #36; Official PE Car Records, Special #38; Passenger Service of Pacific Electric, Special #21; Pacific Electric in Pomona, Special #46. Glendale, CA. (Ira Swett, author and founder of the Interurbans publishing company spent his lifetime producing approximately 50 publications about interurban railways nationwide, particularly in California and Utah. Many are in the Library of Congress. Included were approximately 20 publications regarding the Pacific Electric. Mr. Swett died in 1975, but Interurban Press continued publishing until 1993). {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: year (link)
• Swett, Ira L. (1943 to 1988). Interurbans Press publications regarding predecessor traction lines to the Pacific Electric: Los Angeles Pacific, Interurbans Special #18; Los Angeles and Redlands, Special #20; Los Angeles and Redondo, Special #20; Riverside and Arlington Electric Railway, Special #27; Los Angeles Pacific Album, Special #39; Ontario and San Antonio Heights Railroad, Special #48; Trolleys to the Surf, Special #63. Glendale, CA. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Walker, Jim (2007). Images of Rails Series: Pacific Electric Red Cars. Arcadia Publishing, 128 pp, paperback, ISBN 978-0-7385-4688-9.
• Copeland, Allen P. (1999 and 2002). Pacific Electric in Color, Vol 1; Vol 2; and California Trolleys in Color. Scotch Plains, NJ.: Morning Sun Books. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Long, Raphael (1983). Red Car Days, Interurbans Special #92. Glendale, CA: Interurban Press.

External links

• Pacific Electric Railway system map, 1920s
• Pacific Electric Railway system map, 1949
• Pacific Electric Railway Elec Railway Historical Association of So. California guide to PE traction heritage.
• Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society Online Image Archive
• Bill Volkmer collection of Red Car photos and post cards
• Orange Empire Railway Museum PE equipment site
• L.A. San Pedro waterfront Red Car line restoration and operation
• Pacific Electric photos (Jim Stubchaer)
• Pacific Electric Railway Monuments archival photographs
• Pacific Electric Subway photos (Elson Trinidad)
• Proposal to bring the Red Car back to Downtown Los Angeles year 2000
• The Red Cars of Los Angeles (USC archives)
• Pacific Electric Subway – Toluca Portal: 1925 – 1955 – 2008 photos (Harry Marnell)
• Tours in a Bygone Era (Tom Wetzel)
• Educational and informative documentary on the rise and fall of the Pacific Electric Red Car system in Los Angeles
• Article about the history of the Pacific Electric and other L.A. streetcar systems, with archival photos
• DVD Documentary - This Was Pacific Electric - Complete documentary on the Pacific Electric. Movies, stills, and interviews.