Mac
Full Member
Posts: 192
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Post by Mac on Aug 21, 2007 16:50:02 GMT -8
Then.. [/img] and now.. We still have a long way to go to match the legacy of the Pacific Electric back thens P.E. would be comparable with todays Tokyo or NYC subways, yet LA only had 1/5 of the population they have today. Well we're slowly inching our way there. Gold line: Pasadena Short line. Blue line: Long beach line Red line: Hollywood subway/Santa Monica Air line Eastside: Whitter line Green line:Redondo Beach via Gardena line/ El Segundo line Orange line: San Fernando Valley line El Monte Busway/I-10/Metrolink San Bernardino: San Bernardino line Harbor Transit way: San Pedro via Torrance line I dream that someday, all the P.E. lines will be revived, but at this rate, it could take forever.
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unico
New Member
Posts: 7
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Post by unico on Dec 20, 2007 16:20:05 GMT -8
yes it is my dream too! why not reactivate the randolph line the one that went from the slauson junction to whittier? what year is this?
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Mac
Full Member
Posts: 192
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Post by Mac on Dec 20, 2007 19:56:43 GMT -8
WELL, ITS GONNA TAKE A WHILE... This dream isn't gonna happen overnight, nor is it gonna be finished in 20 years at this rate...
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Post by bobdavis on Jan 6, 2008 0:04:46 GMT -8
A correction, if I may to the Then and Now list: Then>Santa Monica Air Line; Now>Expo Line. Then>San Fernando Valley line (as far as N. Hollywood); Now>Red Line. The LA Railway system doesn't get as much nostalgia credit as PE, but the Gold Line East LA extension follows part of the "P" line. The Red line along Vermont Ave. follows the "V" line as far as City College.
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Post by James Fujita on Jan 6, 2008 8:18:41 GMT -8
where does Metrolink fit into this Pacific Electric calculus? the San Bernardino line ought to be included somewhere....
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Post by bobdavis on Jan 6, 2008 21:56:37 GMT -8
The El Monte Busway/I-10/Metrolink route was the PE San Bernardino line from west of Soto St. to El Monte. When the Busway was built back in the early 70's, it was on the Southern Pacific right of way (SP absorbed PE in 1965, PE had previously been a subsidiary) down the middle of the freeway. Up until this time, the track ran through the south side of downtown El Monte; the PE/SP depot on Tyler Ave. survived as an MTA/RTD bus station. The track crossed SP near today's Ramona underpass, following Ramona through Baldwin Park. By the time Metrolink came along, the PE right of way had long since been taken over by housing and street construction, making it necessary to take the "Rio Hondo Connection" to the former SP line and follow it to Bassett, where it branched off to Baldwin Park. Back in the 60's, SP had a freight station in Baldwin Park (where the Metrolink station is now), which was the terminal for three industrial switching jobs that were staffed by crews with PE seniority, including one man who remembered running Red Cars in the old days. Going east from Baldwin Park, Metrolink is back on the PE San Berdoo line, the 1946 rerouting (previously it followed Badillo St.). It finally leaves PE between Pomona and Claremont, joining the former Santa Fe 2nd District (once the route of the Super Chief and other famous ATSF trains). At one time, PE crossed Santa Fe here, with movements controlled by an interlocking tower. Beyond this point, the PE right of way is abandoned, in some locations converted to a hiking/cycling trail.
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Post by roadtrainer on Jun 10, 2008 7:53:19 GMT -8
;D Question for P.E. fans where was the maintenance yard in Santa Monica and how big was it? Also is the a map or overhead image of this yard? A second question where do I find maps of L.A. published in the 1950's? Sincerely The Roadtrainer
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Post by Dan Wentzel on Aug 14, 2008 10:21:16 GMT -8
There is discussion about Streetcars on Broadway. What about other areas where subways are unlikely for the foreseeable future. How about Sunset or Ventura Blvds? Could Wilshire's bus only lane be a transit only lane that includes a streetcar? I love Market Street's streetcars in San Francisco. Portland is using them for regeneration success. Here's an article in today's New York Times regarding the revival of the streetcar in urban america. Downtown's Across the U.S. See Streetcars in Their Future
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Post by jejozwik on Aug 14, 2008 11:31:51 GMT -8
How about Sunset or Ventura Blvds? Could Wilshire's bus only lane be a transit only lane that includes a streetcar? like hong kong!
this is kings road, the island line [subway] runs directly below this tram line, yet it still has a high ridership. options people, options
photo proper link
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Post by Dan Wentzel on May 4, 2009 14:55:11 GMT -8
With subways planned for Wilshire and hopefully Santa Monica Blvd., what about streetcars such as the above for Sunset and Ventura Blvds?
How about Sunset or Ventura Blvds?
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Post by Jason Saunders on Jun 16, 2009 18:13:44 GMT -8
Came across this today: www.ejnet.org/rachel/rehw439.htmRACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #439 ---April 27, 1995--- News and resources for environmental justice. Articel By Peter Montague "The automobile did not come to dominate American transportation by chance or by public choice. It happened as part of a plan by auto makers to buy up and destroy mass transit companies. General Motors led the way. As recently as the 1920s, many American cities and towns were connected by a network of electric railroads and interurban trolleys. Within cities, electric street railways, trolleys, and elevated trains, moved large numbers of people easily and cheaply, with minimal congestion and pollution. But steel-wheeled electric/rail mass transit systems did not serve the needs of the automobile manufacturers and their allies in the steel, rubber, glass, concrete, and oil industries. Beginning in the 1920s, General Motors began investing in mass transit systems. According to historian Marty Jezer (and Congressional hearings held in 1974), between 1920 and 1955, General Motors bought up more than 100 electric mass transit systems in 45 cities, allowed them to deteriorate, and then replaced them with rubber-tired, diesel-powered buses. [1] Buses are more expensive, less efficient, and much dirtier than electric/rail systems. (And of course automobiles are even less efficient than buses, by far.) In 1949, General Motors, Firestone Rubber, and Standard Oil of California were convicted by a federal jury of criminally conspiring to replace electric mass transit with GM-manufactured diesel buses; in a noteworthy illustration of justice for corporations, the court fined GM $5000 and forced H.C. Crossman, the GM executive responsible for carrying out GM's policy, to pay $1.00. Cities where GM managed to eliminate electric/rail systems, and replace them with buses and private cars, included New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Oakland, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles. Many people think of Los Angeles as the original automobile city. However, before GM converted the city to buses and private automobiles, Los Angeles was served by the largest electric/rail mass transit system in the nation. The Pacific Electric Railway ran more than 1000 trains per day over 760 miles of rail lines to such outlying stations as Redlands, Corona, Santa Monica, Redondo Beach and Balboa, carrying light freight as well as passengers. Its last line, to Long Beach, was abandoned in 1961 --the same year the ingredients of smog were first identified in L.A.'s toxic air. During this same period, GM worked to convert electric-powered commuter railroads to diesel-powered locomotives, which were far more expensive, more complex, and less reliable than electric locomotives, thus requiring more maintenance, and contributing significantly to the demise of the nation's railroad system. For example, the New York, New Haven, and Hartford line showed a profit during 50 years of operation until 1956, the year it began converting to diesel locomotives; by 1961 it was declared bankrupt and a report by the Interstate Commerce Commission censured GM for contributing to its demise." _____ The rest of the article goes on about the negative health affects of rubber tires.
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Post by bobdavis on Jun 17, 2009 18:03:54 GMT -8
Please see the "This Was Pacific Electric" (video) for more commentary on the "GM conspiracy" story. Regarding the New Haven: I don't have a locomotive roster of NYNH&H handy, but as I recall, most of their diesels came from Alco/GE (American Locomotive Co./General Electric joint venture). Some of the steam locomotive fans like to blame GM for the disappearance of their favorite form of motive power, claiming that GM would route their automobile deliveries to railroads that bought GM diesels. When I worked for Santa Fe (late 60s-early 70s) they still had a considerable number of Alco diesels. When the night shop foreman found that I was interested in Alcos, he said in effect, "You may think they're 'cool', but they're really junk. If it were up to me they'd have all been traded in on EMDs." (EMD=Electromotive Division, GM's locomotive works). Regarding New York City: During the 1930s, there was Mayor LaGuardia (after whom the airport was named) who led a vigorous campaign in city government to eliminate streetcars. Of course New York still has dozens of miles of electric railways, they're just underground, or in some cases elevated. Philadelphia still has a few streetcar lines; many that survived the National City Lines era were "bustituted" by the quasi-public SEPTA organization. (Some of the locals say SEPTA=Sneakily Eliminating Public Transit All-over) Oakland was served by Key System; by the mid-40s the private company was losing money, their rail system was in bad shape, and NCL made them an offer they couldn't refuse.
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Post by roadtrainer on Apr 6, 2010 16:49:19 GMT -8
Hey Bob. When i was a kid going up in the 1960's i remember seeing man hole covers which said "Pacific Electric"on them, and then slowly they were all replaced. Does the Orange Empire have any i n stock or were they all melted down. Got any stories?
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Post by bobdavis on Apr 12, 2010 20:12:46 GMT -8
OERM does have at least two PE manhole covers; not sure where they are--the area where they were stored has been cleared for new building. As I recall, they came from the site of the PE Pasadena carbarn on Raymond Ave. Haven't seen any LARy covers. Not directly rail related, but San Marino used to have "Home Telephone Co." manhole covers near the Huntington estate. This area had underground utilities in a suburban residential area long before this kind of service became common. About a hundred years ago, Los Angeles had the Home and Sunset Telephone companies. What was a big headache, was that there were no tie-trunks running between their respective exchanges. Businessmen had to have one phone from each company in order to communicate with all their customers. This came to an end when the Bell System took over and combined the two networks into a much more convenient configuration.
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Post by Alexis Kasperavičius on Apr 18, 2010 2:04:14 GMT -8
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Post by rubbertoe on May 21, 2010 14:34:51 GMT -8
My wife and I are in the process of purchasing a home in Torrance, on Arvada street. If you Google it you will see that it is just South of 190th St. Behind the property is a set of power lines with a very wide ROW that is currently being used for a nursery. Se we get the title report back and, being the anal guy that I am, actually read through all 27 pages to see whats there... please reduce image to 780 pixels wide. Looks like the Pacific Electric Railway Corporation has an oil and gas lease on the property. Several utilities are also listed, most for easements like power poles on the 6' property border and such. Must be that back in the day PE either had a line there, or owned the ROW and took out the oil and gas lease just as a matter of course. Kinda makes you wonder when that is going to disappear off the title, unless the other company now holds an oil and gas lease. RT
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Post by metrocenter on May 21, 2010 14:39:00 GMT -8
I'm no real estate lawyer, but I would think this easement still exists and was passed down to whoever took over the PE's assets.
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Post by bluelineshawn on May 23, 2010 10:50:08 GMT -8
I'm not an attorney either, but I would think that such an easement would be for a specific purpose. In this case to run trolleys. I would think that the easement expired when it stopped being maintained for that purpose. After all houses have been built on parts of the ROW.
edit: I just saw the picture. It references oil and gas, but states that there is no right of surface entry. To me that sounds like there was or is an oil pipeline under your property.
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Post by Gokhan on May 23, 2010 23:46:47 GMT -8
Not sure if PE or any other railway has ever had service in this right-of-way south of 190th. It could be that PE bought it but never built tracks on it. But I suggested under the Manhattan - Hermosa - Redondo Line thread of the Green Line discussion that it could be used in the future for a connection to the abandoned ATSF right-of-way converted to a park that runs between the beach and Sepulveda. My maps are posted there.
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Post by transitfan on May 24, 2010 7:50:12 GMT -8
Not sure if PE or any other railway has ever had service in this right-of-way south of 190th. It could be that PE bought it but never built tracks on it. But I suggested under the Manhattan - Hermosa - Redondo Line thread of the Green Line discussion that it could be used in the future for a connection to the abandoned ATSF right-of-way converted to a park that runs between the beach and Sepulveda. My maps are posted there. Maybe the Redondo Beach via Gardena line passed through there? I tried my darndest to trace this route when I lived out there, without much sucess (once it was abandonded in 1940, much of the ROW was pretty much obliterated)
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Post by Gokhan on May 24, 2010 12:52:09 GMT -8
Not sure if PE or any other railway has ever had service in this right-of-way south of 190th. It could be that PE bought it but never built tracks on it. But I suggested under the Manhattan - Hermosa - Redondo Line thread of the Green Line discussion that it could be used in the future for a connection to the abandoned ATSF right-of-way converted to a park that runs between the beach and Sepulveda. My maps are posted there. Maybe the Redondo Beach via Gardena line passed through there? I tried my darndest to trace this route when I lived out there, without much sucess (once it was abandonded in 1940, much of the ROW was pretty much obliterated) I believe the Redondo Beach Line used the right-of-way what is now Ripley Avenue. Link to the large 1925 PERY/LARY map with proposed rapid-transit lines
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Post by James Fujita on May 24, 2010 13:06:48 GMT -8
I'm not sure, but I don't think that the Pacific Electric followed the 190th route. If you look at this map: www.erha.org/pe_system_map.jpgThe route was roughly diagonal. The route south through Gardena is fairly obvious and is mostly still there. It heads south on Vermont, jogs on 166th and continues south on Normandie, until it reaches Torrance. It looks like the Gardena-Redondo line would have continued west on 166th and then best guess would be Redondo Beach Boulevard from there. The street is broken at the South Bay Galleria, but if you follow the diagonal south, it's a straight line from Grant- Ripley- Anita- Herondo. EDIT: Gokhan is a faster typer than I am. I was looking at Google maps and comparing to the historic map
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Post by bobdavis on May 24, 2010 14:47:19 GMT -8
I'm not that familiar with the Torrance-Redondo Beach area (most of my visits to "South Bay" were part of my job at Southern Calif. Edison). Which brings up a possible connection for the right of way--The present Redondo generating station is the successor to a plant built back around 1906 by Pacific Light & Power. PL&P was part of the Huntington empire, but was sold off to SCE around 1917. This is purely speculation, but the right of way in question may have been for fuel pipelines feeding the power plant, and PE was, for whatever reason, giving the responsibility for this long, narrow property. After Huntington sold PE to Southern Pacific in 1911 (give or take a year), SP kept it as a subsidiary until August 1965, when it finally absorbed PE into the parent company. The main legacy was union agreements: train crewmen who had worked for PE were in a special seniority category. I remember visiting with an SP crew in El Monte back in the mid-70's; one of the brakemen had been a motorman on the San Fernando Valley line, and he commented that of the four-man crew, three were PE veterans.
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Post by transitfan on May 25, 2010 7:11:52 GMT -8
I'm not sure, but I don't think that the Pacific Electric followed the 190th route. If you look at this map: www.erha.org/pe_system_map.jpgThe route was roughly diagonal. The route south through Gardena is fairly obvious and is mostly still there. It heads south on Vermont, jogs on 166th and continues south on Normandie, until it reaches Torrance. It looks like the Gardena-Redondo line would have continued west on 166th and then best guess would be Redondo Beach Boulevard from there. The street is broken at the South Bay Galleria, but if you follow the diagonal south, it's a straight line from Grant- Ripley- Anita- Herondo. I think it continued due west south of 166 St from Western to Crenshaw, then went on a SW diagonal (Cherry Av?) toward what is now the Galleria. After the Galleria, definitely Grant and Ripley. I think I read that it entered Redondo Beach on or near Diamond St. When I traced this row, that would take it by what is now Redondo Union HS. But the Anita-Herondo (190 St) is possible. Only thing, I dunno if the cars could've made that steep grade west of Prospect on 190th. (I used to love to drive that street, you'd go up and up, then level off around Prospect, then go a little more, then all of a sudden, the Pacific Ocean was in front of you. Beautiful!) ;D
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Post by Alexis Kasperavičius on Sept 23, 2011 9:17:24 GMT -8
This recent video shows a wig-wag still in operation in Anaheim. Does anyone know if this was an old PE route? It feels like it, but I don't know the area very well...
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Post by Alexis Kasperavičius on Sept 23, 2011 9:37:42 GMT -8
Some more of "then and now..."
Many of you may wonder what happened to the LA PCC cars from the 1960's.
They were sold off to Alexandria, Egypt and run on that line until they fell apart in the mid 1980's. Considering the hole that is Alexandria, I'm surprised they made it that long.
Here is a really well done video of some other PCC-esque cars (Old Danish trams - sold to Egypt back in 1972 - when Copenhagen politicians were foolish enough to go for busses intead of trams) still (just barely) operating on the same line.
You can get a sense of the challenges - especially near the end of the film with a view from the cab.
It makes me sad to think that LA's PCC cars ended up here and have now probably been repurposed into roofs for shanty homes or who knows what else.
Enjoy!
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Post by bobdavis on Sept 23, 2011 13:57:45 GMT -8
The Anaheim wig-wag is on a former Southern Pacific branch, which roughly paralleled the PE Santa Ana Line which ran several miles to the south. As far as I know, this track was never electrified and was never part of PE.
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Post by Alexis Kasperavičius on Nov 30, 2011 16:47:40 GMT -8
Who knew old yellow and red cars made it to the movies...?
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Post by Alexis Kasperavičius on May 15, 2012 21:15:53 GMT -8
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Post by bobdavis on May 16, 2012 18:04:08 GMT -8
Regarding PE and LARy cars in the movies, Orange Empire has a number of "movie star cars": PE 332 (currently painted in Tucson colors as Old Pueblo Trolley 10) had a "cameo" in "Comrade X", a 1940 MGM production starring the glamorous Hedy Lamarr as a Moscow tramcar operator. Even in a streetcar operator's uniform she was a treat for the eyes. PE 717 was in a rarely seen flick titled "In the Mood", in which the museum parking lot was transformed into a trailer park. That car's road number was borrowed for the studio "mockup" Red Car in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." "Huntington Standard" LA narrow gauge car 681, which squeezed Laurel & Hardy's Model T in "Hog Wild" was scrapped long ago, but a duplicate, 665 runs in occasional service at the Museum--it's now over 100 years old. Several other cinema scenes featuring PE and LARy cars have been added to the Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society website.
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