Trolley Thursday 1-28-21 - The Pacific Electric Southern Division

When local land developer Henry E. Huntington, financier Isaias W. Hellman, and engineer Epes Randolph first collaborated on what became the Pacific Electric Railway (PE) in 1900, all three men never realized that their grand real estate transit scheme would actually last for so long. Their Long Beach Line became the keystone to PE's hardest-working division, home to freight trains and passenger trains alike, and its straightness and strength functioned like a spine that held the frivolity and joy of the Western Division together with the adventure and open spaces of the Northern Division. However, the Southern Division was also not without its own draws and attractions, and on the last Trolley Thursday of January 2021, let's take some time and appreciate PE's hardest working and oldest division.

Trolley Tuesday 1-26-21 - The Pacific Electric Western Division

If there was ever a more perfect image that represents the Pacific Electric Railway, or PE, then it would be a steel "Hollywood" streetcar rolling down the boulevard that shares its name. It's an image enshrined in film history, being replicated in films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Gangster Squad as well as serving as a nostalgic look back on the Los Angeles that once was. But the Western Division which housed the Hollywood Blvd line was more than just glitz and glamour, as it also fed into one of the largest continuous suburban developments in Southern California and contained the only subway system in Los Angeles until the opening of the Metro Blue (A) Line in 1991. Return with us now, to the thrilling days of yester-year, as we pull the curtain back on the Pacific Electric Western Division and see just how it shaped the Southland for almost 50 years!

Trolley Thursday 1-21-21 - The Pacific Electric Building and Subway Terminal

Whenever the topic of historical Los Angeles comes up in casual conversation, the first thing that always gets brought up is the historic architecture. After all, it's why the City of Angels can keep playing older versions of itself in movies and tv shows. From the Beaux Arts curves of the Broadway Arcade building, to the wrought iron lines of the Bradbury Building's elevators, in addition to the Eastern Building's gorgeous green Art Deco façade, you'd be hard-pressed to find an ugly historic building in Los Angeles. Two of those historic buildings that have stood the test of time continue to thrive under the Los Angeles Conservancy's patronage and care, despite being so far removed from their original purposes, and they are the Pacific Electric Building on 6th and Main Street, and the Subway Terminal Building at 4th and Hill. These were the transit hubs of the Pacific Electric, and thus today's Trolley Thursday is dedicated to appreciating their importance in the system's history.

Trolley Tuesday 1-19-21 - The Mount Lowe Railway

Los Angeles is a land of attraction. We live on spectacle and we're always looking for the next big thing to part tourists from their dollars, whether it's theme parks like Disneyland or Universal Studios, or even obvious tourist traps like those offensively-slow celebrity tour vans that drive up and down Mulholland Drive and get in the way of my need for sp-

*Ahem.*

For Angelinos in the early 1900s, the biggest attraction by far was the famous "Mount Lowe Railway", a combination electric railway and funicular built into a Southwestern Peak of the San Gabriel Mountains and overlooking much of LA County. When built, the railway was a marvel of engineering and unique among its peers for being the only overhead-wire mountain railway in America. But how did this unique draw fall so hard down the face of Mount Lowe? We find out this, and more, on today's Trolley Tuesday as we relive the echoes of trolley wheels and clattering funicular mechanisms on the Mount Lowe Railway.

Trolley Thursday 01-14-21 - The Pacific Electric Northern Division

The largest and oldest of Pacific Electric's three operating divisions, the Northern Division was intended by Henry E. Huntington to provide transit to the then-empty reaches of Pasadena, Riverside County, and San Bernardino. His efforts came in the wake of General Moses Sherman and his associates' failure in securing a stable interurban line to Pasadena (one of Los Angeles' wealthiest and oldest suburbs, named after the same-named town in Texas), but would not reach rapid expansion until after the Great Merger of 1911. But what makes the Northern Division so special to its passengers, and why would it be worth it to ride? All this and more will be answered into today's Trolley Thursday, so please have your transfer ready!

Trolley Tuesday 01-12-21 - The History of the Pacific Electric, 1911-1961

One of the biggest and most mythical names in American railroading, the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) originally began as a single route of the Central Pacific Railroad from their headquarters in San Francisco to Los Angeles, down the California coast. Over time, the identity of the SP outgrew its predecessor and, by the early 1900s, it had grown into one of the most powerful railroads in America. Such was the reach of the Southern Pacific that they already had two other interurban and street railway holdings on the Western Seaboard, with the Oregon Electric in Portland, Oregon, the Northwestern Pacific in Marin County, California, and the East Bay Electric in Oakland, California. With the addition of the Pacific Electric (PE), the southland streetcars were able to grow to unimaginable proportions, but perhaps that only accelerated its demise. On today's Trolley Tuesday, let's look back on the Pacific Electric, post-Great Merger, and why we still remember it fondly today.

Trolley Thursday 01-7-21 - The History of Pacific Electric, 1900 to 1911

Despite its status as one of the largest and most well-beloved mass transit systems in America's history, the Pacific Electric Railway was not supposed to be a tool to move people across five different counties in Southern California. It was, instead, a tool to move real estate, as its creators Henry Huntington and Isaias Hellman were into the real estate business instead of the railway business. Nevertheless, Huntington's new trolley attracted plenty of investors and rivals in the early 1900s, with one particular figure eager to take Huntington's new toy for his own. All of this business skullduggery and more on today's Trolley Thursday history of the Pacific Electric!

Trolley Tuesday 1-5-21 - The Pre-History of the Pacific Electric

Welcome to the first Trolley Tuesday post of 2021! We're all glad you've been able to read our blog for the past year, and maybe even on Twitter for the past two years, and my conductor and I want to keep providing informative and entertaining content for however long we can keep this up. 

For this month's streetcar excursion, we're in home territory as I take you through a complete history of the Pacific Electric Railroad, one of the most well-known and iconic streetcar systems... in the world. However, before we can get to the World's Wonderland Lines, we first need to see where these streetcars all came from, and it all started in a little valley next to a wide river with a very, very big problem...