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!

Steam in the Arroyo Seco

The original Los Angeles & San Gabriel Valley Railroad viaduct in 1885, crossing the Arroyo Seco.
This line is now run today by Metro's Gold (L) Line on an 1896 replacement trestle from the ATSF.
(Public Domain)

Prior to the introduction of electric street railways in Pasadena, two steam railroads served as the main link to Los Angeles. The first was the Los Angeles & San Gabriel Valley Railroad (LA&SGV), which was founded in 1883 by investor and orchard owner James F. Crank and became its president. Prominent San Gabriel Valley landowner and booster Elias "Lucky" Baldwin was a major figured in helping the railway grow to serve across the foothills that served his properties. This railroad was later bought by the California Central Railway in 1887 and folded into the larger Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (ATSF) in 1906, becoming the "Pasadena Subdivision", or the Santa Fe Second District. 

Circa 1888, a Pasadena Railway train serves the old
Raymond Hotel, as seen in the background.
(Public Domain)

The second steam railroad with a closer tie-in to local Pasadena history was the Pasadena Railway, later known as the Los Angeles Terminal Railway once operations moved south to San Pedro. This line was intended to be a local switching railroad for the LA&SGV, but became caught up in the suburban land boom when it first opened in 1888. One of the LATR's biggest draws was the stately Raymond Hotel, which had direct railroad service right outside its front doors. Its terminus at Altadena connected with local eccentric Thaddeus Lowe's mountain railway, which was also another popular stop for passengers; this line eventually became the PE's Alpine Division, but that's a story for another time.

Red Cars and Roses

The rich and verdant San Gabriel Valley,
at the time populated by numerous fruit groves.
(Legends of America)

Henry E. Huntington's foray into the San Gabriel Valley began when he purchased the Los Angeles & Pasadena Electric Railway from its bondholders in 1898, as detailed here. Despite the line's troubled history, Huntington saw promise in it and beauty in the San Gabriel Valley, eventually building his famous mansion in an affluent part of Pasadena called San Marino. The first lines to be built connected the smaller suburb of Alhambra to the south and the Pasadena Short Line serving a large loop of blocks in downtown Pasadena, both of which opened in 1902. From here, expansion was rampant as further lines (Sierra Madre serving eastern Pasadena, Oak Knoll serving affluent houses south of Colorado Blvd) yielded high profits for Huntington for every bit of land he was able to sell.

Huntington's shrewd business practice, dependent on the symbiotic relationship between selling land divisions and running streetcars out, helped inform much of the Northern Division's construction, as he moved east from Pasadena's city limits and followed the ATSF's line through Azusa, Glendora, and San Dimas. Many of these towns were and still are quite small compared to the likes of Pasadena or Los Angeles, so back then there was a lot of land to sell to prospective tenants. Huntington even founded new junction towns along the line, each serving as a stop on his Northern Division lines, with such towns as Oneonta Park (named after his birthplace in New York), San Marino (where his mansion was constructed), and El Sereno (home to the Mission San Gabriel) being incorporated as towns after spending decades as private ranch land.

Pacific Electric California Car No. 167 on the Northern Division, during Huntington's ownership of the PE.
(Golden West Books)

Go East, Young Man

Pacific Electric No. 1035 poses with its crew on the
San Bernardino Line, year unknown. This section
of the Northern Division also went by the "Eastern District."
(Golden West Books)

Following the Great Merger of 1911, Southern Pacific (SP) took over Pacific Electric's operations but kept up its service to Henry Huntington's valuable land holdings. In competition with ATSF's regional passenger services between Los Angeles and San Bernardino, the interurban split from the Pasadena lines at Valley Junction and cut further south through the Covina line to reach the small towns of Claremont and Upland, before finally reaching the important junction and yard town of San Bernardino. This single line, dubbed the "Eastern District of the Northern Division", stretched 60 miles into the California High Desert, the longest single-service run on the entire system, with different branch lines serving San Dimas, the LA County Fairgrounds at Pomona, and Ontario.

The famous "Orange Empire Trolley Trip" poster
of the Pacific Electric. The special excursions ran
from 1914 to 1929, when suburban sprawl caught
up with the natural beauty of the area.
(No Copyright)

However, the Pacific Electric didn't just stop at San Bernardino, as other branch lines soon popped up to serve the southern high deserts, otherwise known as the "Orange Empire" due to the large amounts of orange groves at the time. This "empire" centered around three important lines of service: San Bernardino-Redlands, Riverside-Rialto, and Pomona. The largest of these, the Riverside-Rialto Line, originally began as the Riverside & Arlington Railway, a narrow-gauge, 5 mile steam railway that was electrified in 1899 and that Huntington purchased in 1903. These three lines were eventually fully integrated into the Pacific Electric system by 1913, by which time the Northern Division was at its peak.

Do The San Berdoo

Due to the sheer length of the line, it was impossible for 600V substations to be placed along the line and provide constant maximum voltage. It was then decided that, instead of using the normal street railway voltage, the San Bernardino Line (popularly dubbed the "San Berdoo") would use higher-tension 1200V overhead to achieve the faster speeds it wanted to. This higher speed seemed incongruous with the design of the railway itself, as all of its mileage met city streets at-grade (ground level) and, even weirder, the operations were still under the jurisdiction of Los Angeles city ordinances due to using the Pacific Electric Building (6th and Main) as its southern terminus. One of the these ordinances was the mandate fitting all car ends with Eclipse Safety Fenders (the "people-catchers") if any cars ran on the street or met a street at-grade, which crews hated for being heavy, awkward, and more or less not effective when someone is hit by a steel car at 60 miles an hour.

Pasadena Carhouse in 1940, after the closure of the Redlands Line. The little Birney No. 331 handles local service in Altadena,
 while the larger "Eleven" No. 1103 is still wearing a "people catcher."
It had the popular reputation of scooping up drunks off the street at trackside saloons.
(Bob Davis)

Red Cars in Redlands

Redlands Carhouse on the final day of service, July 16, 1936. PE Birney No. 331 is seen again,
this time finding company with pre-rebuilt Hollywood Car No. 656.
(Jeffrey J. Moreau, Southern California Railway Museum)

While the Northern Division was primarily an interurban railroad with most of its track on a private right of way, there was one section where streetcars found a home in the outer boonies of the PE. Prior to Pacific Electric's involvement, the Redlands Central Railway (RCR) ran streetcars in the small desert town before merging with the bigger San Bernardino Valley Traction (SBVT) in 1908. The system came under control of the Pacific Electric in 1911 and plenty of streetcars found their way into Redlands, shuttling passengers between there and San Bernardino. At one point, the line was operated by tiny birney cars and some of the newest "Hollywood" center-entrance cars, with storage and maintenance split between the tiny two-track Redlands carbarn and the larger San Bernardino carbarn.

All's Fair Betting at the Racetrack

It's fair day in LA County, and hundreds of fairgoers
meet on two special trains at Ganesha Junction in Pomona.
Cars 1245 and 1240 are stalwart workers of the Northern Division.
(L.T. Gotchy, Jack Finn)

One notable feature about the Northern Division was its huge draw for special trains, as it served both the Santa Anita Racetrack in Pasadena and the LA County Fairgrounds in Pomona. The "racetrack" specials were among some of the most prestigious and heavily-ridden limited services on the Pacific Electric, rivalled only by the ferry trains to San Pedro and Wilmington. PE even included a special excursion fare of 55 cents round trip, rain or shine, with three- or four-car trains leaving 6th and Main every hour with peak services at every half-hour. The PE also ran special "Rose Parade Specials" on New Year's Day to take people to and from the legendary float parade, with rail traffic at Sierra Vista and Oneonta Park Junctions often being backed up from the sheer amount of cars.

PE Interurban Cars No. 1373 and 1375 gather at Santa Anita
Racetrack in 1942 to process the internment of thousands of otherwise
innocent and fully-assimilated Japanese American citizens in the wake
of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
(United States National Archive)

However, all of the special trains had a dark side as well. In cooperating with the War Transportation Board and the State State Railroad Commission, Pacific Electric trains took innocent Japanese and Japanese-American citizens from their homes around Los Angeles and brought them to Santa Anita Racetrack for "assembly" under the 1942 Forced Internment Program. Other Pacific Electric cars brought other Japanese citizens to the LA County Fairgrounds in Pomona, where another assembly center was located that housed 5,434 Japanese-Americans. Notably, one famous resident of the Pomona Assembly Center was future actor and Metro board of directors member George Takei, who helped create the new Hollywood Subway in 1978. (More on that later, too.)

Freight Train Follies

A Covina-bound train stops to let two Baldwin-Westinghouse steeple cabs drag a freight
inbound to Los Angeles pass them by. The San Gabriel Mountain Range can be seen at left.
(Jack Finn)

PE 1591 hauls a single boxcar and a scrap gondola through
San Bernardino's Eastern District during World War II.
(Jack Whitmeyer)

By far, the biggest boon to the Northern Division was its booming freight service, especially during World War II. Due to the sheer amount of businesses lining the streets and lines in LA and Riverside county, along with San Bernardino's status as a major freight yard, local and express freight interchange made plenty enough money to keep the Northern Division's lines viable for longer than PE's top brass ever thought. Wartime freight traffic coming from the East also helped keep up appearances, as raw materials were transferred along the PE to manufacturers all over the Orange Empire and through to downtown LA, with finished products returning via PE to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. 

San Bernardino's famous Arrowhead Water Train, running
down the appropriately-named Electric Avenue. The Baldwin-
Westinghouse steeplecab was the dominant workhorse of this
niche industrial line.
(City of San Bernardino)

By far, the most unique operation was done at the Arrowhead Hot Springs, eight miles north of San Bernardino. In contract with the Arrowhead Water Company, the Pacific Electric received full rights to transport the pure mountain waters of Lake Arrowhead by train down to San Bernardino and into Los Angeles to their bottling plants. This operation first began in 1902 under the SBVT, with a further extension in 1907 serving the popular Arrowhead Springs Hotel. PE then purchased the line in 1911, post-Great Merger, and extended the line through to the water pumping station by 1912. To facilitate the transport, Pacific Electric even built their own glass-lined tanks to the keep the water nice and fresh. Unfortunately, the line remained unpopular with residents of Arrowhead for the noise and suburban property infringement, especially once PE closed their one passenger service in 1932 and kept the water train. 

A builder's photo of Arrowhead Water's specialized glass-lined tank cars from PE's Torrance Shops.
This blog also does not condone or support the actions done by Arrowhead Water's current owner, Nestle.
(Nestle-WatersNA.com)

Macy Street Yard

Macy Street Yard and Carhouse in 1950, with the San Gabriel Mountains in the background.
The tall structure in the back is a grain silo, which still operates in the City of Commerce and 
is served by the Union Pacific.
(LA Metro Archive)

Macy Street Carhouse in 1941, showing off the variety
of steel interurban cars and locomotives employed
on the Northern District.
(No Copyright)

The main maintenance hub of the Northern Division was Macy Street Yard, located along Mission Road across from the SP Alhambra Avenue Coach Yards in East Los Angeles. Built in 1917, the yard had enough supplies and tools to remain independent in everything except the most heaviest of repairs, which were done at Torrance Shops. Included in the shop complex were, "a car inspection house, 246' x 85', a repair shop, 160' x 150', a two-story trainmen's building, 32' x 32' and a storehouse, 22' x 25'" (per SC-ERHA). Every car that served the San Bernardino or Pasadena lines rolled through this huge shop complex, and it was also where some of the oldest cars on the system met their end through scrapping. Macy Street Yard was converted to bus maintenance following the end of all Northern Division service and the spinning off of local transit operations to their respective cities, under the auspices of Metropolitan Coach Lines. After becoming its main maintenance depot following the closure of the Torrance Shops in 1954, it still exists today as LA Metro Operating Division 10-East Los Angeles.

Decline and Abandonment

Pacific Electric 1243 leads the last Rose Parade Special
out of Pasadena, bound for Los Angeles, in 1949, competing
for traffic space with an increased number of cars.
(Unknown Credit)

Despite being one of the first divisions to open on the Pacific Electric, the Northern Division was also the first to go. Declining passenger numbers in the wake of the automobile meant that less passengers were using the Pacific Electric to commute to and around the Orange Empire. The first major closure occurred in 1932, when the PE closed the Arrowhead Line to passenger traffic. The Redlands streetcar soon followed in 1936, with all of its streetcars returning to work local and boonie services in Pasadena and Los Angeles. By the next year, PE was practically begging Los Angeles, and the State Railroad Commission in WWII, to completely cut off the Pasadena lines, to no avail. 

Modernization of the line was considered, with the provisions of new PCC cars and general improvements to the infrastructure, as well as stripping off most of the unneeded lines to regional bus companies. But in 1949 PE finally got its wish. By October 1950, service out to Baldwin Park, Sierra Madre, and Oak Knoll had ended and diesels had taken over the San Bernardino line by 1951. Even the Arrowhead Water Train, once seen as a consternating symbol for local residents, was given one last run as a Southern Pacific diesel train in 1960, when the water company switched to using trucks to transport water to its bottling companies. In one quick swoop, PE's largest and most varied division was gone.

Just four years prior, Southern Pacific mogul No. 1740 was tasked with taking No. 1299 over an unelectrified portion of the Covina line, which was recently turned over from Southern Pacific in 1946.
(Charles Wherry)

What's Left?

Pacific Electric's imposing Lake Street Substation No. 8 in Altadena, north of Pasadena.
(Weedwhacker128)

The Redlands trolley barn today, now an automobile
repair center. At least it's close to what it used to do.
(Waymarking)

There are plenty of reminders and tributes to the PE's lost Orange Empire spread all over the former Northern Districts. In Altadena, the Lake Street Substation that once served the Pasadena lines and the Alpine Division still stands as an office space and antique store, its brick construction putting it at odds with the rest of its strip mall surroundings. Between Claremont and Rialto, 19.5 miles of former Pacific Electric San Bernardino Line right-of-way now serves as the "Pacific Electric Inland Empire Bike Trail", with all relevant bridges and even some station buildings left intact. In Redlands, the former carhouse now serves as a mechanic's garage, with its familiar Moorish architecture left mostly intact, while a piece of the PE right-of-way track diamond is left permanently embedded in concrete at San Bernardino's Santa Fe station. The rest of the "San Berdoo" Line not used as a bike trail was lashed to the former Southern Pacific non-electrified line to San Bernardino through East Los Angeles to Pomona and is now the Metrolink SB Line.

The Pacific Electric at its height, as rendered by artist Jake Berman of 53 Studios.
The Northern Division (and Eastern District) are seen in yellow.
This map can be purchased at his website here: 53 Studios.

(Jake Berman)

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included a San Bernardino Sun article on the Water Train's relationship with its neighbors, the Southern California Electric Railway Historical Society's articles on the Northern Division, and the archives of the Southern California Railway Museum (formerly the Orange Empire Railway Museum). The trolley gifs in our posts are made by Brian Clough and can be found on his site, Banks of the Susquehanna. On Tuesday, we go even higher as we explore the Pacific Electric's Alpine Division! For now, you can follow myself or my editor on Twitter, buy a shirt or sticker from our Redbubble stand, or purchase my editor's self-developed board game! It's like Ticket to Ride, but cooler! (and you get to support him through it!) Until next time, ride safe!