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.

A Revolution in Traction

PE No. 220 (later rebuilt as No. 520), brings the first train of passengers
to Long Beach Pier on July 3, 1902.
(Metro Primary Resources)

PE No. 219 boards at the old Ninth Street Station, bringing the next round
of people out to Long Beach, same date. Note the unpaved streets.
(Metro Primary Resources)

When originally conceived by Epes Randolph and Henry E. Huntington, the Long Beach Line served as a main artery tapping into parts of Los Angeles that remained uninhabited, while also providing a convenient oceanside connection for dock workers and beachgoers. The prospective nature of freight was also considered, and Huntington's experience in railroads with his uncle let him know that was where the real money was. As detailed in our episode on the "old" PE, the Long Beach Line was an immediate success to Angelinos and a thorn in the side of Mr. Edward Henry Harriman, owner of the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP). It also held a significant revolution in Los Angeles traction, as it was the first interurban line to use standard gauge (4'8.5" between the rails) for a start, rather than be converted from the narrow "Cape Gauge" used by the Los Angeles Railway (LARy).

A 1902 advertisement for the Pacific Electric Railway,
advertising all of its then-destinations. The address is
for its old headquarters on Spring Street.
(Unknown Author)

The Long Beach Line opened on July 3, 1902, after a year of solid construction and almost a million dollars invested into the project. The 20.37-mile long line was a godsend to Angelinos, who quickly flocked to the streetcars at LARy's East Ninth Street Line (which was ceded to and then re-gauged by PE to run the cars into Los Angeles, prior to the PE Building) to ride them down to the summertime destination of Long Beach. At this time, the land between Downtown LA and Long Beach was all agricultural, with nary a building development in sight, which made expansion quite easy in the coming years of Huntington's control of the PE. To provide power, seven substations positioned at different parts of the line kept a constant stream of 600V DC overhead running, which enabled some parts of the line (south of Watts Junction) to permit full-speed operation.

Southland Growth

A Methodist tent city in what eventually became Huntington Beach, back then
also known as "Gospel Swamp". The picture is dated 1900.
(Surf City Writer)

An ex-Golden Gate Park & Ocean Railroad of San Francisco
combination car, No. 607, shows off its stylish "Huntington Beach"
herald and ribbed wooden lines.
(Historic Huntington Beach)

Henry Huntington was always savvy with using his interurban railway to foster land growth, and his first major expansion of the Long Beach Line came after he decided to boost a small beachside community in Orange County named Pacific City. Huntington was given enormous power over Pacific City in order to connect it to his Pacific Electric line and, after control of the city fell into his "Huntington Beach Company", Pacific City was renamed to "Huntington Beach". The main railway line to access Huntington Beach originally began construction in 1903 as the Bellflower-Santa Ana Line, splitting at Watts Junction and heading Southeast towards the larger community of Santa Ana, eventually opening on November 6, 1905. In 1907, the tracks finally reached Huntington Beach and his own beach town attraction was more or less complete.

An early, undated view of the "Four-Tracks" on PE's
Southern Division. Notice the sparse occupation of land,
which would all change in the 1920s and 30s.
(Jack Finn, PERYHS)

However, in the interim of opening the Santa Ana Line and building the Huntington Beach Line, the Great Magnate also gave marching orders to his track crews on upgrading one of the most heavily-congested parts of the Long Beach Line. Due to the sharp uptick in traffic from now having two major main lines, locals and limited out of Downtown now found themselves crowding against each other from Downtown LA to Watts Junction. In 1906, Huntington and his engineers planned out an upgrade of a 7-mile section between the old terminal at East Ninth Street and Watts Junction to accommodate a four-track mainline. With this significant upgrade, local trains and slower trains could now use the outer tracks, leaving the inner tracks free for faster limiteds without the risk of slow-downs or collisions. New interlocking towers accompanied these upgrades at Amoco Junction (named after the nearby American Olive Company) and Watts Junction.

Early Amoco Tower, with the American Olive Company (and a massive pile of olive pits) in the background.
(Charles Lawrence, Donald Duke of the PERYHS)

The first PE car arrives in Whittier, 1904.
Could it kill these people to smile, just once?
(Public Domain)

More lines soon opened to give more of lower Los Angeles and upper Orange County a chance to find growth. Most of these lines were leased from the old Los Angeles Interurban Electric Railway Company (LAIU), another Huntington-Hellman monopolistic enterprise that ran most of what eventually became PE's Northern and Western Divisions (including the Glendale Line). Yes, you're reading right: Huntington's LAIU basically leased their own lines... to the PE. On paper, this doesn't look like a monopoly, but it basically was. The first of these lines "leased" was the Whittier Line, which PE originally leased to the LAIU in order to finish construction of the line by September, 1904. The PE then leased the line back on July 1, 1908, wherein the line was expanded further out into Orange County, serving the important railroad junction town of Fullerton. 

Pacific Electric "Ten" No. 1067 works a Southern California Railroad Boosters charter
over the then-abandoned Fullerton branch of the Whitter Line after WWII.
The bridge no longer exists.
(Fullerton Observer)

A 300-series Blimp car, No. 316, stops at PE and SP's El Segundo depot on a special
chartered run in 1953. The station had been closed for over 23 years, open only to
freight trains in the interim.
(El Segundo Public Library)

The Long Beach Line even served some parts that were also served by the Western District. As mentioned on Tuesday, the Santa Monica Air Line eventually served some of its portion on the Southern District at Amoco Junction to reach 6th and Main Terminal, but trains out to El Segundo and Redondo Beach also found homes on the Southern District. The Redondo Line also served as access track for the main shops at Torrance, and eventually down to the port city of San Pedro either via Torrance or Long Beach Via Dominguez Junction. In total, by the time of the Great Merger of 1911, the Southern District spanned 164 miles of mainline and yard track across Los Angeles and Orange County. 

The extent of the Southern Division from Los Angeles to El Segundo, Manhattan Beach,
San Pedro, Long Beach, Balboa, Santa Ana, Fullerton, and Whittier, 1926.
(PERYHS)

Special Trains

The BIG Catalina Special, made up of six steel Parlor "Twelves" (1200 Class) rushes down the Long 
Beach Line to San Pedro and Wilmington, date unknown but possibly in the 1920s.
(Jack Finn, PERYHS)

A postwar ticket (1947) for the
Catalina Special.
(Unknown Author)

If you haven't noticed by now, a lot of the trolleys' main draws were related to some kind of beach activity, and the Southern District certainly capitalized on that. The most famous of these trains were the Catalina Ferry Specials, which began running to the new Catalina steamship dock in 1920 and provided some of the longest trains on the whole system. It was not uncommon to see six or seven interurban cars lashed together, nervously climbing down the steep grade and curve of the PE Building onto San Pedro Street and blocking traffic along much of the way down the LA Terminal District, before suddenly rushing forward in clouds of dust as they rushed down the Long Beach Line. PE delivered parlor car service on these trains, promising a day trip to Catalina and back on one ticket, and it remained a standard fixture on summer schedules, always packed with holiday-makers.

Another special service was ironically one of its most local: the Watts Local, to be precise. Despite being entirely part of the Long Beach Line, this service was treated as its own separate line and was about as legendary as the Long Beach Line itself. Covering the 7.45 miles of four-track from 6th and Main Terminal to Watts, the service first ran sometime in 1904, and it also served as the reason to build the "Four-Track" from Ninth Street to Watts as the "Local" often got in the way of the busier limiteds. Unlike the bigger lines, the "Local" was never subject to any significant changes other than equipment swap-outs and more-or-less ran itself as long as the Long Beach services did. In fact, that's the best word to describe the Watts Local: it "remained". Just there, in the background, taking up the outer tracks. What a good trolley. 

Pacific Electric Hollywood Car No. 626 works the poor man's limousine,
the Watts Local, at Enchandia Junction.
(Southern California Railway Museum)

The Beach Boys

In this beautiful color photo, Pacific Electric "Ten" No. 1044 works the "Newport Beach Limited" on October 30, 1949.
(Robert T. McVay, PERYHS)

Pacific Electric No. 1000, the "Commodore", lays over at
Balboa Peninsula on August 6, 1939.
(Southern California Railway Museum)

While the Watts Local was a very plain and humble trolley line, one of the most insane lines also served as the Southernmost point of the PE's grasp. The Newport-Balboa Line was another LAIU enterprise that was originally built in 1904 as an extension of the Long Beach Line from Willow Street Junction, dipping Southeast and hugging the coast through Seal Beach, Sunset Beach, Bolsa Chica, and Huntington Beach to the tiny peninsula of Balboa at Newport Beach. Traffic on the line was a mixture of oil trains serving the derricks that clogged the Orange County Beaches at the time and passenger trains in the summer months serving the beaches themselves. The most popular of these passenger services was the "Commodore", a special single-car parlor service run using the Pacific Electric's officer's cars, No. 1001 "Commodore" and No. 1299 "Commodore 2".

Towards the end of their working lives, the "Tens" were
fixtures of the Newport-Balboa Limited, which only rostered
five cars at a time.
(Jack Finn, PERYHS)

Now, why was Balboa the southernmost tip of the Pacific Electric? Why didn't it build out more towards Dana Point or San Clemente, deeper into Orange County? The answer was simple: San Diego didn't make it happen. Upon seeing the southern expansion of Pacific Electric, San Diego Electric Railway (SDERy) CEO John D. Spreckels told Huntington to knock off his expansion as it would not only put Spreckels in direct competition with the PE, but it would also be a rampant monopoly along the Southern Californian coast. Huntington, who planned for a single line connecting San Diego and Los Angeles, backed off the project almost immediately. Rail service between the two metropoles was handled by the Santa Fe's "Fourth District", more commonly known as the "Surf Line".

In a 1946 view, PE No. 1218 hauls the Newport Beach
Limited along Huntington Beach, past the ever-present
oil derricks of the Standard Oil of California.
(Phillips C. Kauke and Stan Kistler, PERYHS)

The most endearing and noteworthy part of the Newport-Balboa Line was the portions of the line where the rails were literally embedded in sand. Due to a mixture of craftiness and resourcefulness, line engineers of the Newport-Balboa Line figured that tightly-packed sand made for a very smooth and quiet run compared to bringing in their own gravel to use as ballast. However, while the engineers got most of that right, it was very common for passing trolley cars to kick up sand and throw it into the breather holes of their traction motors, mixing it with the grease already inside and causing them to gunk up. Worse still, sand can shift easier than ballast, and coupled with the high winds along the coast, it was a regular practice to take a maintenance-of-way train out to clear sand that had piled on top of the line. 

A pamphlet advertising Pacific Electric service to the Orange County Beaches, presumably after WWII.
(Author Unknown)

Life During Wartime

Navy Servicemen crowd the ex-IER Blimps at 6th and Main, bound for ships at 
Long Beach and San Pedro to head off to combat, 1942.
(Metro Library & Archive)

A Calship "Victory Special" timetable, 1943.
(PERYHS)

The biggest use of the Southern Division came in World War II, when the California Shipbuilding Company (or Calship) set up shop in the port of Long Beach and Terminal Island to build Liberty and Victory Ships for the war effort. Due to the gas rationing in place, Los Angeles' public transit system was stretched to the limit as it was depended on by workers at El Segundo's aircraft factories and Long Beach's shipyards. So-called "Calship Victory Specials" departed 6th and Main terminals in droves, connecting with the Terminal Island Railway (TIR), a hastily-built collaboration of the United States Maritime Commission (USMC) and the Pacific Electric Railway. Tens of thousands of defense workers crowded the turnstiles at both ends of the line, and the USMC was even generous enough to give the Pacific Electric ex-Southern Pacific/Interurban Electric Railway/Northwestern Pacific 72-foot interurban cars that could seat 111 people per car, giving each three-car train a crush capacity of just over 333 people. After the war ended, these cars were sold to PE and the TIR was dismantled.

Freight

PE Steeplecab No. 1616 shifts boxcars through Amoco Junction, looking north. The new over-track
Amoco Interlocking Tower replaced the original side-track tower at an unknown date.
(Willis "Dutch" Hendricks, PERYHS)

The LCL yard at Eighth Street Yard, clogged with SP boxcars.
Only one electric switcher served this yard at any time.
(PERYHS)

By far, the biggest use the PE got out of the Southern Division was its ability to interchange and move freight. From the ports of Long Beach and San Pedro to the oil wells of the Orange County Beaches, freight helped keep the Southern Division viable for just over 60 years, and was a major draw in getting the Southern Pacific to agree to the "Great Merger" of 1911. Freight primarily ran on the Long Beach and Newport-Balboa Lines, with later oil traffic being supplemented by diesels as overhead electrics weren't allowed near the tank car facilities. Several freight yards also dotted the PE system, with major ones located at Butte Street (served by Amoco Junction and interchanging with the SP) and 8th Street Yard (which also contained the PE's "LCL", or Less-than-Car-Load, facility). 8th Street Yard was originally the main shops of the PE, dubbed the "Great Shops" until the facility was moved to Torrance in 1919.

PE Express/Box Motor No. 1445 poses with a Southern Pacific boxcar on an unknown date.
The box motors were equipped with stronger gears and knuckle couplers to pull heavy rail cars,
and thus could not run as multiple units, requiring archaic "motor and trailer" operations.
(Charles Wherry and Alan Weeks, PERYHS)

Yes, Pacific Electric also served Union Station, but only for
freight, as this picture shows with box motors No. 1447, 1460,
and 1449 taking on parcels on an unknown date.
(William D. Middleton and Donald Duke, PERYHS)

The PE's "LCL" division is worth noting because, despite its niche nature, it became one of the backbones of the railway's freight services. Also dubbed "Express" freight, the LCL service took advantage of the many businesses that lined Southern Division and junction tracks by providing an easy way to transport local bulk deliveries across LA and Orange County. Much of this freight was shifted between Los Angeles Union Station (which had its own LCL yard), 6th and Main Terminal, and Eighth Street Yard by converted steel interurban cars (dubbed "box motors"). The LCL service lasted until 1952, when Metropolitan Coach Lines (MCL) purchased the Pacific Electric and spun off all freight services back to Southern Pacific.

End of the Line

A Pacific Electric Baldwin diesel runs with its trolley poles down on the Newport-Balboa Line with
a train of tank cars, just after closure. Due to the lack of traffic, the diesel can run safely without 
turning the signals on the line on.
(Steve Crise, PERYHS)

LAMTA Blimp No. 1522 is spotted heading for a rest
at Morgan Yard, the main yard at Long Beach, along
Ocean Avenue, October 12, 1960.
(Andy Goddard)

Following MCL's purchase, closures along the Southern Division occurred rapidly. One of the first to go under MCL was the Newport-Balboa Line, which closed on June 30, 1950 after sporadic abandonments and resumptions of streetcar service. What was left of it was ceded to local diesel freight and oil service before the tracks were pulled up. The next to close was the Santa Ana portion of the Bellflower-Santa Ana Line, which was cut back to Bellflower on July 2, 1950. The Catalina Docks served by PE closed on October 12, 1958, at which point the San Pedro-Dominguez Line also closed, ending interurban service to San Pedro. The Whittier Line was already gone by 1938, a victim of its own poor planning and routing due to taking a roundabout route through lower LA County, followed by the Fullerton Line that same year.  

Strange Bedfellows at 6th and Main Terminal as LAMTA PCC No. 3148 waits to
go on its demonstration run next to Long Beach Limited No. 1708, February 1960.
(Ralph Cantos, PERYHS)

The Quisling Blimp: LAMTA 1543 waits to depart
Fairbanks Yard in Long Beach on an October 1960 fantrip.
(Stephen Dudley, PERYHS)

The venerable Long Beach Line was the only service left on the Pacific Electric following the end of the Watts Local service in 1959. Due to its importance as a rail freight and passenger corridor, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority (better known as the LAMTA) devised two tests to examine the viability of keeping the Long Beach Line open starting in 1958. In February 1960, Blimp No. 1543 was debuted in a new two-tone green livery to give Angelinos hope that one trolley line was going to be kept and ex-LARy PCC No. 3148 was borrowed and re-gauged to standard (on loaned San Francisco MUNI trucks) for some rest runs up and down the line. However, LAMTA eventually decided to pull the plug on the streetcars altogether by April 1961, with the last services running into the late hours of April 9, 1961. The Southern Pacific gained full control of the Four-Tracks for their own use, but the Long Beach Line, and the Pacific Electric as a whole, was over.

Blue for Glory

A new era of Los Angeles light rail is ignited as the first Blue Line Train (headed by car No. 100)
bursts through the bunting on its way to Long Beach from the new underground 7th/Metro Station.
(The Source) 

Three generations of liveries stand stalwart at LA Metro's
Blue Line yard on July 2000, with No. 148 wearing its
fantastic Pacific Electric livery. Note the fake headlight.
(Bob Ogus) 

That is, until 1990. After almost thirty years of bus rule, new subways, and hemming and hawing about adding new light rail to Los Angeles, the Four-Tracks roared again when the LA Metro Blue (A) Line opened on July 14, 1990, 88 years since the Long Beach Line first opened for the Old PE. The new Los Angeles Regional Transit Division (RTD) scheme on the cars featured a red stripe to honor the Red Car's heritage, and in 2000, nos. 109 and 148 were outshopped in a retro Pacific Electric scheme to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Blue Line. The major modifications for the Blue Line included cutting the four-tracks down to Washington Boulevard, using only the two western tracks for service, and still maintaining much of the original right-of-way through to Dominguez Junction and Long Beach Blvd. It is, to date, the most complete section of the Pacific Electric still in regular use. 

The Torrance Bridge in the modern day, with the one PE line still underneath it.
(Sam Gnerre, Daily Breeze)

The PE Stanton Depot, now Knott's Calico Depot.
(METRO96)

In the meantime, several major pieces of infrastructure still remain around the Southland, standing in memoriam to the glory of the Pacific Electric. Much of the tracks through Torrance, including the famous bridge over the South Loop, still stand and are used by Union Pacific for industrial service. The stations in Watts and Bellflower are also similarly left standing, with the Watts station located within walking distance of the new Blue Line station. The Whitter Line is now the Whitter Greenway Trail, while its depot is now a storefront ticket agency, and the Fullerton Depot is now a bar called the Hopscotch Tavern. And finally, one of the most under-represented stops on the PE's Santa Ana Line, the Stanton Depot, has been relocated to Knott's Berry Farm as the Ghost Town & Calico Railroad's station building (and you can imagine how excited I am to find that out!).

Thanks for reading our trolleyposts this month, we always enjoy your
readership. Now watch out as we come into the yard!
(Bruce Ward, PERYHS)

Thank you for reading the last Trolley post of January 2021, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included the Electric Railway Historical Society, "Interurban Special No. 60 - Pacific Electric Western & Southern Division" by Ira L. Swett, and the archives of the Water & Power Associates, the Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society and the Southern California 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 start February out right by covering the cars of the Pacific Electric Railway! 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!