Trolley Tuesday 2/25/21 - Pacific Electric Maintenance of Way Equipment

We've spent the past month on this blog covering the many glamorous passenger cars (and freight locomotives) of what was once the nation's largest interurban railway, the Pacific Electric Railway (PE). However, a railway of this size is nothing without a means to maintain the one-thousand miles of track and wire at any time and with anything. Therefore, both the Los Angeles Shops of the "Old PE" and the Torrance Shops of the "New PE" had to get creative when it came to meeting the needs of the World's Wonderland Lines. On today's final Trolley Thursday of February, let's dip our bare hands in the grease bucket and look at the special and specialized maintenance-of-way cars that called the PE home.

Trolley Tuesday 2/23/21 - Pacific Electric's Freight Locomotives

Besides having an enormous interurban and suburban fleet, the Pacific Electric Railway (PE) of Southern California maintained an impressive freight locomotive fleet as well. Driven by efforts of their parent company, Southern Pacific Railway (SP), PE made significant expanses in ensuring they could serve as a good regional freight hauler and terminal railroad. This meant maintaining a diverse and often non-standard fleet of electric freight locomotives (and some non-electric ones) from its inception in 1902 all the way to the last electric-hauled freight services in the early 1960s, which was both a blessing and a curse to the ever-progressing but perennially-cash-strapped Pacific Electric. On today's Trolley Tuesday, let's take a break from hauling passengers to look at the unsung heroes of LA's interurban mileage, the electric locomotives!

Trolley Thursday 2/18/21 - The Pacific Electric (And East Bay Electric And Northwestern Pacific) Blimps

I've written about many anachronistic streetcars all over this blog in the past, that is streetcars that were in service for at least 40-50 years. We've had 1910s steel interurbans working well into the 80s on the South Shore, PCC cars working into the 80s in Cleveland, and even ex-San Diego PCC cars enjoying retirement in El Paso, Texas. Even on the Pacific Electric (PE), anachronistic streetcars working well-past their service life wasn't the exception, but the rule, with many receiving upgrades to keep them in service or downgraded to secondary services, as we covered in the wood and steel interurban car episodes. Today's rolling anachronism was born at the same time as the Twelves, but were much bigger, grander, and long-lived than even the people who saved them expected to be. With some of the oldest members now pushing 108 years old, let's return now to the thrilling days of yester-year as we take a flight aboard the big, the bad, and the beautiful Blimps on today's Trolley Thursday!

Trolley Tuesday 2/16/21 - The Pacific Electric Hollywood Cars

In the common person's mind and in popular culture, there is no more an evocative image than a red-and-orange streetcar rolling down Hollywood or Sunset Boulevard in mid-century Los Angeles. After all, who can blame them? Everything can be glamourized in Los Angeles, even and especially its public transit vehicles. The one-hundred-and-sixty "Hollywood Cars" of the Pacific Electric (PE) stood and continue to stand as those immaculate pieces of Angelino-stalgia, from the old folks who used to ride them regularly to modern fans that recognize representations of this car in films like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Gangster Squad". But how did such a legendary streetcar come about and last over 30 years in service AND 60 years in preservation? Find out on today's Trolley Tuesday as we ride in style on the poor man's limousine, the Pacific Electric Hollywood Car!

Trolley Thursday 2/11/21 - Pacific Electric's City and Center-Entrance Cars

The Pacific Electric Railway (or PE) did not develop the famous 600-750 Class "Hollywood Cars" overnight. In fact, it's something we'll be covering in greater detail next Tuesday. Prior to their most-famous streetcar type, PE (and by extension, their parent company Southern Pacific) spent years before 1923 trying to find the perfect standard "city" or "suburban" car to complement their successful standard range of wood and steel interurban cars. Outside of the Hollywoods, PE had four other classes of city cars that helped keep Angelinos moving around Los Angeles, Glendale, and Pasadena, and it's definitely worth talking about them on today's Trolley Tuesday, all about the search for the perfect city car!

Trolley Tuesday 2/9/21 - Pacific Electric Steel Interurbans

The age of the steel interurban car started in the 1910s, when heavy-rail passenger car construction was first implemented in streetcar and interurban designs. Without the need for truss bars or thick wooden beams for frames, carbuilders all over the United States could now design cars with higher capacity, lighter axle weights, and faster track speeds. Pacific Electric's own steel car fleet (which comprised of four original and hand-me-down car classes) came rather late in the game, following what was the worst non-strike disaster in the system's history, but the Twelves proved their worth by being go-anywhere, do-anything cars that could take over the work of the wooden Tens for better or for worse. On Today's Trolley Tuesday, let's climb aboard the Catalina Special as we take a ride on the Pacific Electric's mighty "Twelves".

Trolley Thursday 2/4/21 - Pacific Electric Wooden Interurbans

Before steel became reliable and pliable enough to work into railroad car form, almost every interurban, rapid transit, and streetcar system in America depended on solid wood passenger cars. The idea behind them was simple: wood made for great sound insulation and was strong enough to withstand nearly every element exposed to it, so why not build them of wood? Between 1902 and 1913, Pacific Electric (PE) depended on its lumbering thoroughbreds comprising the Los Angeles Pacific (LAP) 950 Class and the mighty fleet of Jewett Car Company 1000-Class cars, commonly nicknamed the "Tens". On today's Trolley Thursday, let's peel back the wooden surface and appreciate these artfully-crafted cars.

Trolley Tuesday 2/2/21 - Early Pacific Electric Cars, 1902-1911

Whether Henry E. Huntington liked it or not, he was similar to his rival (E.H. Harriman) in a lot of ways. Both were interested in cornering and monopolizing a single market (the entire western US railway system for Harriman, all of Los Angeles' real estate and mass transit electric railways for Huntington), but another lesser-known similarity between the two men were their need for standardization. Harriman had his own design of passenger cars and steam locomotives between the Union Pacific (UP) and the Southern Pacific (SP), while Huntington's own consistent style came from the 5-window designs found on many of his streetcars built by the St. Louis Car Company and J.G. Brill of Philadelphia. On the first Trolley Tuesday of February, we begin our look into the Pacific Electric Fleet by looking at the cars that came before the Great Merger of 1911.