Trolley Thursday 3/11/21 - The Los Angeles Railway Type "C" Sowbellies

One thing that set the Los Angeles Railway (LARy) apart from the Pacific Electric (PE) was a relative lack of streetcar nicknames. No cars were ever nicknamed after the areas they worked in (as they were expected to work on every single line of the system), nor did they have any notable eccentricities that set them apart enough to warrant a nickname. However, aside from the "termite squasher", there was one streetcar that did get a nickname and it turned out to be one of the most controversial, and certainly the most hated, streetcar type on the Los Angeles Railway. On today's Trolley Thursday, let's let the flanges squeal as we look at the history behind one of the LARy's most unique (and most maligned) streetcars, the Type "C"s, or "sowbellies" to shop crews.

  

Hobbleskirts and Horrible Buses

A New York Railways car on Broadway demonstrates the need for a lower-floor car in 1913.
(Sarah Albee Books)

In 1928, two jitney buses take passengers on a
real-estate tour of Hollywoodland, 1928.
(Los Angeles Public Library)

Los Angeles Railway was not in a good place come the early 1910s. Despite gaining new streetcars and routes in the wake of the Great Merger between Pacific Electric and Southern Pacific, the local streetcars were now gaining local competition. Jitney buses were becoming more common in Los Angeles, and the use of these small bus lines severely undercut the fares collected by the LA Railway around the downtown hub. Even worse still was the brief hobbleskirt fad of 1908-1914, where fashion dictated that a woman's walk must be impaired somehow through a tight "speed-limiter" skirt. Due to the trends, many streetcar builders were now forced to contend with making low-floor versions (or low-entrance versions) of their streetcars, with some of the first being tried in New York City. When this trend hit Los Angeles in 1912, and combined with the jitney bus crisis, this put the Yellow Cars in dire straits.

Making a Sow's Ear from a Standard Car

A diagram of the Los Angeles Railway Type "C", as depicted in 1944.
(Metro Library and Archives)

The unique doorway of the Sowbellies, featuring two exits
and one entrance. During rush hours, the single entrance was
absolutely clogged with people.
(Ira L. Swett)

Faced with encroaching competition, terrible fashion choices, and the looming issue of an aging, almost non-standard fleet of streetcars, the LA Railway decided it would update all of their "Huntington Standard" Type "Bs" by rebuilding them as Type "C" center-entrance (or CE) cars. Master Car Builder E.L. Stephens drafted the car's design, which were 2 feet longer than the Type "B"s to accommodate a 3-door center entrance (arranged in an "EXIT-ENTRANCE-EXIT" style) on both sides and featured a floor fifteen inches above the railhead for easy-step loading. The cars also featured arched roofs instead of clerestories, giving them more upper strength and taking their lines away from classic wooden passenger cars. Inside, the car had a total seating capacity for fifty-four people, ten more than the Type "B"s, while also reducing the total weight of the car by 500 lbs. To keep costs low and ensure that shop crews could take adequate care of the cars, many components such as trucks, controllers, and brake stands were shared with the "Standards".

Los Angeles Railway No. 456 was originally outfitted with mesh sides and gates in 1913, along with
a route-number sign that wouldn't be adopted until 1920. 456 later got wood-sheet sides and doors.
(Ira L. Swett)

South Park Shops's conversion program began in November 1912, and due to the drooping center caused by the lower floors, shop crews quickly likened them to pregnant pigs. Thus, the "Sowbellies" got their name, and by January 19, 1913, the first fifteen cars entered service on the Central Avenue Line (later the "U" Line in 1920). However, despite the LA Railway spinning the Sowbellies' roll-out as a "success", it was anything but, as the general public loudly objected to riding in a car with no end doors. As E.L. Stephens wrote as an official evaluation:

"The first violent objection arose from the safety feature that when the car was in motion the exit doors were closed - the contention being that should an accident occur the passengers would be locked in - provisions should be made so that passengers could get off at the ends." (Walker, 114)

LARy No. 468 on display at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. Interestingly,
it's labeled an "Owl Car", possibly in the guise of a post-boxing match late-night streetcar.
(Ira L. Swett)

One of the St. Louis-built Sowbellies is being built on
October 14, 1913. Nope the open section for either a
motorman's door or end-exit, which was eventually blocked off.
(Ira L. Swett)

Needless to say, while arrangements were made to put end-exits on the Sowbellies, this never happened and the motorman's position took its place (the only car type with offset controls on the LARy until the PCCs). Apparently adding these end-exits never occured to the LARy, as they spent much of 1913 continuing to rebuild and outshop Type "B"s into Type "C"s, even going as far as to order new cars from St. Louis Car Company for seventy-five more cars. One of these cars, LA Railway No. 468, was even sent to the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco as part of an enormous railroad and traction display showing the best the West Coast had to offer. But while LA Railway was riding high with the Sowbelly, they soon found their new car had pretty much lost all use by 1915.

Four Motors, Two Motor, 800s and 500s

LARy No. 39 on the "3" Line on Larchmont Blvd. to Melrose Avenue,
 close to Paramount Studios in 1931. Yes, you stand in the
middle of the street to board your streetcar.
(Martin Turnbull)

The hobbleskirt fad ended in late 1914, and the jitney buses prevailed. With LARy losing $600 a day (or $15,708 in 2021) on lost fares to jitney competition, one hundred South Park shop workers were laid off and the big "CE" program ended with 107 rebuilt cars and 76 built new, for a total roster of 183 cars. Almost all of the rebuilt cars were not just Type "B"s, but much older cars from both LARy and PE's constituent companies, with LARy's carbuilders doing their best to ensure the cars looked cohesive. 

A 1929 builder's photo of Sowbelly No. 936 at Gage Ave.
(Ira L. Swett, SCRM)

One of the biggest problems the Sowbellies encountered around 1914 was the inability to climb up the hills on Temple and West Sixth Street. As we've reported before, it's never a good idea to run a streetcar in a hilly city with only two motors, so some Type "C"s went back to South Park Shops and were re-numbered below "100" to indicated which got four motors. Cars 19-49 also received magnetic brakes akin to the Type "A" Maggies but, due to the immense length of the car, motormen reported having a hard time even controlling the damn thing and still depended on the handbrake to tie down the car. The magnetic brakes were removed in 1916 in favor of normal air brakes. 

LARy No. 82 poses on V Line en route to Monroe
and Vermont, with a rather impatient passenger waiting
for the photo op to finish.
(Jack Finn, PERYHS)

Eventually, the LA Railway were able to fashion a coherent numbering system for the Sowbellies... at least, it was coherent in the shop foremen's heads: Any number below 100 were four-motor cars, Nos. 537-599 were two motor cars (except for Nos. 553-562 which became four-motor cars but kept the original numbers), and any subsequent four-motor cars were numbered either 25-29 or 80-90. The four-motor cars roamed across the whole LA Railway system, especially on hilly lines like the "A" (Mid-City to Echo Park), "D" (Westlake to Skid Row), and "W" (Highland Park to Mid-City), as well as their original lines of the "U" (Nevin to West Adams via Central Blvd.) and "V" (Nevin to West Hollywood via Vermont Ave.) lines. 

  

No One Man Can Have All That Power

LARy No. 898 poses at South Park Shops in its new silver, yellow, and black
scheme. Unlike the other streetcars that wore it, the Sowbellies remained
two-man operated trolleys.
(Alan Weeks, PERYHS)

LARy No. 73 trundles on the "A" line at Temple
and Edgeware Road, 1946.
(Robert T. McVay)

The reign of the Sowbellies diminished the same was as the Type "B"s, as newer steel-bodied streetcars took over and pushed the older wooden cars into secondary roles. The Sowbellies had even worse luck as, during the 1931 "One Man" program implemented by South Park Shops, it was discovered that the lack of any end entrances meant Sowbellies had to run with two crewmen at all times. Despite some cars being clad in the new LA Railway corporate scheme of silver and yellow with black stripes in 1930, Yellow Car management were already looking for ways to rid themselves of the Type "C"s. This plan eventually came to fruition following National City Lines' purchase and reorganization of the LARy as the Los Angeles Transit Lines (LATL) in 1944, when the two-motor Type "C"s were immediately retired and their bodies were sold off as dwellings to prospective land owners. The four-motor Type "C"s were forcibly retired on August 2, 1947, on the "D" and "V" lines, karmically replaced by the "Standards" they were built from. Only one sowbelly, No. 61, was ever able to wear the LATL "Salad Bowl" livery, and all but one were sent for scrap.

Singular No. 61 is seen on the "D" Line at 5th Street, being chased by an unknown
steel streetcar, on May 31, 1947.
(Robert T. McVay)

"Good Bye 'U Lovable U'"

"Lovable U" no. 90 is packed to the gills with riders as it's seen
running on the U Line to Florence and Vermont, on the final
day of "U" Line operations, August 3, 1947.
(Jack Finn, PERYHS)

The very last Sowbelly in service ended up being four-motor No. 90, originally Type "B" No. 314 and one of the first rebuilt. Running one last trip up Central Avenue, No. 90 was plastered in autographs and goodbye, messages from Hollywood stars, city officials, and rail enthusiasts alike. Big letters on her side read out "LAST CAR TO RUN ON THE U LINE - SUNDAY AUG. 3" and "LAST SOWBELLY TO RUN ON THE STREETS OF LOS ANGELES", while dash signs on her front and rear wryly displayed the words "JUNK HEAP" and "SCRAP PILE". On her roof was painted in white, "GOODBYE U LOVABLE 'U'", not only heralding the end of the Sowbelly, but also the "U" Line as it was eventually converted as part of the new "3" trolley bus line. When No. 90 finally reached the Division Five carhouse at the end of the night, no part of her was safe as windows, crossbars, doors, bells, strap hangers, dash signs, anything screwed down or loose was taken as souvenirs. To quote LATL's in-house magazine:

"As [Motorman M.T.] Sattler walked away from the old car, which was now nearly a skeleton, he swears that he heard a soft sigh. It could have been, for old sowbelly number 90 had had a big night." (Walker, 128)

Kilroy Was Here

The "Kilroy Car", No. 50, at the South Park Shops transfer table.
(Ralph Cantos, PERYHS)

Mrs. H. Coffman is seen tugging on No. 50's 
pole rope in a staged photo for the press. After
this, No. 50 would be stripped of useable parts
and scrapped.
(Ralph Cantos, PERYHS)

For being the LA Railway's most maligned car type, the indignities weren't over yet. After the "U" Line closed, Sowbelly No. 50 (another four-motor car) was the subject of what what was basically a cruel prank by Mr. B.M. "Barney" Larrick, LATL's operating manager and streetcar hater. In collaboration with some of the local radio stations, a contest was ran where entrants had to tell their own version of how the infamous "Kilroy" got his start on the Mutual Broadcasting System's (MBS) "Spotlight on America" radio programme. The winner turned out to be a Mrs. Harold Coffman of West Los Angeles, and while it's unknown what her winning answer was, her prize is very much well known: a graffitied and sad No. 50, with multiple Kilroys and "KILROY WAS HERE" messages painted all over. While Mr. Larrick posed with Mrs. Coffman and everyone had a great laugh at No. 50's expense, immediately after the car was sent off to a scrapyard.

Hog Heaven in Perris Valley

LARy Type "C" No. 936 in the SCRM's Barn 1.
Not much has changed since this photo was taken in May 2012.
(Chris Guenzler)

Today, only one LA Railway Type "C" Sowbelly is preserved at the Southern California Railway Museum (SCRM) in Perris, CA, joining many of its former cousins and coworkers from the Yellow Car system. No. 936 was one of the seventy-six cars built by the St. Louis Car Company in 1914 for the LA Railway and worked until it was retired in 1945. After being sold as a potential dwelling, it was used as a shed in a Los Angeles home for the next thirty-four years until the SCRM stepped in and purchased the car for its collection. Over the years, the car has had minor restoration done on it, including restoring some of its body panels with its original number on display, it's a long way from even being on display. It currently sits, as it has for many years, in the back of Carhouse 1, the last sowbelly in existence.

  

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included "The Yellow Cars of Los Angeles" by Jim Walker and Ira L. Swett, the archives of the Southern California Railway Museum, the archives of the Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society, and the Metro Library and Archive. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found at my "Railroad Gif Carhouse" on the sidebar. On Tuesday, we steel ourselves as we look at the Los Angeles Railway's H-Type Cars! 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!