Trolley Thursday 3/18/21 - The Los Angeles Railway Type "D" and "E" Funeral Cars

Street railway companies have always found different ways to gain more revenue, especially since so many of them often ran at a loss. These different revenue-makers included running dining service on their trains, owning the land their trains ran on and served, and even being made specifically for a grand entertainment center on the Great Salt Lake. Due to Henry Huntington's ownership of the Los Angeles Railway (LARy) basically funding itself, the company never saw need to do anything else but be a local downtown streetcar. That is, until death came knocking at its door with a simple proposition. On today's Trolley Thursday, you foolish mortals will enjoy a ride (not your final one) on board two of the LARy's most specifically-built cars on their fleet, and how the "Descanso" and "Paraiso" lived, died, and lived again.

 

Who You Gonna Call?

Ex-Chicago Aurora & Elgin No. 10, undertaking funerary
duties on the Metropolitan West Side Elevated.
(Chicago and Cook County Cemeteries)

In the early 1900s, funerals were a rather messy affair. Many cities at the time remained unpaved, so normal horse-drawn hearses would often get bogged down in mud or dirt, while funeral goers trailing behind ended up walking in filthy clothes. Despite the presence of the motor car, motor hearses wouldn't be a thing until the late 1910s, leaving few options for the dead to find eternal rest through comfortable transit. Due to the heavy presence of streetcars in almost every American city at the time, it was no surprise that some lines served local cemeteries and were often used by folks on Sunday pilgrimages to visit their dead relatives. Streetcar companies like Chicago's Metropolitan West Side Elevated and San Francisco's Municipal Railway further capitalized on this trend by creating whole hearses out of streetcars, capable of carrying the casket and the mourning party in sumptuous comfort, with special spur lines to meet the cemetery gates. Eager to add variety to their revenue portfolio, the LARy contracted its South Park Shops' Carpentry Department to create their own funerary streetcar to serve the seven cemeteries on the Yellow Car's system. The shops completed the first car in 1909 and they called it the "Paraiso" (or "Paradise" in Spanish).

Emergis Ex Mortis

A diagram of the "Descanso" (built as the "Paraiso") from 1932.
(Alan Weeks, PERYHS)

"Paraiso", as "Descanso", in 1932, for a LARy 
company photographic roster book.
(Alan Weeks, PERYHS)

The new car, designed by Superintendent John Akin and built by "Master Car Builder" E.L. Stephens, carried no number, but was officially listed as a Type "D" on the roster sheet. The Paraiso was 40 feet long, ten feet shorter than most of the LA Railway fleet, and shared some of its lines with the Huntington Standards as it featured the familiar five-window design. Its roof was of particular note, as both Akin and Stephens styled the "monitor roof" (also called a "clerestory") after the old Los Angeles & Pacific (LAP) interurban cars. At one end of the car, there was a hatch on either side with a stained glass oval window above to slide the casket in and out of the car. Ten Pullman-style arched paired windows lined each side of the car, five per side, and inside the mourners sat on twenty rattan arm chairs with mohair cushions. No detail was spared, as even the two Westinghouse K Controllers were finished in varnished wood and chrome metal accoutrements such as the handle and controller top. Outside, the wooden body was clad in a ghostly light grey with shining gold pinstripes from LARy's paint shop, with its name rendered in silver cursive on either side. The "Paraiso" entered service on February 20, 1909.

The Descanso in 1911, fresh out of the LARy South Park Shops.
(Ira L. Swett)

Two years later, the South Park Shops went back to the drawing board to create an extended version of the Paraiso. The "Descanso" (meaning "Rest" in Spanish, also the name of a city garden in La Cañada, CA.) was classified as a Type "E" car, and was ten feet longer with the addition of two more Pullman windows on either side. Due to the increase in size, the Descanso used two trolley poles instead of one, and mohair-plush "change-over" seats were used instead of wingback chairs, giving it a total capacity of one dead and forty-eight living souls. Mechanicals and other details were shared with the Paraiso. Headlights on both cars were removable portable arc headlights with plugs on either end, looking more like interurban headlights than streetcar lights. 

Drive Yourselves to Death

The Paraiso at its usual Inglewood Park Cemetery spur.
(Jeffrey J. Moreau, SCRM)

Both the Paraiso and the Descanso enjoyed success in the early-to-mid-1910s, with their popularity making it possible to run seven trips daily to all cemeteries around downtown Los Angeles. This popularity was due to the relative smoothness and cleanliness on travelling aboard a railed vehicle instead of having to trail a dirty horse-drawn carriage or walk behind an early motor hearse. The cost to take one last ride aboard these streetcars was $15 in 1909 ($433.54 in 2021) and covered one's corpse as well as twenty mourners aboard the Paraiso and twenty-four mourners on the Descanso. Due to the rise in popularity (if you could even call it that), LARy later raised the price to $25 ($664.18 in 2021), both to keep the cars as exclusive as they could and also to better compete (and undercut) the incoming motorcar hearses. The "Paraiso" was usually stored at Inglewood Cemetery on the "5" Line (across from Centinela Park, future home of LARy Type "H" No. 1201), which had a special spur line. Other cemeteries were usually located at the terminals of other LA Railway lines, with only a short procession to the cemetery gates required. But hey, it beat walking all the way from the church.

Trading the Dead for the Living

Unfortunately, by the mid-1910s, both cars were starting to suffer the advent of the motor hearses and entered a period of intense rebuilding. The Paraiso got rid of its twenty wingback chairs, replaced with forty "changeover" seats to match the Descanso's increased capacity, along with two improved Westinghouse 306L motors, which it received on August 24, 1911. By 1921, Los Angeles Railway officially ended funeral car service and began looking to renovate both funeral cars to regular passenger service (hoping the general public didn't find it creepy to ride on former funeral cars). 

LARy Type "E" No. 1101 poses with Miss Gertrude Schoonmaker of LARy's accounting division
in 1922, advertising "deluxe interurban" service on the "E" (later the "5") line.
(Metro Library and Archives)

A builder's photo of No. 1101 at LARy Division Two carhouse.
(Ira L. Swett)

The first to be shopped was the Descanso, and its renovation was both rushed and hoped to keep as much of the original window fixtures and seats as possible. The only things removed were the casket hatches, and two rows of smaller arched windows were added to center the windows, along with a route marker sign on the roof and built-in Mazda-brand headlights on either end of the car. Unusually, no bulkheads were fitted as the car was built totally-enclosed, giving it an eerie, open, single-compartment interior not found on other LA Railway cars. When it entered service as Type "E" "Pay As You Enter" car No. 1101 on January 30, 1922, the public was... less than stunned. Much to LARy's dismay, the retained stained-glass arched windows and the plush changeover were easy reminders of what the car used to be and its planned use as a "deluxe" car never sufficed. 

A 1932 official company diagram of 1101's rebuild into No. 950.
(Alan Weeks, PERYHS)

LATL No. 950 is still wearing her 1930s colors in this 1947 view.
She was later repainted into the "Salad Bowl" livery.
(Robert Chamberlain, Richard Wilkens, PERYHS)

In June, 1924, LARy went on a desperation run and vowed to make No. 1101 something actually useable. Gone were the Pullman windows, replaced with even taller paired window with squared standee tops, and the familiar LAP clerestory roof was taken down, replaced with a broad, flat arched roof. Amazingly, this rebuild worked and the new No. 950 (still a Type "E") entered service on December 1924 with upgraded Brill 77E trucks. No. 950 was at home running on the "5" line, often stopping by the Inglewood Cemetery it once served but now taking living beings instead of the dead. Despite its uniqueness as both the only two-man car on the LARy (it was never one-manned) and the only one of its type, its shared common components enabled it to serve right up into Los Angeles Transit Lines ownership in 1944. Its final years were served on the "V" Line and, on September 10, 1950, No. 950 was laid to rest at Division One Carhouse. On April 2, 1951, it was sold to National Metals in Terminal Island and, unlike its riders, was not laid peacefully to rest six feet under. Instead, it was ignominiously burned and broken up for scrap. 

The tomb-like interior of LARy No. 950.
Reminds me of a New Orleans "Perley" car.
(Ira L. Swett)

Spirits Over the Summit

Descanso at Division 3 Carhouse on July 24, 1938.
(Jeffrey J. Moreau, SCRM)

When the original Descanso was rebuilt into No. 1101, then No. 950, the little Paraiso inherited the name of its bigger sister. After the second rebuild of the 950 was completed, LARy hoped to keep using the little "Descanso" for any spare funeral service and set about rebuilding the car. Like the 950, Descanso received integrated Mazda headlights, GE 249B motor upgrades, and now sported twenty mohair-plush changeover seats with chromed handles. Unfortunately, there is no evidence of the Descanso ever serving as a funeral car after February 1924, and the car sat unused at Division Two Carhouse (South Park Shops' storage area) for the next decade. Its last time in the land of the living was in February 1939, when the car performed its own "Last Rites" by serving as a chartered excursion car for the Railroad Boosters. It was the last time the car moved under its own power. After this, the car was stripped of its motors and gears and stored for another year before being given to the Railroad Boosters (now the Pacific Railroad Society, or PRS) on July 3, 1940.

Descanso at Summit Station, with the ATSF/UP tracks behind the photographer's view,
(SCRM)

PRS Member L.T. Gotchy using the stove
inside the Descanso, May 26, 1961.
(Allen Reid, San Bernardino Sun)

The Descanso and its motorless trucks were immediately trucked up to the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway's Summit station on Cajon Pass, where the PRS used her as a train spotter's clubhouse. Located just 400 feet from the Santa Fe/Union Pacific mainline, many railfans had an excellent view to watch passenger and freight trains roll by, and even camp out inside. Instead of a dreary light grey, the car was refinished into a bright daffodil yellow with a red stripe along the beltline and a silver metallic roof to reflect the sunlight away. Inside, her interior was gutted to add in sleeping bunks, meeting tables, cabinets, and a basic kitchen with refrigerator and stove. The Santa Fe was welcoming to the PRS setting up their clubhouse near their tracks, and charged the railfans a rent of $1 a year to maintain the site, so long as they cleaned up after themselves. Descanso's time in the sun lasted until April 1967, when Southern Pacific informed the PRS they were building a new bypass from Palmdale to Colton and the tracks were now too close to the clubhouse. After much deliberation on where to send the car (Traveltown was an option) and voting, it was decided (161-70) that the PRS would now house its funeral car at the Orange Empire Trolley Museum (now the Southern California Railway Museum, or SCRM) in Perris, California. The car was moved off Summit on April 30, 1967, and installed at the SCRM on May 1.

Descanso is dragged off her perch and onto a truck to her new home in Perris, April 30, 1967.
(SCRM)

From the Ashes

Descanso at its initial display plinth in front of SCRM
Carhouse 1, with a Kyoto car on Broadway, 1970s.
(SCRM collection)

When the Descanso first arrived at the museum, it was decided that it would be displayed separately from the other trolleys as it was still property of the PRS. For sixteen years, it sat in the park directly across Carhouse 1 at the SCRM, on the southwest corner of Alpine and Broadway, where it was subject to the outside elements. The car began looking less like a lady of class and more like an actual corpse, with wood rot and other advanced aging taking its toll, until finally the PRS and the SCRM came together to build a new extension to Carhouse One that could store even more of its LA Railway fleet, including the Descanso. On June 18, 1983, after two years of construction, Descanso finally moved into the new Carhouse 3. In 1991, the funeral car's fate was sealed as it underwent an intense rebuild back into its "1921" appearance.

The Descanso is very rarely open for tourists to walk inside,
but as shown outside Carhouse 3, such tours are available.
(John Smatlak, SCRM)

Most of the remaining interior fixtures and all of the stained glass was retained, and new fixtures were installed wherever possible. Eight wicker wingback seats were also restored, along with ten plush "changeover" seats. Even the original light grey scheme was restored, with careful attention paid to keeping the painted name and filigree as accurate as possible. The only thing the restoration did not cover were motors for the trucks, as it was decided most of the Descanso's wooden body was too original (and thus, too old) to operate, even sparingly. Eventually, the car was moved into Carhouse 1 and a deck was built to allow museumgoers to peek into the car from the outside, with a prop casket placed inside the car. In spite of all of the rumors, the casket inside is empty but one former SCRM member has taken permanent residence inside. Member Ken Davis' ashes is stowed in an urn in the casket compartment, along with his driver's license, per his last wishes.

The Descanso, as photographed on Halloween night, 2019.
(Myself)

While we at Twice-Weekly Trolley History can neither confirm nor deny the existence of ghosts, that has not stopped both volunteers and the general public from feeling creeped out about the Descanso. Some have even alleged to seeing ghosts inside or walking around the car, as one general public member noted on Halloween 2019, when she alleged a "woman in black" was seen walking around the car. Despite all the ghost stories, the Descanso remains a unique item in street railway history as possibly the only funeral streetcar preserved in the United States, and will continue to haunt the SCRM for decades and decades to come.

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, watch your step as you alight on the platform, and now a ghost will follow you home! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! My resources today included "The Yellow Cars of Los Angeles" by Jim Walker and Ira L. Swett and the archives and members of the Southern California Railway Museum. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by myself and can be found under “Motorman Reymond’s Railroad Gif Carhouse”. On Tuesday, we look at two classes of LA Railway low-floor experimental cars that gave way to the PCCs the yellow cars are more famous for. 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!