Trolley Tuesday 9/28/21 - The Lines of the LA Metro

There are some who say that less is more, but not so in rapid transit circles. After all, to move the almost 4 million people who call Los Angeles home, one would need a more substantial mass-transit railway than the six lines we have today. And yet, in the same vein as their predecessors in the Pacific Electric (PE) and Los Angeles Railways (LARy), the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (or LACMTA, just the "Metro" for short) continues to provide the best possible service in a county both supportive, disappointed, and downright hostile to its light rail and subway systems. On today's Trolley Tuesday, we take a brief look at each line and what makes it special after discussing their origins last week, so please grab your TAP card, mind the doors, and enjoy a ride on the Metro!

Trolley Thursday 9/23/21 - The (Very Dense) History of the LA Metro

Over one-hundred years ago, the city of Los Angeles boasted the finest interurban transit system in the world, spanning three counties with over one thousand miles of track. The Pacific Electric Railway (PE) hauled everything from daily commuters and freight to special horse-racing and Catalina ferry trains and became inexorably linked to Los Angeles' identity as it recovered from World War II. And then... it was gone.

Today, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit District (better known as the LAMTA) seeks to reinvigorate what we lost in the wake of the PE and the Los Angeles Railway (LARy) being shut down in favor of increased bus use and car-centric road design. Despite having only a tenth of PE's tracks, LA's light rail and subways continue to look ever forward to that final frontier of efficient rapid transit, and it's why we are highlighting its history on today's Trolley Thursday!

Trolley Tuesday 9/21/21 - My Birthday!

My birthday in 2019, held at the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood, CA.
The car is PE 800-class No. 913, now part of the restaurant and restored to her original colors.
(Myself)

Hey riders and readers, just a quick message while we get ready to finish the month of September! Things have been busy lately on my end (school, hobbies, etc), but I want to tell you all that we're gonna finish off the month very strong with a three-parter on the Los Angeles Metro light-rail and rapid-transit systems! In the meantime, happy birthday to me and you all have a great day!

Trolley Thursday 9/9/21 - Angel's Flight

Deep in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, among all of the modern skyscrapers and historic Beaux-Arts buildings, lies a rather unsuspecting and quite strange railway. It's the shortest public railway in Los Angeles, at just 298 feet in length, and has since been superseded by a concrete stairwell that travels right beside it up the side of Bunker Hill. And yet, it remains one of the city's most popular and well-traveled tourist attractions (if you count being "well-traveled" as "moving about 300 feet south of its original site". Yes, on today's (delayed) Trolley Thursday, we drop all pretenses and take a magnifying glass to Los Angeles' longest running "rapid" transit railway, Angel's Flight! Grab your La-La Land DVD and join us as we ascend through this unique funicular's histo-oh, we're already at the top.

Trolley Tuesday 9/7/21 - Trolley Parks

Everybody likes a good amusement park, which is basically the coldest take ever uttered on this blog, but often the journey to an amusement park is the hell before the heaven. Gridlock traffic on the freeway, gridlock getting into the parking structures, having to pay $25 just to park, it all feels so stressful without factoring in a day's itinerary! What if there was a way to get to an amusement park without having to worry about getting there? Well, before the dominance of the automobile, streetcar and interurban companies had that business easily handled. On today's Trolley Tuesday, we'll look at one of the lesser-known yet very-much-fun aspects of electric railroading: the passenger-pleasing and profit-generating Trolley Park!

Trolley Thursday 9/2/21 - Frank J. Sprague, Father of the Streetcar

Welcome to another brand new month of trolley-posting here at Twice-Weekly Trolley History! For the month of September, we have no real theme this time, but we hope the variety can keep you riders and readers interested!

The electric motor. The trolley pole. Air brakes. We all seem to take these things for granted when we stand back and examine what a streetcar is. After all, hindsight breeds common sense: it makes sense to us to have a stick reaching up and gathering electricity, which feeds a traction motor attached directly to an axle to move the car. But how did these elements come together in the first place? Why did this process work and not a rolling troller on a wire? And who, above all, profited from these patents? Well, dear riders, we have the answer to those queries on today's Trolley Tuesday and his name is Frank J. Sprague, inventor.

Trolley Tuesday 8/31/21 - Cars of the San Diego MTS

Welcome to the last Trolley post of this very inconsistent month! On behalf of my editor and I, thank you to all our generous rider and supporters who continue to read our articles and learn more about everything that we write here. We promise September will be a return to form with no gaps or inconsistent posting times.

For our last Trolley Tuesday of the month, we thought it would be a good idea to look at the light-rail cars of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) and see how forward-thinking this pioneering system really was. Because they were among the first real light-rail comebacks in America (as systems like Muni never really stopped running at all), San Diego's light rail fleet was able to pioneer a lot of light rail tropes that we take for granted today while also handling eventual problems that many of us see as normal. So, without further ado, let's jump right into the cars!

Trolley Thursday 8/26/21 - The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System

After long delays and your patient understanding, we are now at the end of our San Diegan streetcar story! Before Los Angeles re-embraced its light rail, and so did the rest of the country, America's Finest City led the rallying cry for better light rail in defiance of filthy motor buses and car culture that choked city streets and the citizens that rolled upon them. However, unlike many of these stories, San Diego was not doing this to spark a revolution; rather they did it to fix a problem that had plagued them for 31 years after the last PCC pulled its pole off the wire and went into storage. Today, the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) stands as a testament to what modern light rail can do to reinvigorate a city, and it is appropriate that a story started by John D. Spreckels deserves to have a sweet ending.

Trolley Tuesday 8/10/21 - The Cars of the San Diego Electric Railway

On Thursday, we covered the general history of the San Diego Electric Railway (SDERy), a sprawling 100-or-so mile electric railway system that helped grow America's Finest City into the international port it is today. On this Trolley Tuesday, we'll be opening up the Adams Avenue Carbarn and looking at the many varied streetcars the SDERy rostered. From the usual smatterings of horsecars and cable cars, to home-grown designs and pioneering streetcars, we have it all! So sit back, ride and relax, and enjoy today's post!

Trolley Thursday 8/5/21 - The San Diego Electric Railway

Welcome to another month of streetcar history and stories on Twice-Weekly Trolley History! For this month, we'll be focusing on the ongoing story of San Diego's streetcars, starting with the original San Diego Electric Railway, or SDERy. San Diego has always been thought of as one of America's "World Class cities", as it was usually the first city encountered by northbound ships coming out the west side of the Panama Canal, and by the early 20th century it had already established itself as a major hub of ferry traffic, fish, lumber, and shipbuilding, to say nothing of its economic promise or its beach tourism traffic fueled by hoteliers and land development. In order for San Diego to become a "City in Motion", though, it needed the momentum of streetcars to make it America's Finest City. On today's Trolley Thursday, let's look back on the history of this legendary system and how it's set up America's current light rail craze.