Pacific Electric Railway
The
Pacific Electric Railway , also known as the
Red Car system, was a
mass transit system in
Southern California using
streetcars,
light rail and
buses. At its greatest extent, around 1925, the system connected cities in
Los Angeles and
Orange Counties, and to
Riverside County and
San Bernardino County in the
Inland Empire.
The system was divided into three districts:
* Northern District:
Pasadena,
San Gabriel Valley,
San Bernardino.
* Southern District:
Long Beach,
Newport,
San Pedro,
Santa Ana.
* Western District:
Hollywood,
Burbank/
Glendale,
San Fernando Valley,
Santa Monica.
Originally, there was an Eastern District, but this was incorporated into the Northern District early in the company's existence.
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Three tickets for passage on the PE. The top two (front and back views) between downtown LA and Santa Monica, the bottom for a transfer from Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley. |
The Pasadena and Pacific railroad was an
1895 merger between the
Pasadena and Los Angeles and the
Los Angeles and Pacific. It boosted tourism by living up to its motto "from the mountains to the sea."
During this time, the Pacific Electric Railway was established by railroad and real estate tycoon
Henry Huntington in
1901. Henry's uncle,
Collis P. Huntington, was one of the founders of the
Southern Pacific Railroad and had bequeathed Henry a huge fortune upon his death. Only a few years after the company's formation, most of Pacific Electric's stock was purchased by the Southern Pacific Railroad, which Henry Huntington had tried and failed to gain control of a decade earlier. In 1911, Southern Pacific bought out Huntington completely and also purchased several other passenger railway operators in the Los Angeles area including Pasadena and Pacific, resulting in the "Great Merger" of 1911. At this point the Pacific Electric became the largest operator of
interurban electric railway passenger service in the world, with over 1,000 miles of track. The Pacific Electric also ran frequent freight trains under electric power throughout its service area, including one of the few electrically-powered Railway Post Office routes in the country. The PE was also responsible for an innovation in grade crossing safety that was quickly adopted by other railroads, a fully automatic electromechanical grade crossing signal nicknamed the "
wigwag."
After the Great Merger, Henry Huntington purchased the company which provided local streetcar service in central Los Angeles and nearby communities, the
Los Angeles Railway (LARy). These trolleys were known as the "Yellow Cars," and actually carried more passengers than the PE's "
" since they ran in the most densely populated portion of Los Angeles.
Throughout their existence, the Pacific Electric and its predecessor railroads frequently lost money on passenger operations. There were very few years in which the company's balance sheets showed a profit, most notably those years during
World War II, when
gasoline was rationed and automobiles were not manufactured. Huntington's involvement with urban rail was intimately tied to his real estate development operations: in the pre-automobile era, electric
interurban rail was the only way to connect outlying
suburban and
exurban parcels to central cities, and residential development of these was so lucrative that Huntington and Southern Pacific could use the Red Car as a
loss leader. However, most of the company's holdings had been developed by 1920; as the company's major source cash flow began to run dry, profitability concerns meant that the least-used Red Car lines were converted to cheaper buses as early as 1925. Those lines that had enough ridership to remain profitable began to suffer the effects of
traffic congestion.
Although the railway did own extensive exclusive private rights-of-way, usually in between urban areas, much of the Pacific Electric trackage in urban areas was in street lanes that were shared with automobiles and trucks, and virtually all street crossings were at-grade, meaning that ever-increasing automobile traffic led to ever-decreasing Red Car speeds along much of its trackage. At its nadir, the very busy Santa Monica Boulevard line, which connected Santa Monica and
Hollywood, had an average speed of
only 13 miles per hour, similar to the average speed today on Los Angeles area freeways. The company carried increased passenger loads during
World War II, when Los Angeles County's population nearly doubled as war industries concentrated in the region and attracted millions of workers and their families. Aware that most of the new arrivals planned to stay in the region after the war, local governments agreed that a massive infrastructure improvement program was necessary to prevent gridlock. At that time the public demanded, and politicians agreed to construct, a web of
freeways across the region. This was seen as a better solution than a new mass transit system or an upgrade of the Pacific Electric, and large-scale destruction of neighborhoods for freeway construction began in 1951.
Pacific Electric passenger service was sold off in
1953 to a company known as Metropolitan Coach Lines, whose intention was to convert all rail service to bus service as quickly as possible. Many of the Pacific Electric passenger lines were shut down in 1954, but the California state government would not allow the most popular lines to be discontinued. In 1958, Metropolitan Coach Lines relinquished control of the remaining rail lines to a government agency, the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which also took over the remaining streetcar lines of the successor of the Los Angeles Railway, the Los Angeles Transit Lines. Only a handful of electric train lines remained operating at that time and the conventional wisdom held that their days were numbered. The last passenger line of the Pacific Electric, the line from Los Angeles to Long Beach, continued until
April 9,
1961. With the closure of the Long Beach line, the final link in the system as well as the PE's first line some sixty years prior, was eliminated. The PE's freight service was continued by the
Southern Pacific Railroad and operated under the Pacific Electric name through
1964. The few remaining former Los Angeles Railway streetcar lines were removed in 1963. The majority of the surviving pieces of Pacific Electric rolling stock can be both viewed and ridden at the
Orange Empire Railway Museum in
Perris.
The "General Motors conspiracy"
The end of the Red Cars has been tied by some to the alleged
General Motors streetcar conspiracy, in which a consortium of
General Motors,
Standard Oil, and others formed a front company,
National City Lines, in order to buy streetcar lines, shut them down, and replace them with buses. The plot of the movie
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is loosely based on this theory. While the overwhelming body of evidence shows that National City Lines did perform such actions, many other factors also contributed to the decline of electric traction in the United States, including rising real estate values, federal regulations that power utilities could not own trolley systems, and the inability of traction lines to modernize their ageing equipment and rolling stock due to low revenues. Pacific Electric itself was operating buses as early as the 1920s, and began removing streetcar lines as early as the early 1930's.
Throughout the Pacific Electric's history, a variety of improvements in service or new systems were proposed, including
subway trains and
monorails. Political and popular will transformed the Los Angeles megalopolis into an automotive utopia paved with hundreds of miles of superhighways. Very few lamented the decline and disappearance of rail-based mass transit in Los Angeles.
Beginning in the 1970s, a variety of factors, including environmental concerns, an ever-swelling population and the price of gasoline, led to increased calls for mass transit other than buses to make a return to Los Angeles. After decades, the wheels of government began to slowly move forward, and construction began on the
Los Angeles County Metro Rail system in 1985.
In 1990, electric rail passenger train service once again returned to Los Angeles with the opening of the
Blue Line. This line runs from downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach, using most of the same trackage as the original Pacific Electric line that was discontinued in 1961. Since then, the
Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has opened up several more lines. Following the Blue Line, the subway
Red Line opened in three parts, connecting
North Hollywood to
Union Station in central Los Angeles. In 1995, the
Green Line opened, which runs in the median of
Interstate 105. The latest light rail line to open is the mostly at-grade
Gold Line, which connects
Pasadena to
downtown Los Angeles along former
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (ATSF) trackage, including a historic 1895 railroad bridge across the
Arroyo Seco.
On
July 19,
2003, a 1.5 mile streetcar line connecting the cruise ship terminal with other attractions along the
San Pedro waterfront began operation. This currently functions as a tourist attraction only. Two Red Car replicas provide service along the line. In addition, a restored 1907-vintage Pacific Electric car is available for special operations. This was financed and constructed by the
Port of Los Angeles as part of its waterfront revival effort. There are plans to extend this line approximately two more miles to the
Cabrillo Aquarium. Trackage is in place, but funding for additional improvements has not been identified at this time. Some transit advocates have propsed linking this line to the Blue Line in Long Beach, but this would be a much more intensive and expensive project.
More rail lines are in the planning and building stages. In 2009, the Gold Line Eastside Extension will connect
East Los Angeles to Downtown. There are several proposals for connecting the congested
West Los Angeles area with rail service. THe LACMTA will construct the
Exposition Line, a light rail line. A color has not yet been assigned to this line. The LACMTA has announced that money is available for the construction, which will begin in late 2006.
Other groups are lobbying to extend the Red Line to the west on Wilshire Boulevard, the city's most densely populated corridor, as was originally planned in the 1980s. In 2005, Mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa made as one of his most publicized campaign promises a pledge to set the wheels in motion for eventual construction of the "Subway to the Sea" as he called it.
It is unlikely that the
Metro Rail system (without including the hundreds of miles of
Metrolink commuter line track) will ever have as much track as the Pacific Electric, given increases in construction costs and the complexity of contemporary environmental regulations. But mass transit advocates have heralded as necessary and successful whatever rail trackage has been rebuilt to this point.
*
General Motors streetcar conspiracy*
Los Angeles Railway*
National City Lines*
San Diego Electric Railway*
*
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The Pacific Electric Railway main company depot at Sixth Street and Main Street in downtown Los Angeles, circa 1915. This building has been converted to residential lofts, with the first tenants moving in as of August 2005. The train shed from which trolley cars are seen exiting in this photo now serves as a parking garage for automobiles. |
*
Bill Volkmer's collection of Red Car Photos and post cards*
Corralitas Red Car Property*
Electric Railway Historical Association of Southern California*
Orange Empire Railway Museum official website
*
L.A. Port waterfront Red Car line*
Pacific Electric Photos by Jim Stubchaer*
Pacific Electric Railway Monument*
Pacific Electric Subway*
Pacific Electric System Map 1949*
Proposal to bring the Red Car back to Downtown Los Angeles*
The Red Cars of Los Angeles*
Subway Tunnel Aerial Maps*
Tours in a Bygone Era*
Mapping Los Angeles' Electric Railways
