Glendale & Montrose No. 10 at Forest Lawn in Glendale, circa 1924

Glendale & Montrose no. 10, seen on the left, is making a passenger stop at the entrance of Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Glendale, California. The exact date is of this photograph is not known. However, a photo made at the American Car Company of no. 10’s sister car, no. 12, that is dated December 14, 1923, suggests that this photo was made shortly after three of these double-truck Birney cars arrived on the G&M property. Number 10 is not yet sporting its once-familiar white paint job on the faces of these types of cars. This fact suggests that no. 10 is very close to being brand new.

When passenger service ended in 1930 on the G&M, these still relatively new cars sat on the dead line at Pacific Electric’s Torrance Shops until 1937, when apparently nos. 10 & 12 were given away to the San Diego Electric Railway, in which they promptly spent over $12,000.00 refurbishing both cars for service. G&M no. 11 was not so lucky and was cut up for scrap in 1937.

Cars numbered 10 and 12 were renumbered 351 and 352, respectively, and carried passengers on the Number 20 Coronado Island Line for another 10 years until June 1, 1947 when they too were finally scrapped.

Charles E. Wright photo, Mark Effle Collection

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Showing 7 comments
  • dave garcia
    Reply

    G&M 11 suffered an interior fire while in storage at Torrance. When the other two cars were being loaded at Torrance, San Diego Electric personnel were allowed to remove what parts they cared to take. Trucks with motors, resistor grids, air tanks, air compressor, seat frames, door operators being mentioned. Source: Mr. Mark Lothian, a long time SDE, San Diego Transit equipment maintenance employee, in a conversation circa 1975. Mr. Lothian said that he was given much of the removal work inside of the car. He said that at the end of the day he looked like an old fashioned comedian in black face.

  • Al Donnelly
    Reply

    An early view of this gate area appears on this site related to the lost town of Tropico (Glendale after 1918): https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/the-lost-city-of-tropico-california

  • Donald A Bilinski Jr
    Reply

    Is there museum one could visit?

  • Al Donnelly
    Reply

    More information on steam & electric services through Tropico and Glendale can be culled from the pamphlets found on OAC Calisphere here: https://calisphere.org/collections/22923/
    Weston photos of this front gate are in the Glendale pamphlets.
    Warning…larger PDF files here result in ibooks dumping you near the last pages. The Glendale Library has been sent a query as to the technical problem.

  • Mike Tietz
    Reply

    I was born in 1948 in Glendale. For the first 5 or 6 years of my life I do remember riding the red cars up and down Brand Bl. in Glendale. My mother was raised in Atwater and told me stories of her and her friends riding the red cars to school or over to the beach through I think Los Feliz Bl. I spent many years watching the Glendale area change but can still find my grandparents house. All of them now rest at Forest Lawn. I am a model railroader and have recently acquired some Pacific Electric freight cars. One out of the Santa Monica Maritime division in red, one from Electric Crane Service division of Torrance in white and a few others. All brand new in there original boxes. I need to assemble them yet. Coming into these from an estate sale has renewed my interest in my past in the area. I also remember as a young 16 or 17 year old driving over in the West LA and Santa Monica areas of Pico BL. and seeing the tracks still in the roadway. Don’t remember any rail traffic there but what was left of it probably moved late at night. Just thought I would pass this on as it brings many fond memories back to me. Thanks, Mike.

    • Pacific Electric
      Reply

      Welcome, Mike! – Ed.

  • Al Donnelly
    Reply

    Found there is an old page on trainorders which covered the routings and point names of the Union Pacific freight services that remained after the G&M era. There also exists a couple of photos related to this tree up by the tracks which was a well known old valley survey marker due to to its’ age. A commemorative plaque-on-stone had been place by it long ago but seems to be lost in time. A known postcard of the Sparr Fruit Company packing shed in a Glendale “Industrial District” with refeers out front seems to point to somewhere along Glendale Avenue, but I could not find any clear facts on this. Sparr had sheds in many locations…generally better documented.

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