LAMTA 3137 and 3143: On the Road to Oblivion

By Ralph Cantos

All-electric PCCs nos. 3137 and 3143 were photographed by the late Jerry Squire; this image is courtesy the Andy Goddard collection. The two-truck caravan is pictured here on Alameda Street. Soon the cars will arrive at the LA Harbor where they and over 100 of their sister PCCs will be loaded aboard ships that will take them to faraway Cairo, Egypt and a life of horror.

LA’s 40 all-electrics were the “Cadillacs” of LA’s narrow gauge street railway system. Fast, smooth, and quiet were just some of the wonderful features of the cars. The postwar PCCs built by St. Louis Car Co. and Pullman Standard were the apex of city street railway transportation across this country. And yet, here we see two of LA’s finest, headed to a life in a third world city. Retired after just 15 years of splendid and reliable service, there just does not seem to be any rational explanation for this act of urban vandalism.

I was a regular commuter of LA’s PCCs for several years, right up to the day of abandonment. To the credit of the LAMTA, that I despised, the cars were were all maintained in excellent, impeccable condition to the very end. The abandonment made no sense to me, and I made my very vocal and caustic views on the matter known to the LA Times, Mayor Yorty, George Putnam (the “Paul Harvey” of Los Angeles, for those not from here), and anyone else that would listen, much to the irritation of LAMTA Special Agents who made repeated visits to my house.

Indeed, LAMTA officials made verbal threats to “cease and desist”…..”OR ELSE.” In the end, it was all for nothing. The LAMTA did not have to answer to anyone, they did as they pleased. And so LA’s PCC system, with DECADES of service life remaining, was sacrificed on the altar of “progress.”

I rode the “New #26 Pico Bus line” on the first week day of the “Silverliner” bus service with its “improved curb service.” The level of comfort was an inferior, appalling experience, to say the least. After just one week of this “new and improved service,” I said to HELL with LA’s public transit and like millions of other Angelenos, started driving to school (LA Trade Tech) and later in the day, to work. In the months that followed, I watched through the windshield of my car as all traces of the PCC system that I so revered, disappeared before my eyes.

It was not until the opening of the Long Beach Blue Blue Line in July of 1990, that I returned to LA’s public transit system. And speaking of that fiasco, if anyone had paid any attention to me and the 8000 Long Beach line commuters that signed my petitions back in 1960, taxpayers could have saved $700 million to reinstate something that was already there. A bunch of damn fools running this city at that time….

Jerry Squire Photo, Andy Goddard Collection

The Life and Times of Pacific Electric 1260

Here are a collection of images of Pacific Electric no. 1260, its many adventures and even a prominent mishap, all captured by photographers back in the day.

Jack Finn Print Collection. Craig Rasmussen print. From the PERyhs.org archive. Photographer: Unknown Location: Westbound on the Santa Monica Air Line crossing Vermont Ave. Date: 1949 Railroad: Pacific Electric Line: Air Line Car#: PE 1260 PE 1227 Notes on back of print: Santa Monica Air Line: 1260 - 1227, W.B. at Vermont Ave, 1949 LATL Strike Collection of Craig A Rasmussen Image notes: Photo appears in Interurbans Special Western District page 53. Photo credited to Magna Collection.
Jack Finn Print Collection. Craig Rasmussen print. From the PERyhs.org archive.
Photographer: Unknown
Location: Westbound on the Santa Monica Air Line crossing Vermont Ave.
Date: 1949
Railroad: Pacific Electric
Line: Air Line
Car#: PE 1260 PE 1227
Notes on back of print: Santa Monica Air Line: 1260 – 1227, W.B. at Vermont Ave, 1949 LATL Strike
Collection of Craig A Rasmussen
Image notes: Photo appears in Interurbans Special Western District page 53. Photo credited to Magna Collection.
Image from the Jack Finn collection. Photographer: Unknown Date: Unknown Location: San Pedro Street in downtown Los Angeles. Notes on back of print: PE 1260 J 734 Image Notes: Scanned from a 3 /14 x 5 3/4 inch print
Image from the Jack Finn collection.
Photographer: Unknown
Date: Unknown
Location: San Pedro Street in downtown Los Angeles.
Notes on back of print: PE 1260 J 734
Image Notes: Scanned from a 3 /14 x 5 3/4 inch print
Steve Crise Archive - Acme Photo - Photographer unknown Photographer: Acme Photo - Photographer unknown Location: San Pedro Street south of 6th Street, Los Angeles, California Date: November 28, 1943 Railroad: Pacific Electric Locomotive: PE 1260 Notes on back of 8x10 print: LA 23697 (Los Angeles Bureau) TWENTY-TWO ESCAPE INJURY - LOS ANGELES - Twenty-two passengers of this Pacific Electric car miraculously escaped without even a scratch when it jumped the tracks and overtuned. Faulty brakes were believed to have been the cause of the accident. Bureaus Coast CREDIT LINE (ACME) 11-28-43 From Acme Newspictures, Inc Los Angeles Bureau, 1257 So. Los Angeles Street. Please credit Acme Photo. This picture is sold to you for your publication only and must not be loaned syndicated or used for advertising purposes without written permission from Acme. Purchased from Historic Images 6073 Mt. Moriah Ext Memphis TN 38115 historicimages.com ney01237 October 2016
Steve Crise Archive – Acme Photo – Photographer unknown
Photographer: Acme Photo – Photographer unknown
Location: San Pedro Street south of 6th Street, Los Angeles, California
Date: November 28, 1943
Railroad: Pacific Electric
Locomotive: PE 1260
Notes on back of 8×10 print: LA 23697 (Los Angeles Bureau) TWENTY-TWO ESCAPE INJURY – LOS ANGELES – Twenty-two passengers of this Pacific Electric car miraculously escaped without even a scratch when it jumped the tracks and overtuned. Faulty brakes were believed to have been the cause of the accident. Bureaus Coast CREDIT LINE (ACME) 11-28-43 From Acme Newspictures, Inc Los Angeles Bureau, 1257 So. Los Angeles Street. Please credit Acme Photo. This picture is sold to you for your publication only and must not be loaned syndicated or used for advertising purposes without written permission from Acme.
Purchased from Historic Images
6073 Mt. Moriah Ext
Memphis TN 38115
historicimages.com ney01237 October 2016
Robert X Loewing photo, Craig Rasmussen collection. Steve Crise Archive Photographer: Robert X Lowing Date: April 1949 Railroad: Pacific Electric Railray Car#: PE 1260 Location: Sentous Yard, La Cienega Blvd at Jefferson Blvd, Los Angeles, California. Present day location of the La Cienega Expo Line station. Notes on back of 8 x 10 print: 1260 -1227 W.B. on Santa Monica Air Line at Sentous; 1949 (LATL Strike) Rob't X. Loewing Photo. Image notes: Photo taken during the 1949 Los Angeles Transit Lines strike. This explains the use of the 1200's on the Air Line.
Robert X Loewing photo, Craig Rasmussen collection. Steve Crise Archive
Photographer: Robert X Lowing
Date: April 1949
Railroad: Pacific Electric Railray
Car#: PE 1260
Location: Sentous Yard, La Cienega Blvd at Jefferson Blvd, Los Angeles, California. Present day location of the La Cienega Expo Line station.
Notes on back of 8 x 10 print: 1260 -1227 W.B. on Santa Monica Air Line at Sentous; 1949 (LATL Strike) Rob’t X. Loewing Photo.
Image notes: Photo taken during the 1949 Los Angeles Transit Lines strike. This explains the use of the 1200’s on the Air Line.

LAMTA 3148 at Watts: A fish out of water!

Jerry Squire Photo, Andy Goddard Collection

By Ralph Cantos

This photo, taken by the late Jerry Squire, is from the Andy Goddard mega-collection. PCC 3148, St. Louis Car Co. class of 1948, rolls south at Watts in the early evening haze. It’s February 1960 and the LAMTA is in the midst of “test runs” using PCC 3148 hijacked from the very busy P line. The 3148 is riding on borrowed San Francisco Muni standard gauge B-3 trucks taken from their car no. 1024. The tests were being run to evaluate the possibility of continuing rail operation on the historic Long Beach Line. I have to admit, that even I, who was most critical of LAMTA, was really excited about these test runs. And as the late great Paul Harvey would often say, “The view out of the rear view mirror is a lot clearer than the view through the front windshield.”

He was indeed correct.

The LAMTA had everyone, myself included, “bamboozled” into believing that they really wanted to keep passenger service to Long Beach “a RAIL LINE.” As for me, I was convinced from day one that the LAMTA was nothing more than Metropolitan Coach Lines with a new name. Even the MCL two-tone green paint scheme was retained. There was no way in HELL that the LAMTA was going to keep using rail equipment of any kind to Long Beach. There were no used PCCs to be had at the time. Toronto and Mexico City had snapped up just about every last available used PCC in the America, with Tampico picking up the crumbs that were left. And even if there were used PCCs available, that would have meant costly modifications to the 6th & Main Street elevated station where a reverse loop would have to be constructed.

And of course there was the twenty miles of SP-owned roadbed that would have to be completely rebuilt to accommodate the PCC’s temperamental riding qualities. In reality, the LAMTA wanted out of 6th & Main, and anything and EVERYTHING else that ran on rails and was powered by electricity.

When the “BS” test runs were completed, the standard gauge trucks were returned to the MUNI and the 3148 went back to work on the P line, the busiest surface rail line in the US. About a year after the test runs were completed, hundreds of railfans, many from across the country, made the last run on the Long Beach Line, and like myself, with tears in their eyes.

The next order of business on the LAMTA agenda: wipe out and destroy the well-liked and profitable PCC operated R-S-J-V and P rail lines , and the LAMTA would stop at nothing until that dirty, dastardly deed was completed. Again quoiting Paul Harvey, “And now you know the rest of the story.”

Jerry Squire Photo, Andy Goddard Collection