Pacific Electric

From Jeff Lear: My great grandfather was a mechanic and an avid photographer during the early part of the 20th Century. In one of my albums (which I’ve now made public) are several pictures [...]

Here’s a vintage promotional film by Ford Motor Company documenting Los Angeles in the 1920s. Lots of action and a great perspective into how wonderful Los Angeles was as a young city in [...]

We’re thrilled to share this found footage from none other than Amsterdam, the Netherlands, by Frank M. Wiggers, who like us, shares a passion for anything railroad and mass transit. He [...]

By Ralph Cantos This remarkable photograph taken from high atop the Pacific Electric building looks down on Main Street at 6th. A mix of southbound Los Angeles Railway (LARy) and PE cars stretch [...]

From contributor Terry Salmans, who found this Orange County Archives image on Flickr: The photo is at the end of track on 4th St. at the Southern Pacific Santa Ana Station. Note the hood over [...]

By Ralph Cantos This beautiful photo taken by Ralph Melching from the Beverly Boulevard viaduct looks down on Pacific Electric’s Toluca Yard in the summer of 1941. The freshly modernized [...]

From the collection of Alan Fishel, who graciously allowed us to reprint these images here, come this small collection from the camera of traction documentarian and legend Ira Swett. As you may [...]

From the Jack Finn collection comes this original, blue-border Ektachrome slide that hasn’t totally faded: Pacific Electric Hollywood car no. 5114 eastbound on Hollywood Blvd. at Whitley [...]

Here’s an amazing training video produced probably by the Los Angeles Police Department traffic division, from 1946, showing downtown Los Angeles in the immediate postwar period. LATL PCCs, [...]

By Ralph Cantos Pacific Electric no. 1498 (originally car no. 881) is seen here on display at Travel Town around 1970. In 1940 she and four other 800s were converted to Express Motors. During [...]