[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]By Ralph Cantos

This first photo, looking north-east taken around 1949 shows a 2-car, eastbound morning rush hour train of venerable 950s crossing La Cienega and Venice Boulevards on the magnificent concert and steel bridge spanning the busy intersection. This important intersection had a tendency to flood during heavy rain storms, disrupting rail operations along the busy VSL. After all, La Cienega is Spanish for “The Swamp.” The magnificent structure was completed about 1925 giving VSL trains a safe, dry passage over the intersection, the Swamp be damned.[/vc_column_text][mk_image src=”https://www.pacificelectric.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/pe-vsl-viaduct-over-la-cienega-1953.jpg” image_size=”full” lightbox=”true”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1547478244055{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]A little more then 3 years later, this beautiful structure stands proud, but abandoned. The replacement bus service left to struggle in ever-increasing auto traffic along Venice Boulevard. By 1948 the PE was faced with falling ridership on the VSL. If the PE wanted to continue rail service, an major expenditure of almost 4 million dollars was needed to modernize and rebuild the  line. About 40 new PCCs would be needed. Also needed,  a complete rebuild of track, overhead, signaling and substations. Then too, the plans for the future Santa Monica Freeway  had been finalized.  Knowing  the devastation the Arroyo Seco Parkway had done to PE’s Pasadena Short Line passenger loadings, parent company Southern Pacific was not about to make a major financial investment into a sinking ship. Replacement bus service could be implemented  at a cost of about 2 million dollars.  And so, on September 17, 1950, the VSL, with its future rapid transit potential, passed into history.[/vc_column_text][mk_image src=”https://www.pacificelectric.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/pe-abandonded-vsl-over-pass-venice-at-la-cienega-1953.jpg” image_size=”full” lightbox=”true”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1547478341414{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]In another photo taken in mid-1953 looking east towards Downtown LA,  the magnificent Venice-La Cienega bridge stands stripped bare of rail, catenary overhead and  block signals. It would remain standing until 1964 when  construction  of the “Futuristic” Santa Monica Freeway reached this area. The eastern approach to the bridge was in the way of the new freeway, and so, the very freeway that had cast a dark shadow on the VSL back in 1948,  clamed its last VSL victim. By the end of 1964, the bridge with all it majesty, was gone, leaving buses, trucks and automobiles to once again deal with “THE SWAMP.” And as for the Santa Monica Freeway, it may have been an AUTOMOTIVE UTOPIA  when first built, but today, it’s an “AUTOMOTIVE QUAGMIRE.”  If your were to ask any motorist that drives that mess every day, they might answer “it sure would be nice if there was  a rapid transit line on Venice Boulevard.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

By Ralph Cantos

The former Pacific Electric Hollywood car no. 711, now renumbered to 5161 and looking “as good as new,” rolls along Hollywood Boulevard at La Brea Avenue in this undated photo.

Ralph Cantos Collection

By Ralph Cantos

Freshly outshopped Pacific Electric no. 711 is seen here at West Hollywood yard in 1941 awaiting an appointment with a metal surgeon at the Torrance Shops hospital for some reconstructive facial surgery on its handsome face. What ever the 711 hit, it must have been big and heavy to do this type of damage to these sturdy cars. Had this accident happened ten years later, the 711, (by then renumbered to 5161) would have been dispatched to the SP’s Alhambra Shops for scrapping.

Ralph Cantos Collection

By Ralph Cantos

Pacific Electric Hollywood car no. 711 is seen here, inbound to the Subway Terminal at Ivar Street. As built, the Hollywood cars were fast accelerating, but had a top speed of just 28-30 mph. Although these versatile cars could be found providing dependable service on many 600-volt lines around the vast PE rail system, it was Hollywood Boulevard that they called home and where they would become world famous. It did not take the PE management very long to realize that they had a true winner with these cars.

Starting in 1938 and into 1940-41, the Hollywood cars were “speeded up” to meet ever faster schedules. At first, cars 735 to 749 were spruced up for service on the San Fernando Valley line. The 15 cars were given a large roof top roller destination sign salvaged from retired 800-class cars. These 15 cars all but replaced the last of the legendary 800s which had been a staple of the Valley line for decades. As a final touch, the “Valley 7s” as they became known, sported a new paint scheme. PE management were so pleased by the speeded up cars, that the company embarked on a system-wide “modernization” program of just about all of PE’s steel cars. All 160 Hollywood cars, Valley 7s included , were given a new, very attractive paint scheme inspired by parent company Southern Pacific Daylight passenger trains.

As the years passed, the Hollywood cars could be found holding down more and more runs that were peevishly served by larger cars such as the 950s, 1000s and the 1100s. Around 1949-50, the PE embarked on a cost-saving measure by making many of the Hollywoods “one man” cars. Car no. 711 would become no. 5161 and finished out her career on the Glendale – Burbank Line. The PE certainly got their money’s worth from these fine cars.

Ralph Cantos Collection