By Ralph Cantos

This very rare photo taken in 1914 shows Pacific Electric car no. 214 southbound on the new El Segundo Line, just after leaving Watts.

Like the Santa Monica Air Line, passenger service on the El Segundo Line seemed to be an “afterthought” to the PE brass. The big money on both lines, was FREIGHT, and in the case of the El Segundo, lots of it. While the Air Line handled all manor of general freight, on the El Segundo Line, it was BLACK GOLD….OIL that kept the green money rolling into the PE revenue books and lots of that too.

Passenger revenues on both lines — that was another matter.

Passenger service to El Segundo was inaugurated when the line opened in August of 1914. And again like the Air Line, passengers were not packing the cars in sufficient numbers to make the line as important to the PE’s Passenger Department as other Southern District Lines, chief among them, of course, the Long Beach Line.

After just 15 years , PE pulled the plug on El Segundo passenger service; it was gone by the end of October 1930.

The El Segundo Line did not have the legions of loyal passengers like the Santa Monica Air Line did (all 75 of them), and so passenger service on the Air Line was whittled away until the final, one-car-a-day schedule went into effect in 1933 and lasted to the bitter end in October of 1953. Both Lines continued and thrived as freight lines for decades after the last passenger services made final runs on both lines.

Today, the Santa Monica Air Line has been reborn as the LACMTA Metro Rail-Expo Line. And someday, thanks in part to the passage of Measure M , passengers wishing to travel from Los Angeles and points in-between to El Segundo by rail, might again do so via an extended Metro Green line.

Only time will tell.

Ralph Cantos Collection

By Ralph Cantos

This nice post card dating from about 1923-25 shows Pacific Electric car no. 578 westbound on the East Broadway Line in Glendale.

The HOTEL GLENDALE dominates the intersection of Glendale Avenue and East Broadway. This was a very important intersection in the City of Glendale. It was here that the PE interchanged with the struggling Glendale & Montrose Railway. The G&M operated along the center of Verdugo Road from downtown Montrose on the north to an interchange with the Union Pacific Railroad in south Glendale. A short branch to connect with the Los Angeles Railway E Line diverged off the Verdugo Main line via Wilson Avenue-Broadway-and-Colorado Streets where the LARY connection was made in Eagle Rock. (The 5 Line)

PE’s 500s were the backbone of the railway’s suburban operations until the coming of the Hollywood cars in 1922-23. Even though the Hollywood cars were designed and built specifically for service on the Hollywood Boulevard line, the PE brass soon realized that they had a winner in the Hollywood cars, and the 600s began to replace the 500s en masse.

Today, except for the G&M car house in Montrose, most all traces of the little railway are gone. The building at East Broadway and Glendale Avenue that was once the HOTEL GLENDALE still stands today, although repurposed as another enterprise.

The PE equipped the East Broadway Line with its beautiful Pullman PCCs in 1941. A dubious distinction befell the PE PCCs when in 1946, the East Broadway line was abandoned. It was the first PCC-operated car line in the USA to be abandoned. But as history would soon prove, abandonments of PCC-operated streetcar lines in the 1950s would become all too commonplace. After the East Broadway Line, all of the San Diego Electric Railway’s PCCs were replaced by buses in 1949. The annihilation of the PCC had begun, but thankfully, complete annihilation was never achieved . To this day, fifty-plus-year-old PCCs still ply the streets and right-of-ways of several cities across the USA, the buses that replaced many of these same PCCs having been scrapped decades ago.

Ralph Cantos Collection

Editor’s Note: here is what appears to be the old Glendale & Montrose Railway carhouse in the back area of the current Anawalt Lumber location. It resembles the peaked roof design of the old Pacific Electric Watts and Ocean Park car houses.

By Ralph Cantos

For the last 20 years of the Pacific Electric Santa Monica Air Line’s existence, about 50 or so loyal regular commuters enjoyed a variety of equipment. The 1930s saw the mighty 800-class of heavy interurbans providing most of the “service” on the line, that being one morning inbound and one afternoon/evening westbound trip. The 1940s saw a mix of 950s and 1000s holding down the runs. For the last three years, a single Hollywood car provided the service to the dwindling passenger loads.

In this side-by-side photograph, just about 63 years separate the views taken at almost the exact same location in Cheviot Hills. On the left, Hollywood car no. 5112 is seen making the afternoon westbound trip in the last weeks of September 1953. Some 63 years later, an LACMTA test train passes the same location, known today as the Cheviot Hill Trench, in the weeks before the line’s opening in May 2016.

The success of the LACMTA’s EXPO RAIL LINE has been spectacular. The new line follows the original alignment for much of the way, starting at Exposition Park. The new line leaves the original route at 17th Street in Santa Monica and runs down Colorado Avenue parallel to the original right-of-way just 100 feet north of the original line. Numerous dangerous grade crossings have been replaced by spectacular aerial “fly overs.” The terminal at 4th & Colorado is built over the original right of way.

Passenger loadings have surpassed expectations by a large margin. Currently two- and three-car trains provide 12 minute service for much of the day, seven days a week. The EXPO line is a winner by all accounts.

After the Air Line was abandoned in October 1953, the 5112 was transferred to the Southern District’s Watts Line. From that last run in 1953 to the last run on the Watts Line in November 1959, the 5112 (now renumbered 1801) would provide gallant service along the famous 4 tracks under the most deplorable maintenance conditions imaginable. Finally in 1960, the 5112 was rescued from the scrappers torch and now resides at OERM.

Ralph Cantos Collection

By Ralph Cantos

Pacific Electric no. 5063 was one of the first 5050-class Hollywood cars to go into service. It’s seen here on the first day of one-man service on the Glendale-Burbank Line. The date is July 1, 1950. Just eight weeks later, the world-famous Venice Short Line would be abandoned. The year 1950 was “the beginning of the end” for the “World’s Greatest Interurban.” By the end of 1960, the entire system was wiped out, along with hundreds of magnificent pieces of rolling stock. Only the Long Beach Line would make it into 1961 and it was gone on April 9th. It was a last-run trip that I will never forget…

Ralph Cantos Collection