3079 and 1450, the last H Class Car
Metropolitan Transit Authority (ex-Los Angeles Railway, ex-Los Angeles Transit Lines) cars — nos. 3079 on S Line service and 1450 on N Line service — sit next to one another on a Los Angeles street on May 9, 1959. 1450 was the last H Class car in service on this day.
L. Swanson Photo, Andy Goddard Collection
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1450 survives–it’s preserved at Orange Empire. OERM has both the first (LARy 1201) and last “H” type cars. 1450 was sometimes used as a “test bed” by LARy, and (as I recall) was the only “H” with General Electric equipment–the others were all Westinghouse. Note the “N” route sign; I suspect 1450 was a railfan charter since the “N” was abandoned long before 1959. The “S” was one of the five lines that lasted until the end in 1963. There’s an old story about a snail who was tired of being the metaphor for slowness. So he hired on at LATL and finally bid a run on the “S” line. He was the fastest operator on that route, and people would see him racing by and say, “Look at that “S” car go!”