735 at Rose Station in San Marino
Pacific Electric inbound no. 735 at Rose Station in San Marino, September 1951. Note the restaurant in the background, Woody & Eddy’s, was a longtime favorite of San Gabriel Valley residents.
Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society Collection, Mount Lowe Preservation Society Inc. Collection, Jack Finn Print Collection. Craig Rasmussen Collection
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I sure remember the red cars in this area when I was young and I also remember eating at Woody & Eddy’s. That building burned as I recall.
Woody & Eddy’s built a new restaurant north of this corner, which lasted into the 1990s. I recall dining there once, and noticing a photo of a PE car on the wall (I think it was a Portland Twelve). The trees in the distance on the right side of the photo are at Clairborne School, which is still there at Sunnyslope and Huntington. The white structure behind the read of 735 is probably part of the Sunnyslope Water Co. reservoir, also still there, but rebuilt. I live about a mile and a half from here, near the former Ward Kimball Grizzly Flats site. Where 735 is standing is now the left-turn lane for westbound traffic on Huntington to turn south onto San Gabriel Blvd.
I just took a look at the enlarged version of the photo, and it points up one of the reasons why this section of the Monrovia-Glendora line was abandoned. Note the low joints in the tracks and the generally poor condition of the railway. PE “ran the numbers” on rebuilding the line to Monrovia (with a bus connection to Glendora) and the Pasadena Short Line with heavier rail and new ties (some of the existing ties were more like kindling wood). PE also considered buying a fleet of PCC cars to modernize the service. Then they compared these figures with buying diesel buses from GM (who could probably arrange an “easy payment plan”) and it was “no contest”.