Cleaning Time
Jack Finn Collection
The cleaning crew works on various Pacific Electric interurbans at the half-vacant Pasadena car barn on Fair Oaks.
Jack Finn Collection
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The West end of the Mary Street car house in Pasadena.
The date would be in the 40s, as no eclipse fenders, and the tracks headed North on Fair Oaks are paved over, which means after the 1938 Mt. Lowe abandonment, and the end of Pasadena local service.
I don’t have my PE books handy, but I think this is the east end. There are buildings in the distance, and if we were looking eastward, we’d see the park that’s now a stop on the Gold Line. The photo would have to be after the 1100’s were rebuilt in the early 1940’s; not only do they not have fenders, but they do have the “Daylight” stripes and the built-in marker lights. Note also the “Ten” (1014?) in the middle–they were sometimes used on the Pasadena lines in later years (after they were no longer needed on the San Gabriel-Temple City line or the San Bernardino line.) Oddly enough, 1001 survives in operating condition at OERM, but none of the 1100’s still exist, except for possibly one or two rusted hulks in South America.
I agree this is the east end of this car house. Also, the tracks on Fair Oaks were not paved over until after the abandonment of the Pasadena Lines in 1951 since both the Pasadena Short Line and the Oak Knoll Line cars used Fair Oaks to reach the car house and wye from Fair Oaks into the car house. The nearest car appears to be a 1200 (can’t read the number) because it doesn’t have double doors. Harold Stewart once gave a group a talk about his experiences on these lines (he was a PE motorman and worked the Pasadena lines for many years). Among other things, Mr. Stewart related that the upstairs area of this car house was used by the crews between runs and one of the recreational items used frequently up there was a pool table.
Well Gentlemen,
This picture is is on the lower right corner of Donald Duke’s Volume One-The Northern Division, page 30, and he does say “West.”
And no, I didn’t know it until I went looking for a picture of one end or the other.
Serve up the crow, I’ll eat it!
Page 147 of “Ride The Big Red Cars” has a picture of the West end of the car house. Me and the late Don Duke are wrong, as proven by that picture which is looking Northeast, showing the catholic church steeple in the background, which is still there.
And yes, the one on the left is a 1200-class car (missed that the first time around). 1100’s “ruled” the Pasadena, Sierra Madre and Monrovia-Glendora lines until spring of 1951, but there are quite a few photos of Tens and Twelves visiting Pasadena, and the high point of the evening rush hour in Monrovia was the three-car train of Twelves that passed my home on 5th Ave. around 5.45 pm.
A 1948 aerial view of this facility (and the PE system) can be viewed at
http://www.historicaerials.com
This site also allows you to overlay streets and split screen for “then and now” appearances.