We spent a year digging through various archives, looking for who killed the Red Car. In the process, we came across countless images that told the story of the Pacific Electric, well beyond its demise.
Some photos captured glimpses into what it may have been like to ride the Pacific Electric in its heyday, while others illustrated the unusual ways the trolley cars were repurposed after being decommissioned. All of them offered a peek into the history of the Los Angeles' Pacific Electric Railway. Here are a few of those stories told through photos.
After the Pacific Electric's demise, some decommissioned street cars were repurposed into tiny homes. A three-bedroom unit rented for $30 a month in 1941. | Los Angeles Herald Examiner Photo Collection, Los Angeles Public Library
The Pacific Electric Red Cars shared the roads with the rise of the automobile, navigating their daily route to Hollywood through bustling Downtown streets. | Metro Transportation Library & Archive/Creative Commons
Prospective conductors went through rigorous training programs to ensure the safety of their passengers. Operating the railways was a lot different than driving a car. | Security Pacific National Bank Photo Collection, Los Angeles Public Library
Passengers took the Pacific Electric all over Los Angeles. It was easy to spend the day on the West Side when a trolley car could drop you off right alongside the Santa Monica Pier. If you look closely at the bottom left of this photo from around 1917, you can spot the PE line making its rounds! | Ernest Marquez Collection, Huntington Digital Library
Riding the Pacific Electric to your destination was quite a relaxing ride. The commute to work must have been a much easier feat when you had a view of the Pacific coastline to admire. | Metro Library and Archive/Creative Commons
With more people buying an automobile of their own, the Pacific Electric had to navigate congested traffic amidst the newly crowded streets. Delays, that were previously nonexistent, became the norm on their daily routes, as you can see in this photo from 1936. | Metro Transportation Library and Archives/Creative Commons.
With the rise of the automobile, the Pacific Electric Trolley Cars were forced to compete with residents yearning for independence and fancy new cars. Photo from 1954. | Metro Transportation Library and Archives/Creative Commons
Sharing the roads with the influx of automobiles was not an easy task for the Pacific Electric. First-time automobile drivers and inadequate streets were fertile ground for costly accidents that made for extreme delays in trolley routes and irreparable damage to cars. | Ralph Cantos Collection
Some of the decommissioned trolley cars made their way to museums to be admired well after the lines stopped running. Here, a trolley car leaves Morgan Yard in Long Beach, California en route to the Southern California Railway Museum in Perris. Photo from 1957. | Ray Ballash Photo, Orange Empire Railway Museum Archive Collection
The end of the Pacific Electric was abrupt. In an effort to consolidate the large, decommissioned trolley cars, they were stacked in junk yards before finding a new home or simply being sold for scrap. Photo from 1941. | Los Angeles Herald Examiner Photo Collection, Los Angeles Public Library
