Frequently Asked Questions
Where did the Streetcars/Trolleys of Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway Go?
As the last “Red Cars” and “Yellow Cars” were retired, as a result of conversion of their lines’ operation to buses, most of these rail cars were cut up for scrap. The principal scrap value seemed to be in trucks and motors (the latter contained much copper) whereas the bodies were a drag on the scrap yard as it was likely that they wouldn’t result in a profit after the cost of cutting them up (since they often contained wood and other materials that could not be salvaged) Due to strict air-pollution regulations they could not be burned in the open, a traditional reduction method.
Not all the streetcars were scrapped, however. For reasons of economic value or historical worth, some escaped the scrapper’s torch. Many samples of types of rail cars that ran on the Pacific Electric (Red Car) and Los Angeles Railway (Yellow Car) systems still exist today at museums.
When the Echo Park Avenue line of Pacific Electric was converted to bus in 1950 the 15 100-class cars (which were only 20 years old, young by streetcar standards) were sold for re-use to the local transit undertaking in Vera Cruz, Mexico. Stripped of complicated safety devices they served that railway for many years.
All 50 of the 1100-class steel suburban cars were sold the General Urquiza Railway, a suburban electric operation outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1952 after conversion of the remaining Northern District rail service to buses in 1951. They served in Buenos Aires for many years, and some of them later ran as unpowered coaches in Paraguay.
The “Hollywoods” were a natural for re-use, so the General Urquiza Railway electric suburban line in Buenos Aires bought 28 of them in 1952. Eight of the 600-class “Hollywood” cars were sold to the Portland (Oregon) Traction Co. in 1953 and served that system until it quit in 1958. A couple of the cars survive at museums.
Pacific Electric had purchased 30 “PCC” streamliners in 1940, and upon conversion of the Glendale-Burbank to buses in 1955, put them into storage inside the leaky former Pacific Electric subway, as the company wished to find purchasers of cars for re-use rather than selling them to scrap. They finally found a buyer in 1959, the same General Urquiza Railway in Bueno Aires that had bought other PE cars. They ran for many years in that system.
By the time the last “Red Car” line (to Long Beach) was converted to bus operation in 1961, the fleet of “Blimps” (as the owl-faced cars were dubbed) were worn out. It was unlikely anyone would buy them for re-use, so (except for four cars that went to museums) they were all cut up for scrap.
The “Yellow Car” Story
Many of the Los Angeles Railway (and successor) streetcars, minus their trucks and gear, were sold as houses until the late 1940s, when local ordinances put a stop to this practice.
In 1956, sixty of the H-class steel streetcars from the early 1920s were sold by a scrap dealer for re-use on the Seoul and Pusan systems of war-torn Korea (which happened to have the same peculiar (3 foot, 6 inch) track gauge as Los Angeles Railway). They ran for some years but are now all gone.
When the final streetcar lines were converted to bus in 1963, the LAMTA (first MTA) put the remaining 164 streetcars, all “PCC” streamliners, into dead storage at Vernon Yard, hoping they still had resale value for re-use somewhere. Outside of four cars taken to museums, one destroyed in an accident in 1956, and two sold to individuals. The remaining 158 went to Cairo, Egypt (133) and Chile Mining (25). Although Cairo’s track gauge was one meter (about 39 ¼ inches) it was found that the Los Angeles cars’ wheels could be machined to fit. The Chile Mining railway was 42 inches wide (a gauge used in many British colonies, and such places as Japan).
Jim Walker 6-15-05