THE CAMERAS START ‘ROLLIN

Tuesday, November 17th, LARHF presents Marc Wanamaker in the MTA Board Room with a visual presentation about trains and streetcars in the movies. The evening begins with dinner at Philippe’s and a new display of LARHF’s with some amazing archive photographs of movie making throughout the first fifty years of 1900. Model trains and streetcars will accent the photographs.

At 7:00 PM in the MTA Board Room we will be treated to a visual presentation and conversation about the import of trains and streetcars in Hollywood moviemaking.

A TRIP TO HOLLYWOOD VIA THE “RED” CAR ROUTES

Make your reservation now. Only 46 seats will be available! On Saturday, November 21st, 2009, LARHF presents the latest in our popular series of Urban Archeology field trips. This trip will highlight the Pacific Electric‘s Western Division. We’ll start our trip at the Belmont Apartments, on Glendale Boulevard near Downtown Los Angeles.  LARHF has created an exhibit here with forty-nine archival photographs, many of which have never been seen before. The display traces the construction of the Subway Terminal Building, the PE Tunnel and Toluca Yard. Field trip participants will stand here on what was once the Toluca Yard, and will also view the original Substation and mouth of the Tunnel.

The Subway Terminal tunnel bore was completed on April 16, 1925.
Photograph from the Henry E. Huntington Library Collection

The Toluca Yard, looking north directly toward Glendale Boulevard. Construction of the Yard began in 1924.
Photograph from the Henry E. Huntington Library Collection

The Subway Terminal Building steel framework was finished on October 24, 1925. The steel framework contained more steel than any other building in Los Angeles.
Photograph from the Henry E. Huntington Library Collection

Alas, we can’t ride a “red” car, but we'll travel along those cars' routes in our comfortable coach. As we travel, video monitors will display photographs showing how the route and surrounding area looked in the first half of last century. The trip will be a full day.

The MTA METRO bus plaza where the Field Trip will leave from and return to.
Photograph from LARHF

We must leave the MTA METRO bus plaza at 8:30 AM sharp. Make plans to board the coach no later then 8:15 AM. The Field Trip includes free validated parking in the MTA garage. Lunch will be served at Zeke’s BBQ in the heart of old Hollywood. Our planned return time is 4:30 PM.

When we pull away from the Belmont Apartments, it will be as though we were on a PE car, heading north from the Subway Terminal Building onto Glendale Blvd. We'll view lots of PE landmarks prior to our reaching the Los Angeles River. There, we'll see the remaining pylons of the Hyperion Viaduct PE bridges that crossed the River, sending the “red” cars into Glendale and Burbank.

This site at Monte Sano was the terminus of the Edendale Line with the double tracks of the Glendale-Burbank Line about to cross the River
Photograph from the Craig Rasmussen Collection

We'll turn around here and head back to Glendale Blvd., and take the Park  Street junction up to Sunset Boulevard. The junction was used to bring the PE cars up the grade onto Sunset, heading west.

Park St. Junction at Glendale Boulevard with PE car descending from Sunset Boulevard
Photograph from the Craig Rasmussen Collection

At the Sunset-Santa Monica junction just past the Olive Substation, our trip will continue along Santa Monica Boulevard. We'll pass Highland Avenue where the Van Nuys Line branched off to the north, crossing Hollywood Boulevard and running through the Cahuenga Pass. Our lunch stop will be at the recently built West Hollywood/La Brea shopping complex and Zeke’s BBQ. Not more than 50 feet away is the landmark Formosa Café. PE Car No. 913 makes up a part of the Café, which we will be able to see.

A Hollywood landmark, the Formosa Café first opened in 1934
Photograph from LARHF

Marc Wanamaker, our special guest, will join us for lunch and then travel for about an hour with us on the bus, bringing us to some of the interesting movie locations in Hollywood where the studios used streetcars and trains in their films. Marc has been acknowledged as "Hollywood’s historian," and is an authority on the history of movie making and all of its varied tangents. His marvelous Bison Archives has been in the making for over 40 years. All of the movie publicity pictures in this News letter and LARHF’s web site are from his Archives.

Harold Lloyd in “Hot Water” – PE Car No. 239
Photograph from the Bison Archives

Our field trip doesn't end here. We'll also see where the PE Hollywood car ducked into a dedicated right of way down what appears today to be an alley all the way to Santa Monica Blvd. from the corner of La Brea and Hollywood Blvd.

Private right-of-way from Hollywood Blvd. south west to Santa Monica Blvd. Here at the Gardner Junction is PE Car No. 5103
Photograph from the Craig Rasmussen Collection

Next on our itinerary is Sherman – today West Hollywood – and what was back then, a large and important car house and shops for the PE. Almost 20 acres made up this yard, which today is home to a sheriff’s station and the impressive Pacific Design Center. Continuing along Santa Monica Blvd. we enter the city limits of Beverly Hills and pass along the PE right of way, which remains un-developed to this day and a few more blocks to where the Beverly Hills PE Station stood at the corner of Cañon Drive and Santa Monica Blvd.

Beverly Hills PE Station
Photograph by Roger L. Titus

Our final route for the day will take us eastbound along Burton Way from Beverly Hills to Los Angeles, where the line continues on San Vicente Blvd. Impressive viaducts crossed several of the major streets, before reaching Vineyard Junction and finally back downtown on the Venice Short Line tracks.

We'll conclude our Urban Archeology: Part IV course as we glide back into the MTA Bus Plaza. By the way, in the future we are planning some special mainline rail explorations.

Pacific Harbor Line/Urban Archaeology Field Trip

Saturday, June 6, 2009 – 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM

Here we go again and this time on a Saturday so that everyone can join LARHF for another exciting Field Trip. It begins at 8:30 AM at the Los Angeles Union Station’s East Portal Bus Plaza. Try to get their using public transportation but if you have to drive, you’ll be able to park in the METRO garage for free with a LARHF coupon included in your Trip package.

The Union Station’s East Portal entrance and bus plaza. Our chartered motor coach will meet us here. The field trip must leave promptly at 8:30 AM.
Photo credit: LARHF

We will spend the morning visiting the Pacific Harbor Line, a short line railroad company that has been running the rails at the ports of Long Beach and San Pedro since 1998.

They’re big. They’re complex. Hundreds of millions of metric tons of goods move through their freight terminals each year. In fact combined, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the busiest in the Western Hemisphere. The high volume of freight traffic at the two ports would create a chaotic and unwieldy rail operation if there weren’t an organization keeping it all on track.

Port and container ship
Photo credit: LARHF

PHL contracts with the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to operate the traffic control system. PHL manages all rail dispatching and switching functions at the on-dock rail yards at the two ports. That includes:

• Scheduling and overseeing all train movements within the 7,500-acre port complex.
• Organizing railroad cars carrying containers of imported goods and switching them onto various tracks to form trains for BNSF and Union Pacific Railroad, which transport shipped goods to the rest of the United States.
• Breaking down trains arriving at the ports, switching railroad cars onto various tracks and distributing them to nine marine terminals where containers are downloaded onto ships for export.
• Maintaining 60 miles of railroad tracks within the port complex.
• Storing railroad cars awaiting dispatch.

PHL Container car switching operation
Photo credit: PHL

In addition to its container operation, PHL serves as a go-between for trains carrying supplies from various parts of the United States to be delivered directly to Los Angeles and Long Beach-area businesses. For this carload function, PHL handles tank cars, automobile carriers, box cars, hopper cars and various other types of cars.

PHL – tank cars
Photo credit: PHL

The PHL is the first U.S. railroad to replace its entire locomotive fleet with new low-emissions engines meeting EPA Tier 2 standards. The result: the lowest average emission profile of any railroad in the United States

PHL diesels in the yard.
Photo credit: LARHF

All of this daily activity is there for us to see and photograph.

The Port of Los Angeles Waterfront Red Car Line

After lunch at the famous Whale & Ale restaurant in San Pedro, we have been invited to ride The Port of Los Angeles waterfront RED CAR Line. The line is using a former Pacific Electric right-of-way, also used by the Pacific Harbor Line for freight operations, rebuilt to accommodate trolley operations with traditional 600-volt DC overhead trolley wire. We will ride in the PE’s car No. 1058, a 1000-class Interurban 1907 vintage car. It was restored in the 1960’s and outfitted with rubber tires and a gasoline engine for tourists to ride in and see the sights of Los Angeles. Fortunately it was rescued from this usage and properly restored to its original rails condition

Pacific Electric car No. 1058 as it appears today. This car number is factitious since the car was originally from the PE 900 series. When Richard Fellows restored the car to appear like a 1000 series car, he gave it one number above the actual series.
Photo credit: Wayne Oberparleiter – Image Crafters Photography

Urban Archaeology – Part III

Railroad Urban Archaeology Headquarters, New York City. Well not really, but it could be? You decide.
Photo credit: LARHF

Finally, we get to go on our Urban Archaeology treasure hunt with Ralph Cantos. This time we are looking for vestiges of the Pacific Electric local lines in Long Beach.

In 1902, the Pacific Electric completed its high-speed line from Los Angeles to Long Beach. This line gave the beach city its greatest impetus for growth along with the discovery of oil in 1921.

Long Beach was a unique city for the Pacific Electric. It was one of the few communities wherein no electric railway lines existed prior to PE’s coming to town. PE, therefore built Long Beach’s entire local railway system with its carbarn first at Fifth and American (Long Beach Blvd.) and later at the Fairbanks Yard, which we will see on the tour.

Long Beach Limited PE Car No. 1237
Photo credit: Donald Duke Collection – Henry E. Huntington Library

The following are some of the Local Lines that existed in 1923:

• American Ave. (Long Beach Blvd.) – North Long Beach Line
• E. Third St. – Redondo Ave. Line
• E. Seventh St. Line
• Magnolia Ave. Line
• Pine Ave. Line
• Seaside Park Line
• Long Beach-Alamitos Bay-Seal Beach Line

End of the line

Fact: In 1911 the LA/Long Beach Line made the trip from downtown Los Angeles to downtown Long Beach in 36 minutes and made 54 round trips daily. In 1954 it took 60 minutes.
(Source: Henry Huntington and the Pacific Electric – Spencer Crump)

That’s the end of the line for today’s field trip. Let’s see how long it will take us to return to Los Angeles at approximately 4:00 PM? We will hopefully be back at the MTA METRO bus plaza by 4:30 PM.

METRO/Union Pacific Field Trip

Tuesday, October 21, 2008 – 8:30 AM – 4:40 PM

RED TO BLUE TO YELLOW

No, this is not a magic trick. It’s another spectacular Field Trip offered by LARHF. It
begins at 8:30 AM at the Los Angeles Union Station. Try to get their using public transportation but if you have to drive, you’ll be able to park in the METRO garage for free with a LARHF coupon included in your Trip package.

The Union Station’s East Portal entrance leads directly down the escalator to our meeting area before boarding the Red Line.
Photo credit: LARHF

We leave the Station on the subway Red Line and head for the 7th Street METRO Center to transfer to the Blue Line.
Photo credit: LARHF

The ride on the Blue Line, which was the first light rail constructed by METRO in 1990, heads towards Long Beach using much of the Pacific Electric’s original right-of-way.
Photo credit: Donald Duke Collection

From 9th Street in downtown Los Angeles to Watts, the Long Beach Line operated for almost 6 miles on four tracks. Those tracks were first laid in 1906, by Mr. Huntington’s orders. Picture Can you imagine the PE operating daily more than 600 cars over the Long Beach Line and its allied lines?

The ROC

This facility is the nerve center of the entire METRO rail operation.

Disembarking at the Rosa Parks Station (Imperial/Wilmington) our first stop of the day is a rare visit to the “ROC” Rail Operations Control.
Photo credit: LARHF)

Under the watchful eyes of the ROC’s central control personnel, transit riders are helped when they have a problem whether it be “they can’t get the ticket machine to work”, or “what time does the next car come?”

The camera surveillance room allows METRO to “keep an eye” on all of the activities at every one of its stations.
Photo credit: LARHF

Passengers with any kind of problem regardless of its seriousness, control personnel can orally respond to their questions and problems over special loudspeakers in the stations or request police officers to intercept the problem and respond to individuals either aboard the rail cars or in the station.

The second impressive control room at the ROC displays the entire METRO rail system displaying all of the turnouts, sidings and car storage yards.
Photo credit: LARHF

And for each system, the movement of the rail cars is plainly seen. The display screens are divided into sections much like the Pacific Electric districts except the METRO rail lines are identified by their colors, i.e. Red, Blue, Green and Gold.

Blue Line Shops & Yard

Boarding our motor coach, the next stop is at the Blue Line Shops & Yard practically adjacent to the METRO Del Amo Station.
Credit: LARHF

When the Metro Blue Line opened, the line originally had 54 cars. In 2000, the Blue Line added 14 cars from the Metro Green Line after the Green Line began using Siemens cars. The Blue Line currently has 68 train cars in their fleet.

The vehicle storage yard is primarily used for cars that are taken off the route after the rush hour in the morning and at night.
Photo credit: LARHF

All of the maintenance requirements are serviced in the yard. The cars go through the car wash daily for exterior cleaning and another service area is set up for the car’s interior cleaning. Wheel truing is so important for the safe longevity of the wheels and to insure a smooth ride. A dedicated building with preparation tracks is part of this operation.

The Operations and Wheel Truing building is the largest structure in the yard. Our tour includes the service facilities and operating areas in this building.
Photo credit: LARHF

The facility has routine maintenance/running repair bays as well as heavy repair bays with overhead crane capabilities and floor lifts for the cars. There are also machine and sheet metal as well as component repair shops. Our tour of the yard will cover all of these areas.

Taking time out for lunch and staying close to our next destination, we will have lunch at the Sizzler with a special LARHF luncheon menu. The menu will have something for everyone. Back on the motor coach, it’s time for the yellow! You guessed it – Armour Yellow can only mean the Union Pacific. A few minutes away is Alameda Street, which parallels the Alameda Corridor and the Union Pacific’s Dolores Support Yard.

The Dolores Facility not only provides temporary storage of trains but is also the site of the Union Pacific’s locomotive maintenance facility.
Photo credit: Richard Elgenson – RailNews Network

Intermodal Container Transfer Facility (ICTF)

It’s just a short hop from here to the Union Pacific’s Southern California ICTF. In1987, the Southern Pacific built this ICTF just 4 miles from both the Los Angeles and Long Beach port activity. Soon the UP will invest $300 million to double its capacity.

There are two primary factors, which allow the ICTF to handle its large volume of containers efficiently.

1. Storage of trains and equipment at the Dolores Yard
2. The computerization of the inventory, utilizing OASIS (Optimization Alternative Intermodal Strategic Scheduler) to maintain inventory — in our tour of the ICTF we will see how these two elements make for a more efficient and real-time reporting of all yard activities.

Dolores Support Yard and Locomotive Maintenance

The last stop on the Field Trip is the Union Pacific Dolores Facility. It is important for fueling, maintenance, a crew change location and supporting the ICTF. At Dolores, diesels are dispatched to take trains in, around and out of the Los Angeles basin. The locomotive services here include welders, mechanics, plumbers, a boilermaker and hostlers all working together to service 25 locomotives per shift. The maintenance building features three run-through tracks. Track 1 is for fueling, with the other two tracks for various inspections and repair.

Three tracks run the length of the UP Dolores Diesel Maintenance building always crowded with diesels waiting to be serviced and repaired.
Credit: Richard Elgenson – RailNews Network

By now we should be tired enough to relax as our motor coach returns to the METRO Building and the end of another LARHF adventure. Our next Field Trip will also take place in the Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor area and include an “Urban Archeology” search with Ralph Cantos and some other cool destinations.

Orange County Field Trip

Thursday, June 5, 2008 – 7:00 AM – 4:30 PM

No. 340 and No. 41 Steam Locomotives at Knott’s Berry Farm
Photo by Richard Unfried

Put yourself in the engineer’s cab of the Denver & Rio Grande Western #340 steam locomotive when it steams out of the roundhouse on the Ghost Town & Calico Railroad at Knott's Berry Farm.

LARHF offers its latest and exclusive behind-the-scenes field trip on Thursday, June 5th

The day begins with a luxury motor coach trip from downtown Los Angeles to Knott's Berry Farm, in Buena Park, Orange County, California.

While members and guests are munching on a continental breakfast and seeing the “behind-the-scenes” action in the Roundhouse, each guest will have a turn at riding in the cab of the No. 340. This locomotive was built in 1881 and is the oldest locomotive in the United States to continuously maintain active duty.

Galloping Goose No.3 at Knott’s Berry Farm
Photo by Joe Lesser

The Rio Grande Southern Railway’s Galloping Goose #3 will also be taking guests for a ride on the Railroad. The “Goose” was built in 1931 by combining a “33” Pierce-Arrow touring car with a second-hand freight. Even in its present shape it dates back to shortly after World War II.

From Knott’s Berry Farm we have lunch planned nearby at the Hometown Buffet. Following lunch, our motor coach with Mark Borja as our guide, we will explore the present day extensive network of the Union Pacific’s branch lines (formerly the Southern Pacific) throughout Orange County.

Union Pacific Local Train on Santa Ana Street in Anaheim, California
Photo by Mark Borja

One of the highlights in the afternoon will be seeing a Union Pacific local train running along the streets in Anaheim. There will also be a BNSF surprise and other highlights.