Red Car days

This photo comes from the Viewliner Ltd blog which features historic Americana, with an emphasis on transport.

This shows one of the famous Pacific Electric system's cars in action in the 1950s. The Pacific Electric Railway of Los Angeles became the largest operator of interurban electric railway passenger service in the world with over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of track. The system ran to destinations all over Southern California, particularly to the south and east.

What happened to it? The same fate that befell most tramway style systems in the western world in the 1950s and 1960s. It was particularly tragic for Los Angeles: environmentally friendly transport was replaced with environmentally unfriendly reliance on cars, and the city has long been based on the private car more than any other. Some footage of the last PE line from LA to Long Beach is contained on one of our DVDs.