Los Angeles Railway
| Los Angeles Electric Railway | |
|---|---|
| logo | |
| Reporting marks | LARy |
| Locale | Los Angeles, California, and its suburbs |
| Dates of operation | 1901 – 1963 |
| Track gauge | 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, California |
The Los Angeles Railway (LARy) was a system of streetcars that operated in Los Angeles from 1901 to 1963 on 3-foot, 6-inch (narrow gauge) tracks. The system was informally known as the "Yellow Cars," similar to the Pacific Electric Railway's "Red Cars," which currently are much better known. However, the Yellow Cars always carried many more passengers than the Red Cars, since the system was located in densely populated central Los Angeles and immediate surrounding neighborhoods.
The system was purchased by railroad and real estate tycoon Henry Huntington in 1911, after he was bought out from the Pacific Electric Railway, which he had established. At its most robust size, the system contained over 20 streetcar lines and 1,250 trolleys, most running through the core of Los Angeles and serving such nearby neighborhoods as Echo Park, Westlake, Hancock Park, Exposition Park, West Adams, the Crenshaw district, Vernon, Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights.
The system was later renamed the Los Angeles Transit Lines when it began to replace many of its streetcar routes with buses. This slow abandonment of lines occurred in almost every other electric streetcar system in North America, where hundreds of streetcar lines were removed. There were a few exceptions, such as in the cities of San Francisco, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Toronto.
The last streetcar lines of the Yellow Cars were taken over by a government agency, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (not related to the current agency of that name) in 1958. The agency removed the remaining five streetcar lines in 1963.
The LARy's Soto Street sub station, circa 1913.
LARy #863, built in 1912 by the American Car and Foundry Company, is seen here having been retrofitted with steel side panels and folding doors. The unit could carry up to 44 passengers.
Unit #1407, one of 250 streetcars built for the LARy by the St. Louis Car Company, turns up Marmion Way. The air-operated folding doors were added in the 1930s to permit one-man operation.
LARy was one of the first transit companies to purchase PCC streetcars in 1936; in the end, a fleet of 165 of these units would comprise LARy's entire inventory.
References
- Copeland, P. Allen (2002). California Trolleys In Color, Volume 1: San Diego and Los Angeles. Morning Sun Books, Inc., Scotch Plains, NJ. ISBN 1-58248-076-1.
- Post, Robert C. (1989). Street Railways and the Growth of Los Angeles. Golden West Books, San Marino, CA. ISBN 0-87095-104-1.
Further reading
- Walker, Jim (1977). The Yellow Cars of Los Angeles. Interurban Press, Glendale, CA. ISBN 0-916374-25-4.
See also
- General Motors streetcar conspiracy
- National City Lines
- Pacific Electric Railway
- San Diego Electric Railway
