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Images Of Rail Pacific Electric Red Cars By Jim Walker
Images Of Rail Pacific Electric Red Cars By Jim Walker
Softcover 127 pages
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1.Before Pacific Electric
2.Founding of Pacific Electric
3.The Great Merger, Opening of the Longest Line: 1911-1920
4.The Automobile Age Begins: 1921-1930
5.The Great Depression and More Buses: 1931-1940
6.Wartime and Postwar Developments: 1941-1950
7.More Buses, New Company, and the End of Red Cars: 1951-1960
8.PE's Last Years: 1961-1965
9.Postlude and Gallery
INTRODUCTION
The history of Southern California in the 20th century is intertwined with the development, growth, and commuters' everyday use of the Pacific Electric Railway. Known by its initials, PE, this great interurban transportation system left an indelible footprint in shaping Southern California. Its tracks and right-of-ways gave many of the transportation corridors that are present today. The PE-linked businesses and families brought relatively safe, cheap, easy, and fast travel to generations of an entire region-even as rutted traces became asphalt highways and gas buggies began to be essential for families.
When thinking of the PE, one name always comes to the fore: Henry Edwards Huntington. He came to Southern California in the 1890s and soon became a major "mover and shaker" in its development. The Huntington group incorporated Pacific Electric Railway Company of California on November 12, 1901. The color red was chosen for the PE's livery, so the label "Red Car System" stuck.
Of the total 4,520 PE shares (with a par value of $100 each), Henry E. Huntington owned 986 shares, which was about 22 percent. The other three members of the investment syndicate, Isaias Hellman, Christian DeGuigne, and Antoine Borel, each owned 678 shares. The balance of 1,500 shares went in equal parts to Epes Randolph, John Bicknell, and Jonathan Slauson. Huntington's goal was to build 454 miles of line, and he planned to build to Long Beach and many other points, including a never-built 115-mile line to Santa Barbara. He also set up land companies to acquire large acreages of inexpensive land along the planned interurban routes. The opening of PE's first interurban line, from Los Angeles to Long Beach, coincided with a national holiday, July 4, 1902.
Huntington also got into the power business to tap electricity sources that would be needed as the rail empire grew. With 51 percent ownership by the Huntington group, the Pacific Light and Power Company, a consolidation of many smaller companies, was incorporated on March 6, 1902.
Huntington's ambitious expansion plans dismayed his fellow investors, as he sank profits into more development instead of paying dividends, and one of them, Christian DeGuigne, sold 427 of his shares. Huntington took up 273, and Hellman and Borel each bought 77 shares.
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